Thinking about taking a vacation to paradise! Chornobyl!

[Leland Pate]

Yes folks, I'm serious. A work buddy and I are looking at flying to Kiev for a long weekend and taking a day trip to Pripyat and some of the other abandoned villages in the exclusion zone.

Chornobyl has always been a facinating topic for me because I was living in Vicenza, Italy when the accident happened. I can remember not being able to go outside for recess and no fresh fruits, vegitables, or milk for what seemed to be forever.

My buddy and I were talking about it this morning and it had me doing a quick Google search.
It turns out, in an erie sort of way, that today also just happens to be the anniversary of the accident.

[Joeaksa]

Lee,

I was in Berlin when it happened and remember it well. Its a very interesting place and would love to go as well.

Remember the video going around years ago about the girl who rode a motorcycle through the contaminated areas? http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/index.html

BTW, you are married but the women in Kyiv (Kiev) are very nice looking and for the most part like American guys. There are a lot worse places to spend a weekend!

Joe

[Rot 911]

Most of those places are still off limits to everyone. Have you checked to see what villages you would have access to?

[Tervuren]

Joe, the motorcycle ride is not real.

[Zef]

Tchernobyl...!

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by Tervuren
Joe, the motorcycle ride is not real.

Have you looked at the site? The photographic evidence of their journeys around the area? Know that all of the ride as shown did not happen but alot of it did.

Joe

[Rot 911]

The pictures are real, but the motorcycle aspect was debunked back in 2005:

"I am based in Kyiv and writing a book about Chornobyl for the Joseph Henry
Press. Several sources have sent me links to the "Ghost Town" photo essay
included in the last e-POSHTA mailing. Though it was full of factual
errors, I did find the notion of lone young woman riding her motorcycle
through the evacuated Zone of Alienation to be intriguing and asked about
it when I visited there two days ago.

I am sorry to report that much of Elena's story is not true. She did not
travel around the zone by herself on a motorcycle. Motorcycles are banned
in the zone, as is wandering around alone, without an escort from the zone
administration. She made one trip there with her husband and a friend. They
traveled in a Chornobyl car that picked them up in Kyiv.

She did, however, bring a motorcycle helmet. They organized their trip
through a Kyiv travel agency and the administration of the Chornobyl zone
(and not her father). They were given the same standard excursion that most
Chernobyl tourists receive. When the Web site appeared, Zone Administration
personnel were in an uproar over who approved a motorcycle trip in the
zone. When it turned out that the motorcycle story was an invention, they
were even less pleased about this fantasy Web site.

Because of those problems, Elena and her husband have changed the Web site
and the story considerably in the last few days. Earlier versions of the
narrative lied more blatantly about Elena taking lone motorcycle trips in
the zone. That has been changed to merely suggest that she does so, which
is still misleading.

I would not normally bother to correct someone's silly Chornobyl fantasy.
Indeed, correcting all the factual errors and falsehoods in "Ghost Town"
would consume as much space as the Web site itself. But the motorcycle
story was such an outrageous fiction that I thought the readers of e-Poshta
should know.

Mary Mycio, J.D.

Legal Program Director
IREX U-Media
Shota Rustaveli St. 38b, No. 16
Kyiv 01023, Ukraine "

[Leland Pate]

I remember when Elena first put up that website. I spent hours pouring over the photos. I knew a lot of what she claimed was either false or exaggerated, but it does not detract one bit from the reality of the photos. I'm looking at a few of the so called "firms" that provide tours of the exclusionary zone. It'd basically be the same trip Elena and her husband took. Although everything I've read says photo/video taking is strictly prohibited, which is too bad.