Wild Trip to Chernobyl (Pripyat’) — Part 2
The continuation of the Part 1 ( https://medium.com/@alexanyanwolf/wild-trip-to-chernobyl-pripyat-2d962cb3da51)
07/03/2017 — Legendary places and notorious hospital complex.
Woke up at 9:00AM.
I began to explore the house — the doors in place, windows and glass, too. Even the window handles are in place. However, the marauders carried out everything they could change to vodka — wires, all furniture, even wallpaper in places.
We’ve left Armen at home to get rest because his legs hurt from the morning. Together with Tendal we took the bottles and went out to collect water.
On the road which is separated from Pripyat by barbed wire, we saw traces of the car — probably a morning patrol.
We got to some station which was half flooded. Igor said that this water is called by stalkers “nefiltrate” (non-filtered) and it seems like you can drink it like that, but we regularly filtered it anyway :))
After breakfast, Armen has joined us, so we left the backpacks and moved all together into the city.
The whole city is overgrown with trees and flowers. If not the buildings all around — this could be a wonderful botanical garden.
Especially colorful looked birch trees growing on the eaves of houses, and between floors. It is not clear where the roots go, because all the buildings are made of concrete.
We went through the stadium which we passed last night. Lighting towers stood in their places. One of them was crashed on purpose to block one of the roads.
Then we went to the playground, where there was a famous Ferris wheel. The start of this attraction was scheduled for May 1, 1986 — Children’s Day, but, of course, after the accident that occurred a few days before, on April 26, everyone forgot about the wheel.
We went further, to the Palace of Culture that the Russians were calling “DK Energetik”. On the second floor there was a place around the circumference cleared of garbage — in the game “Stalker” on this place “Monolithians” forces worshiped a Christmas tree from garbage :))
Near the recreation center was the hotel “Polissya”. This object closed later than everyone else. He worked until 1999. On the top floor of the hotel, trees grew from under a stone floor. We left the hotel in the direction of the cafe.
Then we walked right along the road until we saw a car riding on us.
Hid on the first floor of a skyscraper. The car stopped opposite. A group of people in civilian clothes came out — it was a touristic excursion.
We left the entrance of the building. One of the tourists noticed us and looked in surprise in our direction — Tendal waved his cap — the tourist smiled and went to meet us. His name was Pole and he was from Krakow. We talked a little when an employee of their travel agency appeared. Suddenly he began to dial someone on the phone. We said goodbye to the Pole and went further. Tendal said that probably that agency worker was calling police to report the he saw us. The travel agencies were getting nice bonuses if they were helping to catch a stalker, and even more for foreigners.
We reached the cafe “Pripyat’” by the river. In the game “Stalker: Call of Pripyat” (At this location at the end of the game a helicopter takes you and flies out of the Zone).
Before the accident, this cafe held weddings and other major events.
The next object on our visit list was the notorious “MSCH-126” Hospital Complex. Having walked up the first floor, we of course went to the basement — a place where were thrown the clothes of firefighters who came from the scene of the accident with a lethal dose of radiation. They say the firefighters’ clothes glowed green in the basement for a long time.
The personnel of the hospital who assisted the firefighters and the police, who also took part in the elimination of the fire, later shared their fate. Doctors and all the staff received different doses of radiation while treating the wounded. They did not know that in a few weeks most of them would also die. In the basement we saw scattered jackets, helmets and all that was left of those firefighters.
I checked the level of radiation. The dosimeter began to count until it reached an excess of the norm by 140 times and hung. Restarted it several times but it very quickly rose to the same level and crashed with a bang.
Firefighters themselves were taken to Moscow by the special plane where, despite all attempts to save them, they died within 1–4 months.
Their relatives were not allowed to see them. The bodies of the victims were put in lead coffins, they were wrapped in special roofing felts as a package, then they were buried very deep underground and the graves were flooded with concrete.
The basement of the neighboring hospital building was specially littered and covered with sand from above — there probably was all the equipment that was used to help the irradiated.
After walking around the hospital’s offices, we went out and headed to the “Prometey” cinema.
The monument that stood here in 86 was transported to the city center and tourists are sometimes brought to the cinema as one of the “safe” places to show.
We returned home, went up to the roof of our house (nine-story building), and tried to connect to the Internet. There was a big chance to get connected when the weather was fine.
An hour later we left the building in the direction of the swimming pool where we saw a car. We ran into the neighboring building to check whether it was a police or tourists.
It turned out to be tourists from Poland. We went out, showed ourselves, the tourists looked at us in disbelief, after our greeting one came up, it was clear that he was happy meeting us, probably their agency they told him about the stalkers.
One of the employees of the agency called someone on the side, we decided not to risk once again and left. The organizers of legal tours receive bonuses if they burn stalkers and call the police, but there are also groups that do not like officials no less than stalkers. The police monitors the groups so that their guides do not go into places prohibited for visiting and from time to time different conflicts happening between traveling agency customers interests and limitations that the police set for the agency.
Suddenly we heard the sound of some people passing by — we hid in the shower pool at 5:17 and stood holding our breath for about 5 minutes, until Igor checked everything and said that you could go out. In addition to police patrol cars, there are foot patrols — these are police officers strolling along the streets in different places, or sitting quietly somewhere in the corner and waiting for stalkers. It is with them that it is most unpleasant to deal with because of their invisibility.
From the pool we went to school, where a lot of different equipment was left. So, we found a class of biology, chemistry, physics and literature. The corridors of the school were hung with Soviet flags and boards with patriotic appeals of the time. In some classes, the names and contact numbers of former students who were looking for their childhood friends and returned here were written in chalk on blackboards.
On many walls were inscriptions like “Forgive us, our beloved school” and other notes left by ex. students still looking for their friends of old days.
From school, we leisurely passed to the children garden. Toys, papers, and cribs lay everywhere. In places it was possible to see gas masks and replaceable filters for them.
We climbed the roof of the 16-story building with the emblem of the USSR. Memorial building. In Pripyat’ there are two tall buildings with such emblems, this and the next with the coat of arms of Ukraine. This is an indescribable place with incredible views of the city.
We hear the loud iron noise. The crash repeats several times and subsides. Crouched and looked down from the edge of the roof — a man in camouflage, coughing and spitting, quickly carried some kind of bag. Tendal said that this is a metalworker. We met one of his “colleagues” at night before entering Pripyat’. He sawed off something, put it in a bag and carried it away.
After an hour and a half went down and went to the ruined school. This school is the first building in Pripyat’ in which there was a natural collapse, and in two places.
After walking around the school we went towards the “Deberkader”. That was the name of the floating pier, which after the accident remained moored on the shore, and now, having tilted at 30 degrees, it was gathering water. On the way there we saw a group of people on the road. We ran sharply to the side — they too, but to the other side :D. Apparently these were stalkers, the police would not have escaped from us. We were mistaken for police officers, as the three of us walked in camouflage and caps, as the local police patrol.
We got to the Deberkader. We sat and saw the same group of guys at the pier at the cafe where we were already. We waved to them, they saw us, but did not wave back.
Our way home ran past the pier and we decided to go to the guys, if they are still there.
We go towards the pier, on our left we hear a run and a sharp lull.
“Stalkers” — Tendal says loudly,
“Why are you running then,” he continues, and turns on the flashlight, blinking several times in the direction where the noise was. From there we saw a flashlight in response. (As Tendal later explained us, the flashlights are the specific signaling system for stalkers to know each other. By default police officers do not have such portable flashlights as they patrol at daytime only.)
“Yes, I understood, understood.” — Tendal says and we go to them.
To our surprise, we find six large men. They are standing, smiling. They ask if we made noise an hour ago. We told them about the metalhead. They ask if we stood on the 16th floor some time ago? We confirmed that it was us.
After some talk we said goodbye to the guys, wished them good luck and went home. Got home quietly, ate and laid out loot in packages.
The third day in a row we go through more than 30 thousand steps a day. Today we walked 15.5km (from the morning). Went to sleep at 10:30PM.
07/04/2017 — Buried living blocks (the Plateau) and running from the police.
Armen’s legs are killed. Tendal and I leave him at home to rest and at 10:15AM we go towards the Port Cranes.
We took bottles with us to get water on the way back. Left empty bottles at the water pump station.
Right after water station the Plateau begins. The entire Plateau is strewn with sand with radiation icons and numerical symbols on them. The plateau is an unfinished microdistrict of Pripyat’ in which young families were supposed to settle. By the time of the accident roads had already been completed, ditches, sewers, pipes, electricity were laid.
After the accident, all the equipment that was used to eliminate the consequences of the explosion was driven to the Plateau, and here it was all buried in the sand. Under us was a whole area, buildings, poles, towers, cranes, cars and even wagons and entire freight trains.
And now all this was covered with a huge layer of sand, and we walked around here like in a vast desert. The designations on the icons said which house is located here. Apparently, somewhere else there was a map of this place and this buried city. Even in the sand, radiation exceeded the norm by several dozens of times, and in some places could go over the roof for hundreds.
On the approach to the cranes on the horizon is a good view of the cooling tower and unfinished power units #5 and #6.
We walked around the cranes, climbed to the very top of one of them — a strong wind, but a magnificent view. After the Plateau, we walked along the dam, whose length is 5 kilometers. This dam was specially made so that the radioactive water from the Pripyat’ River did not fall into the Dnepr River, which flowed in parallel 200 meters from the Pripyat River. As for the Port Cranes, they were surprisingly well made in the Stalker game though. The similarity of the game object with the real world was striking.
The cranes…
Having walked here a little more, we went back. It was 4+ kilometers to the house and we, unexpectedly for ourselves, discovered a way to quickly move in time: we started talking about politics and democracy. A word, another word, a couple of names, a little uncensored speech and voila — we are already collecting water on the station and through a couple of reforms, laws and appointments of officials — we are at home. In total, 8.4 km passed. It’s 1:00 p.m. on the clock.
Armen just woke up, we ate and decided to go to Jupiter factory all together — this place was too epic to skip it.
We left at 2:00PM.
We saw a group of tourists at the Stadium next to the place we stayed. The guide was a friend of Tendal so we decided to carefully approach. The girl said that 4 cars drove in. The security in Pripyat has changed, and if previously they used to go with pistols, now they walk with AK47 (nobody knew why). This info-sharing act was evident that the girl herself also did not particularly like the police and was not going to hand over us.
Thanked for the info and went on. In the center, on the big roundabout we saw two touristic cars . One belonged to the group of the girl we recently met, the other was empty. An agency worker was in the car. We approached, greeted, asked if he had seen the police. The guy said that the jeep with the police drove here recently, drove along the road towards Jupiter factory, and then disappeared.
We went along the same road towards Jupiter where the police jeep “disappeared”. 150 meters passed from the central roundabout, when suddenly we heard the noise of a car behind us. Turned around — there was a police jeep — they saw us! We ran forward very quickly while the jeep turned in our direction . Tendal led us through the broken buildings and courtyards, a couple of times we jumped in the neighbor buildings through the windows, then from another window into some courtyard, until we reached the next high-rise building and began to quickly climb up. We got to the roof, stepped on it, sat down, laid back and began to silently wait.
“They know that sooner or later we will have to go down, so they will patrol this square hard. We’ll use another path to reach Jupiter factory,” said Tendal, listening to the noise from nearby yards. After about 15 minutes, the sound of the closing machine was heard. After another 15 minutes we heard a shot a kilometer from us. Shot from a gun.
“Maybe they began to shoot stalkers?” Tendal joked. The smile from my face didn’t go away for a long time already — I wildly enjoyed being in an incomprehensible place and doing inexplicably what. The army, the police, laws, radiation and the atmosphere of secrecy only added splendor to everything that was happening, and I was extremely happy :D.
In the meantime, we jumped to the roof of a neighboring building (not dangerous), reached the edge of the building, photographed the coat of arms of Ukraine on a neighboring building (the same high-rise building) and leisurely went downstairs.
From 2:46PM, we waited half an hour and moved further.
Before going down and continuing our way to the factory we agreed that if the police came out very close — we’ll run in all directions, hold and wait a bit until everything will settle down. Then we’ll go back to the house to re-group.
As we still had enough time to explore the city we went into the post office that was on our way to the Jupiter. Found tile murals on the walls and a closed heavy safe.
We were very close to the secret factory, and before reaching it we decided to visit the police station and the army checkpoint where USSR has brought the forces that had to help with evacuation of the civilians.
The continuation (Part 3, Ending) is here:
https://medium.com/@alexanyanwolf/wild-trip-to-chernobyl-pripyat-part-2-37348a530824
