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There will be Peace in the Valley
Chernobyl, My Primeval, Teeming, Irradiated Eden
Twenty-five years after the Soviet-era meltdown drove 60,000 people from their homes in the Ukraine, a rebirth is taking place inside the exclusion zone. With Geiger counter in hand, the author explores Europe's strangest wildlife refuge, an enchanted postapocalyptic forest from which entirely new species may soon emerge. By Henry Shukman THE WILD BOAR IS STANDING 30 OR 40 yards away, at the bottom of a grassy bank, staring right at me. Even from this distance I can see its outrageously long snout, its giant pointed ears, and the spiny bristles along its back. It looks part porcupine, a number of shades of ocher and gray. And it's far bigger than I expected, maybe chest-high to a man. The boar is like some minor forest god straight from the wilderness, gazing wild-eyed at the strange spectacle of a human being. For a moment it seems to consider charging me, then thinks better of it. When it trots away, it moves powerfully, smoothly, on spindly, graceful legs twice as long as a pig's, and vanishes into the trees. I climb back into our VW van, tingling all over. The sighting bodes well. I've come to what is being dubbed Europe's largest wildlife refuge in early July, when I knew spotting animals wouldn't be so easy. (Winter, with its scarcity of food and lack of foliage, makes them more visible.) And within a couple of hours I've ticked a wild boar off the list. Maybe luck is on our side. But luck isn't our only obstacle to wildlife spotting here. This is northern Ukraine's Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a huge area, some 60 miles across in places, that's been off-limits to human habitation since 1986. Even now, 19 years after the collapse of the USSR, nothing happens in this former Soviet republic without sheets of paper typed and stamped in quintuplicate. It took months of e-mails and phone calls to get permission to spend a few days here. Yes, we're only a couple of foreign vagabonds—photographer Rory Carnegie is an old travel buddy of mine from England—but we have cameras and a telephoto lens, and my notepad has lines in it: obviously we're spies. The Soviet Union may have died, but the Soviet mind-set has not. At the Chernobyl Center, a kind of make shift reception building in the heart of the old town, I had to hand over a solid nine inches of local bills—hryvnia, pronounced approximately like the sound of a cardsharp riffling a deck—sign a stack of agreements, compliances, and receipts, and then get checked on an Austin Powers–style Geiger counter made out of chrome. Finally, under the protection of a guide, a driver, and an interpreter, we were free to set off into the zone—as long as we did exactly what our guide said. A handful of dilapidated roads cross the zone, half-overgrown with weeds and grasses, and the whole area is littered with pockets of intense radiation, but nature doesn't seem to mind. All nature seems to care about is that the people, along with their domestic animals, are for the most part gone. The zone is reverting to one big, untamed forest, and it all sounds like a fantastic success story for nature: remove the humans and the wilderness bounces right back. Lured by tales of mammals unknown in Europe since the Dark Ages, we're setting out on an atomic safari. http://outsideonline.com/adventure/travel-pf-201103-chernobyl-wildlife-refuge-sidwcmdev_154483.html |
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Cool, wonder if they glow at night?
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1999 SL500 1969 280SE 2023 Ram 1500 2007 Tiara 3200 |
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Thanks for sharing.
That was a very interesting article.
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Paul S. 2001 E430, Bourdeaux Red, Oyster interior. 79,200 miles. 1973 280SE 4.5, 170,000 miles. 568 Signal Red, Black MB Tex. "The Red Baron". |
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Hey honey, take a look look at Junior. Wow!!!! He just grew another foot.
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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ... 1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold) 2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp 1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k 2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold) |
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Fascinating article! Timely given the situation in Japan.
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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15 '06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod) |
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