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Chernobyl Motorbike Rides

PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 3:44 am
by bigsleepj
This is a link to a website created by a Ukrainian lady with the severely dubious hobby of biking through Eastern Europe's only area devestated by a nuclear catastrophe. I visited it about two years ago and in the meantime the site has been updated in the meantime with a new section called "Chernobyl - Land of the Wolves" filled with more pictures of the devestated area as well as a link to another project "the serpent's wall".

A fascinating website if I ever saw one with a hypnotic quality despite its seemingly shoddy design. Best advice is to read carefully what she says because some of it is rather disturbing while the pictures are simple yet effective like the one below:

[INDENT]Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping geiger counter inspires to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red - or 'magic" wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth.[/INDENT]

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

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PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 12:14 pm
by Debitt
Wow...*stares in awe, inner photo nerd kicks in*

The pictures are quite haunting...if it weren't for the fact that this is the contaminated area of the Cherynobyl disaster she's riding through, I'd love a chance to go there and take pictures. Wow.

PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 9:11 pm
by termyt
The site is very worthy. I saw it a few years ago as well. I'll have to go and check out the new content.

PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 9:25 pm
by Yojimbo
That's just downright unnerving. But my curiousity makes me want to go there and see it for myself.

PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 10:01 pm
by bigsleepj
Yojimbo wrote:That's just downright unnerving. But my curiousity makes me want to go there and see it for myself.


That makes two of us. But they say its rather creepy to be there. An "eerie silence".

PostPosted: Thu May 19, 2005 4:45 am
by Mr. SmartyPants
it indeed does look haunting o_O

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 4:53 am
by bigsleepj
Interesting fact is that there is a science-fiction (though more art-house) movie called "Stalker" made by the Russians where three men walk through a "contaminated city" known as "The Zone" where an eerie silence reign and where walking in the wrong places can bring death. It sounds like it was inspired by Chernobyl but was oddly written and directed almost a decade before the incident. Life imitating art, I suppose. Even the people patrolling the Chernobyl area in radiation suits call themselves "stalkers" because of the movie. Interesting...