Ah, that's why the games based in the exclusion zone are named S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: [something]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Chernobyl h

Ah, that's why the games based in the exclusion zone are named S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: [something]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Cher... Ah, it's explicit in a paragraph in the intro which I had not previously noted: The background and some terminology of the game ("The Zone", "Stalker") are borrowed from the popular science fiction novella Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky and the 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker that was loosely based on it, as well as Stalker, the film's subsequent novelization by the original authors. The term "Stalkers" was later used for the scientists and engineers who explored the interior of Chernobyl's "sarcophagus" after its hasty construction in 1986. In addition, 'The Zone' is also a term used to refer to the 30 kilometer Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, established after the accident.