It is absolutely famous, but its fame is somewhat cloistered. The Elephant's Foot is a gateway to the Chernobyl rabbit hole for so many people. A geological, ca

It is absolutely famous, but its fame is somewhat cloistered. The Elephant's Foot is a gateway to the Chernobyl rabbit hole for so many people. A geological, cataclysm celebrity; a fucking rock with a documented kill count and it sits still. Fascinating. This picture led me to reading all about Chernobyl, Pripyat, glasnost, and the collapse of the SSR in the context of logistics and energy infrastructure. The whole chibang was the result of good intentions, poor planning, and an intellectual environment experiencing a death spiral. During this process, I watched a documentary on the Chernobyl clean up effort. Chernobyl was the largest military deployment by Russia since their "Great Patriotic War." I digress. This picture could be accurately portrayed as a perfect metaphor for the scientific endeavors of the 20th century; unique brilliance, unfettered intention, bureaucratically fettered investment, unintentional disaster, Herculean effort at recovery, and all of it flushed down the memory hole.