Where London Stood: Pripyat

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A Motorcyclist's Photo album of Pripyat. There seems to have been some debate as to how "authentic" all this is -- some of the photographs might easily have been taken on guided tours of the area, apparently. Some thoughtful discussion of this, in MaisonBisson.

Here's a link to a BBC team's account of their recent visit to the region.

Nothing coherent to add to this, yet, but I'll just rattle off a few points.

Even though the article states that people are returning to the area -- or rather the outer exclusion zone -- there's still a lot of emphasis on the return of "nature." Pripyat itself is still abandoned, as made clear in a Sept 2005 From Our Own Correspondent report by Nick Thorpe. (There's a map of the exclusion zones on David McMillan's Pripyat pages with some stunning photographs).

Thorpe's report flags the usual markers that help us navigate through any discussion of the ruins: "a Soviet Pompeii", "(p)ropaganda posters of stylised Soviet men and women still smile", cracked asphalt, "Pripyat is a town of ghosts" etc. I can't decide if the fairy-tale allusions are overblown or articulate successfully the visceral nature of his experience.

I was a little shocked to find that it's been twenty years since the Chernobyl disaster, especially as I have such clear memories of the news coverage of the time. A rather narcissistic response, all things considered.