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Chernobyl's 'stalker' subculture
- Zababa 5y agoWebsite seems to be down: https://archive.is/vGC6C https://archive.is/vGC6C Anecdotally, I've visited Chernobyl and I remember seeing somewhere a few empty cans and an empty vodka bottle. Both looked pretty recent. I've also seen the bus that's photographed. There was something inside, the thing with a cardboard cover and metal rings where you can put pages inside (It's called a "classeur" in French, but I can't find how it's called in English). Edit: as some comments pointed out, it's called a "3 ring binder" or just "binder". Thanks. It was filled with text, with different handwriting. Most of it was Eastern European, though I can't tell which languages precisely. I have a few pictures. The bus itself is near an abandonned farm with lots of farming machines left outside to rust. I also had the chance of being here a few months before they put the second sacrophagus on the central, so I have pictures of the first. I think the place that marked me the most was the "Monument to Those Who Saved the World" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_Those_Who_Saved_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_Those_Who_Saved_th.... One thing that I felt during my time here (two days) was how uncanny everything is. The buildings are still here, sometimes with furniture, but anything that you can easily carry has disappeared. All in all it was a great experience, I'm really glad I took the time to visit this place. Edit: small "fun" anecdote that I like to tell: I was more irradiated during my plane trip from France to Ukraine and back than during the two days here.
- cjsawyer 5y agoIt’s a “3 ring binder” or just “binder”
- thaumasiotes 5y agoWhile I agree that the item is ordinarily called a "three-ring binder", and that it always has three rings, I would not call one with a strange number of rings a "three-ring binder". The name hasn't become that opaque.
- ASalazarMX 5y agoAnd a "ring binder" sounds like something else.
- ethbr0 5y ago"Three ring binder" maybe? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_binder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_binder
- cdirkx 5y agoCurious that there are two replies here calling it a three ring binder explicitly, while if I think about it I have only seen them with two or four rings. According to the wiki article: "A few years later three-ring binders became the standard in the United States"
- Symbiote 5y agoIt's just a ring binder in Britain, which like most of the world has ISO paper sizes and either 2 or 4 rings on binders. (4 rings for durability, 2 for convenience.)
- boomboomsubban 5y agoIn US school, we were generally required to have a three ring binder every year for class. Like with #2 pencils, we're vaguely aware other types exist but virtually never encounter them.
- ethbr0 5y agoAnd I'd assume they're called "X ring" binders, as opposed to just binders, because "binder" is a fairly generic term. As for the number of rings: first mover advantage and network effects. Paper is produced with three rings. Teachers buy three ring hole punches. Soon binder manufacturers target the most common standard. All other standards die off. I have seen and used four ring binders in America. But three ring was the phrase that jumped out in my head.
- spoonjim 5y agoThe highest form of the art is found in Japan with 20 and 26 ring binders.
- akeruu 5y agoOn a rather unrelated note, those binders are called "fardes à anneaux" in my dialect of French. Translating directly to "ring binders". Languages are fun
- Zababa 5y agoThat's the first time I hear the word "farde". Thanks for sharing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ashtonkem 5y agoPripyat is mostly safe to visit, unless if you happen upon one of the unmarked spots where they dumped irradiated equipment or spent fuel. The area is just littered with extremely dangerous bulldozers that they just kind of buried in unmarked spots. So it’s safe … until it isn’t.
- Zababa 5y agoWe had geiger counters at all time on us. The most radioactive areas were a buried village, the sand under the douga that was used to wash it, and a can filled with garbage in Pripyat (which was by far the most radioactive things). Probably some kind of trap? Or a form of sculpture?
- ashtonkem 5y agoYeah, you can definitely do it safely with the right gear and some planning. It’s both less risky on average and more tricky than most people think. Wouldn’t recommend drinking the water if you can avoid it though. As far as the garbage. Hell if I know.
- Zababa 5y agoI was with an organized tour so it was relatively safe. I wouldn't go alone without proper training and equipment though. For the water, we drunk some "local" water at the inn. I think/hope that it's treated properly. Most of the food we ate was also bought by us before the trip.
- version_five 5y agoThe article talks about Roadside Picnic, the Russian sci-fi novel where the Stalker term was coined. I learned about this book on HN and highly recommend it.
- jacobkg 5y agoThanks for the recommendation!
- baruchel 5y agoAgree. Tarkovski's movie is great also.
- hgs3 5y agoI watched Tarkovski's movie for the first time the other night. It was a lot more "artsy" than I expected (in a good way).
- canjobear 5y agoI'm curious what you expected...all Tarkovski is like maximum artsy.
- hgs3 5y agoIt was my first Tarkovski film and I wasn't aware of the directors style.
- wellthisisgreat 5y agoTry “Andrei Rublev” it’s (watched all his work) one of his more balanced films, as in its full of symbolism but it’s intertwined with the narration, so one may go through it without noticing then subtext, while it’s probably one of the best (if not the best) films about medieval ages.
- ethbr0 5y ago
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThis is now just another tourist trap. If you’d gone in 20 years ago or more, things were different.
- ioseph 5y agoHow so? I imagine it's difficulty of access in a country not particularly popular with western or Asian tourists would mean only those with a genuine interest would be making the trip.
- RalfWausE 5y agoYou can go anywhere on this planet and you will find someone who will say to you "Pah... nowadays this is just for tourists, if you had visited $place 20 years ago than you would have seen it in its authentic form!" $place = Hanoi, New York, Munich, Chernobyl, Mare Tranquillitatis...
- jamestimmins 5y agoThe piece about possibly coming across killers as they buried a body feels like quite the buried lede…
- henriquez 5y agoIt might be poor opsec to elaborate too heavily about a time you witnessed organized criminals concealing a murder.
- whatshisface 5y agoAt some point we're going to have to re-introduce the word dangerous to mean poor opsec in a non-CIA context.
- hluska 5y agoIt’s tragic to think that journalism has turned into a field where ‘opsec’ is actually an appropriate term.
- jamestimmins 5y agoYeah that's a good point, especially if he wants to keep his guide or local contacts safe.
- jl6 5y agoSee, some people think our current culture/civilization/capitalism will not survive climate change, but clearly there is no wasteland too blasted and dangerous for it to eventually become a money-making tourist attraction. Our culture will live on in its perversity. I fully expect people to be huffing recreational Covid in 30 years’ time.
- Zababa 5y agoI'm curious, why do you see this as a money-making tourist attraction and not as another way of visiting a museum?
- lmm 5y agoWhat's the line you're drawing? Most museums are tourist attractions to at least some extent.
- Zababa 5y agoThe line would be "considered good/considered bad" I think. It's fuzzy, but saying something is "a money-making tourist attraction" is usually passing a different value judgement compared to "a museum".
- wizzwizz4 5y ago> I fully expect people to be huffing recreational Covid in 30 years’ time. How much are you willing to bet on this? (Normally I'd try to argue, but…)
- voidfunc 5y agoMuch like bug chasers I imagine there will be _someone_ out there trying to purposefully catch Covid for some (inexplicable) reason. There's always a few loose screws wandering around at any point in time.
- seanalexander 5y agoAlexa, remind me in 30 years
- GekkePrutser 5y agoIntersting article! I always like this kind of story though I'd never do it myself.
- pugworthy 5y agoI'm surprised nowhere in the article does it mention the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) They are loosely based on the novel, however perhaps more well known (in the US at least) than the book or movie.
- res0nat0r 5y agoI wonder still if much of the popularity of said stalking above is directly related to this game.
- pugworthy 5y agoAs a US resident, both the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and the Metro 2033 game series have fascinated me in their different style of storytelling than most "traditional" FPS games. I have to put them in the same group as the Half Life series in terms of replay enjoy-ability for the story and engagement.
- whatever_dude 5y agoI think it's a reflection of the culture from the general area. Russian sci-fi, for example, tends to be heavily introspective (Roadside Picnic, Solaris, etc). While most other western/American sci fi is more about extraordinary world building/future scenarios. To a lesser or different degree, you see the same approach in videogames, software development, etc.
- anigbrowl 5y agoThere's an equally interesting virtual subculture built around the videogame series set in a more actively dangerous version of the Zone. Blowout soon, stalker.
- bookofjoe 5y ago"Roadside Picnic" IRL
- ionwake 5y ago"Stalker" is my favorite film of all time and I highly recommend it.
- drexlspivey 5y agoI’ve also seen it many times and love it but I wouldn’t recommend it to just anyone. Here’s a list with the top 1000 films of all time as voted by MUBI (a community of movie geeks that like arthouse films). Stalker is at sitting at no 5. https://mubi.com/lists/the-top-1000 https://mubi.com/lists/the-top-1000
- CrownSoft 5y agoMessage to young people... https://youtu.be/_Vvdtaaprzw https://youtu.be/_Vvdtaaprzw
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y agoSo I stumbled across this multipart video series a while back. It's an urban explorer that gets a couple locals to guide him into the exclusion zone so they can climb the giant Duga radar. It's a bit on the long side, but I found it fascinating. They ended up getting spotted by some guards and had to do a cat and mouse game through the forest to get out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhuhnXvSCOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhuhnXvSCOE
- TeeMassive 5y agoShiey is one of my favorite channel. Cudos to him.
- parsecs 5y agoYou meant kudos? Also another channel that has some videos from the zone: https://www.youtube.com/c/kreosann/ https://www.youtube.com/c/kreosann/
- theklub 5y agoBald and bankrupt went there a few times or on the edge and befriended an old man. The videos were very interesting to me and I highly recommend them.
- warent 5y agoI can only believe that people who enter highly radioactive areas illegally just have no idea what radioactivity is really like. It's invisible, so it's easy to imagine that nothing is really happening. In my mind, the first image I get at the thought of radioactivity is how a cloud chamber is affected by it [1]. Imagine that, except everything around you, all the time, much more violently. Yeah, no thanks. 1: https://youtu.be/ZiscokCGOhs?t=109 https://youtu.be/ZiscokCGOhs?t=109
- melomal 5y agoI would say the same feeling is had with global warming and climate change. You can't really see it, you can't really connect rainfall + sunlight directly to anything to do with the climate because it really is all just invisible.
- watwut 5y agoSome people remained living in the zone after disaster. Not really legal and very lonely life. Remember reading account of old woman who was like that.
- trinix912 5y agoI'm wondering where did she get groceries and water from and how she dealt with the loneliness.
- watwut 5y agoWater was from well, just like before. She lived kind of traditionally lifestyle, so eggs were from chickens, there was garden (potatoes) etc. I think there might have been cow. For the other stuff, she said a cop went on route around once a week and typically brought her bread. She has son who comes once in months with some stuff. So basically, very simply lifestyle with weak loose network of people who come rarely but can bring stuff. She said that it is lonely. She talked to cats etc, animals who stayed. The way she talked, an animal passing around last week was something worth talking about - so it is also routine boring life. (With serious risks, imo, because if she breaks leg or whatever randomly, there is no one to help her for the next week minimum.)
- antman 5y agoI see in the photo that the guy wears a tshirt, but only long sleeves and trousers are allowed. In fact I visited Chornohbyl in a heatwave and I would give my life to the gods of radiation to be allowed a tshirt. Jokes aside went near the red forrest and all geiger meters freaked out at a wind change. So I guess being on foot, away from the north side should be ok for a hiking. The forrests where are very "unclean" to walk through them. Suppposedly no one picked dropped branches for firewood and hiking in the open steppe looking area not that interesting. Also you are not allowed anymore inside the buildings but the guides cannot really control that.