I got irradiated in Chernobyl and lived to tell...
58as some (like maybe 2 people) of you might know, I recently went to Ukraine. i know, Ukraine. what kind of weirdo goes there on vacation? this kind of weirdo you fuckers!
i digress though. i was in Kyiv for 4 days and Chernobyl for 2. i thought i’d share a few images from my journey.
we start this voyage with a sunrise from my hotel balcony. the night before consisted of dinner with the group and a whole lot of vodka. as you can imagine, i had to get up really fucking early to get this shot. luckily, i don’t get hangovers.
near our hotel, was Pechersk Lavra, an orthodox christian monastery with some very cool looking churches. i tried to get some indoor pictures, but i kept getting the evil eye from little old ladies and i didn’t want to wind up cursed or something.
just in case though, i drank some holy water from this fountain. i wasn’t stricken down, so i must have been good to go.
fast forward to Chernobyl and the abandoned town of Pripyat. because, let’s face it, that’s really the pictures everyone wants to see.
i started off the tour by making friends with the only animal i saw in Pripyat, this fox. i did so through the cunning use of a protein bar.
the famous ferris wheel at the abandoned amusement park.
so of course, i had to climb it. fun story, the police rolled up 10s after i took this shot. luckily, our local guide is well connected.
from there, we moved on to the abandoned hospital. i think this used to be a waiting room. the whole hospital is pretty irradiated. the first patients were seen there. any room with a lot of gauze, fabric, bedding, etc seemed to always spike the radiation meter.
we continued on the abandoned school and kindergarten. i saw that piano and thought about all the kids who used to sing around it. i saw those dolls and they creeped me right the fuck out.
essentially, you can tour Pripyat with a licensed guide, but it’s still technically illegal to go inside the buildings. oops…
there’s more pictures, but it’s starting to flip out on me and I don’t want to lose what i’ve written so far. so, that’s all for now.
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/giphy i’m telling!!!
@ConAndLibrarian the local guide will get me out of it!
@ConAndLibrarian is that Babs giving out an Oscar!?
Thanks for posting this. Best internet thing I’ve seen in awhile.
@Pantheist Indeed! Thanks @carl669!
@Pantheist @therealjrn
you’re both welcome!
Um, I’m guessing you don’t want anymore kids?
@Barney well, not really. but if I do, the radiation will give them superpowers.
@carl669 Or two heads and five arms.
@Barney handy!!! Ahahaha!
@Barney
This is like /r/abandonedporn.
Also you only wrote fuck three times; are you alright today?
@narfcake somewhat somber today. but I think 3 fucks still helps.
Let me know how you feel in a few months.
@mfladd it’s been a month. feeling pretty good.
@carl669 Maybe you are ok, maybe not…
@mfladd I think he’s ok.
@mfladd
Kinda awesome. And the climbing, too.
Do you climb a lot?
More pix pls.
Do you have any other pix (like, taken from the ground) of you climbing there?
@f00l I know some people in the group took some. I’ll have to get them. I have more pics of my own, but I’m still working through them (1200+ pictures)
Get out of here, Stalker!
@Dweezle say what now?
@carl669 http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/get-out-of-here-stalker
@carl669 I thought this was a Tartovsky reference.
@UncleVinny The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is based on elements of “Stalker” and in turn “Roadside Picnic” so… close enough.
Haunting images.
You seem too young for a midlife crisis - what prompted you to go to Chernobyl? You wanted to be your own nightlight?
@KDemo No, he’s not that bright.
@KDemo mainly it seemed like an interesting place. I still like beach type vacations, but I just needed something different.
@carl669 I support this vacay strategy.
@KDemo, I have been to plenty of mainstream destinations… beaches, islands, culture and nightlife… but an equal number of off the beaten path ventures.
Vegas? Plenty. But also Area 51. Carlsbad Caverns, AND the Roswell “crash site”, Then Kokopelli’s Cave. New Orleans, then camping in the bayou looking for gators, the cigarette lighter museum in Guthrie, OK (now closed), NSA campus in Ft. Meade, Dog Bark Park Inn in ID…
I love this Chernobyl trip and I’m jealous beyond words.
@ruouttaurmind - I get that, my son is the same -always interesting places off the beaten path. Most memorable was a motorcycle tour from Nepal to Tibet, via Everest Base Camp. I was just curious about @carl669’s motivation.
Sounds like you would both be fun to travel with.
@KDemo
Wow. That sounds amazing. That’s some bucket list kind of travel right there.
I had plans to do the Everest trek. I trained for a year and a half. Then fiancé got sick a couple months before the trip and I postponed. Indefinitely as it turns out. Adulting took prescient over boyish dreams. Now I’m too old and too poor.
But… other dreams and other destinations, ya? Now I just dream a little smaller and destine a little closer to home.
@ruouttaurmind I have a similar vacay strategy, although I don’t do a lot of “work” like hiking or climbing. Getting old. Got lucky a few years ago when our cruise ship was chased right off the Caribbean by Hurricane Ivan and we put into port in Progresso, Mexico. Looking for something to do with us as it’s not a cruise port they put those interested on buses and took us several hours in to Chichenitza. We got to climb the great pyramid. As it turned out, that was the last year they let people do that. Stonehenge is fenced and most folks only get to see it from behind the fence, but I found a special tour which took us among the standing stones to watch the sunrise. Got to climb the Great Wall of China as well. Very jealous of @carl669 adventure.
@moondrake
As we should be, but you surely had a few great conquests of your own!
@ruouttaurmind I once went to the DFW area and I made it out alive. Texans are scary.
@Barney A few years ago I spent a month there one weekend.
@Barney boo!
did I scare you? 
@moondrake I’ve been scared of you for a loooong time.
@ruouttaurmind Lol. During my trip, that’s when I began to get grey hair. I was 17.
@Barney Wise. Very wise.
@ruouttaurmind was this a trek to everest base camp? or all the way up the mountain? i’ve always wanted to do the base camp trek!
@carl669 I had signed up with Wilderness Travel back when they still organized Summit treks. It was not inexpensive then, but since then the cost has gone up 4x or 5x, placing it forever out of my grasp.
Which is probably for the better since I am at least a year’s training away from even being able to think about it. Even if some anonymous benefactor Nigerian Prince emailed me tomorrow, suddenly bestowing upon me the means… by the time I was in condition to attempt a summit grab I’d probably be on Medicare! LOL!
/giphy Mt. Everest Summit
@giphy Really? REALLY GIPHY? With a target as broadly known and documented as the summit of Mt. Everest, you come up with Pirates of the Caribbean?
/giphy Mount Everest summit
@ruouttaurmind yeah, with my knee, i have no inclination to summit. but, i’d love to hit base camp.
Wow. That’s all I can say is wow.
@Kidsandliz that’s what I was saying a lot while I was there.
/youtube I like you but you’re crazy
@carl669 I hear it’s fairly safe as long as you stay on the path (the concrete)- otherwise, I hear it gets real nasty real quick.
Pictures from there are always fascinating in a creepy apocalyptic way (perfect for October!)
@dashcloud hmm… yeah. stay on the path. we totally did that. uh huh.
@dashcloud What is this, “A Sound of Thunder”?
We had a lovely rainy day out in a park in Scotland, a day or so after the meltdown. Apparently we got dosed good and proper, and the information hadn’t been made public yet. In the meantime, a friend of my family, who was a government physicist, was liberally dosing his children with iodine and not allowed to tell anyone.
@carl669 very jealous would you be willing to write up a how to for anyone looking to arrange a similar experience?
@jbartus this was with a small tour group (12 people + 2 tour leaders. local guides when needed) through Atlas Obscura. it was unlike any tour i’ve ever been on and i loved it. nothing felt really rushed and we had plenty of time to explore. the tour leaders (Darmon and Nate) were particularly awesome. check out atlas obscura’s website. they have a bunch of different tours. they are pricey though. I do know that Darmon will be doing a 12 day tour of the Balkans next fall. and Nate is doing a 12 day tour of Iran. (neither of those are thru atlas obscura though, so the price will be cheaper)
Darmon’s website: http://www.thebohemianblog.com/
Nate’s website:
http://yomadic.com
Atlas Obscura:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/unusual-trips
@Thumperchick i love that episode!
@carl669 Me too. I think it’s the same one where he see’s a billboard sign that says “DIE” and then screams. When the wind blows, it reveals the last letter and spells “DIET” and he screams louder than the first time. Ha, that was so funny.
@cengland0 i think this one, Max Power, the Hank Scorpio one, the monorail one, and the one where he gets fatter on purpose are my top 5 episodes.
@carl669 Oh yes. I like the one when homer gets fat on purpose. He gets to work from home. Typing on the keyboard answering a question and about to type YES. Give me a “Y”. “Hey, all I have to do is press ‘Y’. Woo Hoo, I just tripled my productivity.” hehe.
/youtube i’m so jealous
@Pavlov i think you and @MrsPavlov would have fit in perfectly with the tour group.
@Pavlov Wait, didn’t you travel to several Star Wars sets?
Of course, if I remember correctly, @carl669 was in China last year, so very cool world travels.
Fucking Travel Wierd!
/giphy Woohoo!
You lead an awesome life sir! I’m jealous, but mostly of the fact that you don’t get hangovers.
@pitamuffin everyone’s jealous of the hangover bit.
Awww, I’m most jealous of your fox friend there! Always wanted to visit Pripyat, just probably will never be able to afford it. Did you also go see DUGA-3 (woodpecker OTH radar installation)?
@PooltoyWolf yep. saw the Duga, climbed the Duga. (just a few levels though… i have a mild fear of heights and the ladders flexing freaked me out)
@carl669 Oh yeah I don’t blame you! Parts of that thing are probably pretty close to falling off LOL.
@PooltoyWolf fyi, there’s a movie called The Russian Woodpecker about it that’s supposed to be really good. I think it’s on Amazon prime.
@carl669 I will have to look for that, thanks!
@PooltoyWolf
@mfladd I think I’ve intrigued someone
@PooltoyWolf
@mfladd
@PooltoyWolf
I’m ridiculously jealous of your trip. I’m not 100% sure why… You’d think I’d want to stay away after you read below.
I was a young one, living in Norway when Chernobyl happened. Like
@tartanknickers, we got a nice dose of radiation rain while walking outside. My grandmother in America called and was the one to let us know about the disaster. We had no idea. For whatever reason they kept it secret from us. A ridiculous amount of people we know from Norway have died from cancer… We don’t know if it’s directly related or just coincidence.
Reindeer in northern Norway are still radioactive, and it’s gotten worse.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_56cf20e6e4b0871f60ea3c26
@RiotDemon honestly, the radiation was very high in some of the places we went. but, the actual overall dosage was quite low. now, if you camped out next to a hot spot, you’d be screwed. but, just walking through/by them is perfectly safe. our local guide had a radiation meter and one person in the group had one as well. the guide gave us general safety information and told us which areas to stay out of and we followed it.
it’s an incredible trip and i highly recommend it to anyone that likes this kind of thing.
@carl669 Except that radiation exposure is cumulative.
@lseeber true. but even the cumulative dose is still quite low. even after a couple days. the meters we had showed both radiation levels and the average dose over the time period we were there. don’t remember the exact number, but it was quite low.
if anyone is interested in more pictures, one of the guys in the group has a really nice series of posts on his website:
https://tabularasaphoto.org/page/3/
the first post is one Sept 23 and the more recent ones are above it. tell him carl sent you.
Nice try to become Foxman:
“Bitten by a radioactive fox @carl669 becomes The Foxman”
@caffeine_dude that’s awesome.
@caffeine_dude how do you know I didn’t?
That’s really cool. I’ve been intrigued by Chernobyl and Pripyat for some time now. I was slightly disappointed last fall when I caught news that they’d finished construction on the NSC and were sliding it into place. Seeing the original sarcophagus for myself (if I ever make it over there) would have been cool. The NSC looks pretty impressive, but different. Too sleek and modern. It stands out against the shambles of the rest of the area.
@SpenceMan01 definitely go soon if you get a chance. our guide thinks they’ll probably close off tourism in the next 10 years or so. just too many buildings that are starting to become unstable.
You couldn’t pay me enough to go there.
@lseeber I’ll give you 5 bucks.
Thanks… I’ll pass!
@lseeber 8 bucks?
Oh now… that’s tempting…
Really… it does seem like a fascinating trip. Eerily so. But with my husband starting to glow in the dark from all the tests they’ve put him thru lately… I think I’d pass.
@lseeber fair enough. i’ll try to post some more pics later so you can live vicariously.
@carl669 That would work wonderfully.
it was a lot better than the Chernobyl Diaries LOL great pictures by the way two thumbs up
@ragingredd thanks! what was a lot better than Chernobyl Diaries?