Discoveries

“From next year the heavily contaminated area around the Chernobyl power plant will be officially open to tourists with an interest in post-apocalyptic vistas, late-period Soviet history, or both. […] Ukraine’s emergency situations ministry said today that visitors would be offered tours inside the 30-mile exclusion zone set up after reactor four at the plant exploded on 26 April 1986, showering northern Europe in radioactive fallout. […] While the area remains heavily contaminated, a ministry spokeswoman said, tourism routes had been drawn up which would cover the main sights while steering clear of the dangerous spots.”

See also: Tarkovsky’s incredible film Stalker: “…a tiny town on the outskirts of the Zone, a wilderness area which has been cordoned off by the government. The film’s main character, the Stalker, works as a guide to bring people in and out of the Zone, to ‘the Room’, which is said to grant the deepest, innermost wishes of anyone who steps inside. Residual effects of an undefined previous occurrence have transformed an otherwise mundane rural area scattered with ruined buildings into an area where the normal laws of physics no longer apply.” Wikipedia