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ignalina-c0re · 4 years ago

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So many kids: a compilation of Chernobyl dads

@elenatria asked me to write up a post about texts referring to all the dads among the operators and such, so here’s a (probably VERY incomplete) list, enjoy :D

“Most people who came to the new city were young, and many were unmarried. The average age of those living in Prypiat in 1986 was twenty-six. There were eighteen dormitories in the city for singles, and most apartments were designed for young families. Not only were most inhabitants young, but their children, when they had them, were young as well. In the five local elementary schools, there were as many as fifteen parallel classes, each with no fewer than thirty students. Most rural schools, by contrast, had barely enough students for one class. In most urban schools, there were only three parallel classes running at most. And there was no sign of this trend slowing: more than a thousand newborns were welcomed to the city every year.“ - Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy Note: Plokhy’s transliteration is unconventional and somewhat disturbing, but I decided to preserve it for posterity, i.e. I had to suffer through it and now you guys do too lol Also, I don’t know how accurate the info in Ablaze is, considering PPR keeps referring to poor Stolyarchuk as Piotr and Dyatlov’s wife as Valentina, but it has a lot of interesting biographical info about, well, everybody.

Akimov:

“Finally, after inquiring of many people, I learned that he was at the medical unit. I rushed over there. But they would not let me in. They said he was receiving an intravenous injection at the time. I did not leave, I went up to the window of his ward. Soon he came to the window. His face was reddish brown. When he saw me, he began to laugh, he was overexcited, he reassured me, asked me about the boys through the glass.

It seemed to me that at that point he was somehow particularly glad that he had the sons

. He said that I should not let them go into the street.“

- Testimony of Lyubov Nikolayevna Akimova, Aleksandr Akimov's wife in Chernobyl Notebook by Grigory Medvedev

“Upon graduating, Akimov was sent to work for Zukh-Hydroprojekt in Chernobyl, and Luba went with him as his wife.

They moved straight into a flat in Pripyat, where Luba gave birth to their first child

. They, too, embarked upon the life at Chernobyl with the greatest enthusiasm. Akimov worked hard to establish his professional reputation; he also joined the party. In his free time, he read historical biographies, subscribed to magazines on military technology, and went after duck and hare with his Winchester rifle.The Akimovs’ life was not without trouble.

Their second child was born with a twisted hip

: every two weeks Luba had to make the five-hour journey on the hydrofoil to take her baby to see a specialist in Kiev.“

“Although no visitors were supposed to enter the antiseptic zone, individual doctors made exceptions for those who were likely to die. Akimov’s mother brought him a thermos of chicken broth, but when she saw him she fainted. The first time his wife, Luba, came to visit him she found him methodically pulling out the hair from his head and throwing it in a bin. She tried to raise his spirits by describing how, when he got better, they would live by a river and earn their living, like Dyatlov’s father, by regulating navigation and checking buoys. She had brought drawings by their children to distract him, and she told him how well they were doing in school. Once she looked back from the window and saw that her husband was now pulling out tufts of his moustache.‘Don’t worry,’ he said to her, ‘it doesn’t hurt.’To witness so much suffering in those they loved took a terrible toll. Luba, aged thirty-three, suddenly looked old; once a nurse took her for Akimov’s mother. The only consolation came from the companionship of the other wives. Luba was an old friend of Inze Davletbayev’s, she had invited Inze to stay in her dormitory in Moscow when she had come from Bawly in Tatary to marry Razim, and when Inze had fallen ill, she had nursed her. Now, every morning, the two women heard from Elvira Sitnikov about their husbands’ worsening condition. A doctor had told Luba that radiation harmed the reproductive organs. Luba thought that they might be unable to have more children, and she told Inze how one evening she had seen her husband naked, his skin now dark, his penis rotting and black.“ - Ablaze by Piers Paul Read

“Akimov knew that he might not leave the hospital alive, but while he remained well enough to speak, he told a friend that if he lived, he’d like to pursue his love of hunting and become a gamekeeper. Luba suggested that they could live on a river with their two sons, tending buoys and regulating navigation, just as Deputy Chief Engineer Dyatlov’s father had done. Whatever happened, Akimov was sure of one thing: “I’ll never go back to work in the nuclear field,” he said. “I’ll do anything. . . . I’ll start my life from scratch, but I’ll never go back to reactors.”“ - Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Yuvchenko:

“ On April 25 1986, 24-year-old Sasha Yuvchenko clocked on as usual for the night shift at the Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine. It was a beautiful evening, particularly warm and clear, and Yuvchenko, an engineer-mechanic, and his workmates were full of their plans for the upcoming May Day holidays. At home, his wife, Natasha, was still up with their fretful two-year-old, Kirill.“ - The Guardian: How I survived Chernobyl “Most of Kirill Yuvchenko’s childhood memories are related to people in white coats. When he grew up, he did not hesitate to go to medical school. The first place of work was the very “Six”, where he was invited by the doctors who treated his father.” - Strana Rosatom “That afternoon it had been so warm that Sasha had taken his two-year-old son Kirill for a ride on the crossbar of his bike, and the little boy had tried to remove his father’s hands from the handlebars, shouting, ‘I want to ride it myself, I want to ride it myself!’ After they had eaten and the child had been put to bed, Alexander’s wife, Natasha, had settled down to watch the final episode of an Irwin Shaw mini-series on television; but Sasha had been restless." - Ablaze by Piers Paul Read

”Alexander Yuvchenko, senior mechanical engineer in the reactor department on the night shift of Chernobyl’s Unit Four, spent the day in Pripyat with his two-year-old son, Kirill. Yuvchenko had worked at the station for only three years. Lean and athletic, almost two meters tall, he had built up his towering frame with competitive rowing in high school back in Tiraspol, in the tiny Soviet republic of Moldova. At thirteen, Yuvchenko had been one of the first members of the city rowing club, where the trainer selected only the tallest and strongest boys to test themselves on the fast-flowing waters of the Dniester. At sixteen, he became the Junior League champion in Moldova; his team went on to take second place in the All-Union Youth Competition, competing against teams from across the entire USSR.” “Yuvchenko didn’t know if the radiation made him infertile, although the doctors assured the couple that they could safely have had more children. But Natalia didn’t trust them and questioned their motives: she didn’t want to become the unwitting subject of some callous experimental study.So their son, Kirill, then studying to become a doctor, remained an only child, and they had adopted a Siamese cat named Charlie—born on April 26, which they agreed was a good omen.“ “The following week, more than twenty-two years after he had first crossed the threshold of the brown brick building on Marshal Novikov Street, Alexander Yuvchenko returned to the hallways of the former Hospital Number Six for the last time. That same day, he called Natalia to say that he was being taken into intensive care for surgery and wouldn’t be able to phone again. By now, Kirill—twenty-five years old and a trainee surgeon—was working at the hospital himself and continued to see his father every day.“ - Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Kirschenbaum:

“In Pripyat the night shift prepared to return. The young turbine engineer Igor Kirschenbaum ate supper with his wife, Alla, and their three-year-old daughter, Anna.“ There were also fears for future generations. The risk of bearing a malformed baby made couples hesitate to have a second child. Still, Alla Kirschenbaum, the wife of the young turbine engineer from the fourth unit, gave birth to a second child five years after the disaster, and it was a healthy baby girl. By then she and Igor had decided that when the opportunity arose they would emigrate to Israel.” - Ablaze by Piers Paul Read

Bryukhanov:

“Briukhanov had first traveled the Kyiv–Prypiat highway by bus in the winter of 1970, when the city of Prypiat did not yet exist. He was young and full of enthusiasm. Becoming director of a nuclear power plant at such an age was quite an accomplishment, but for a while there had been no plant to talk about. Briukhanov had yet to build it—the plant, his own offices, along with a home for his family, which included his wife, Valentina; their nine-year-old daughter, Lilia; and one-year-old son, Oleg.”

”But for now, Briukhanov could put such disturbing thoughts aside. He was finally home. International Women’s Day lay ahead, a chance to greet his wife and spend time with friends and colleagues. His daughter no longer lived with them: she and her husband were about to graduate from medical school in Kyiv. The Briukhanovs would have to greet her over the phone, but they soon hoped to host the young couple in Prypiat. They were expecting a child, and Briukhanov would become a grandfather.” ”Only once was he allowed to see his wife, Valentina. The family, which included a teenage son and an older daughter who had given birth to a baby girl four months after the Chernobyl accident, was suffering a stunning reversal of fortune. Previously one of the most respected families in Prypiat, the Briukhanovs were now shunned by many of their former friends and neighbors.” - Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

“As the weather warmed, Brukhanov had a schoolhouse built where children could be educated up to fourth grade. In August 1970 he was joined in Lesnoy by his young family: his wife, Valentina, their six-year-old daughter, Lilia, and infant son, Oleg.” “Brukhanov, harried by work as usual, had left for the office at 8:00 a.m. and driven the short distance from the family apartment overlooking Kurchatov Street to the plant in the white Volga he used for official business. Valentina had arranged to take the afternoon off from her job in the plant construction offices to spend time with her daughter and her son-in-law, who had both driven over from Kiev to visit for the weekend. Lilia was already five months pregnant, and the weather was so good that the three of them decided to take a day trip to Narovlia, a riverside town a few kilometers over the border in Belarus.“ - Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Dyatlov:

“On the night of April 25, his walk was like any other. No untoward thoughts entered his head—at least, he did not remember any later. Everything seemed normal and under control. The shutdown schedule had been slightly adjusted, but that was nothing to worry about—it had happened before. Like everyone else in Prypiat, he was looking forward to the weekend—relaxing with his family, which did not see much of him during the week, and spending some time with his granddaughter.“ - Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

“His wife adored him – or so it seemed to their friends – but she was a small, cosy woman, not the type to tame the tyrannical traits in her husband, and there was the shadow of a shared sorrow between them: their second child had died in infancy in Komsomolsk.“ - Ablaze by Piers Paul Read

“There was an explosion, and Dyatlov was exposed to 100 rem, a huge dose of radiation. The accident, inevitably, was covered up. Later, one of his two young sons developed leukemia. There could be no certainty that the two events were linked. But the boy was nine when he died, and Dyatlov buried him there, beside the river in Komsomolsk.“ - Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Pravik:

“Volodymyr Pravyk’s parents waited in vain for hours for their son to come and help them with the gardening. When they finally learned that he was in the Prypiat hospital, they rushed to see him. Volodymyr told them through the window to get on their motorcycle, grab his wife, Nadiika, and daughter, Natalka, wrap Natalka in as many blankets as possible, and send both immediately to Nadiika’s parents in central Ukraine, away from Prypiat and Chernobyl. They did as he said. Before leaving their apartment, Nadiika left a letter for Volodymyr on the table, telling him where she and Natalka were. Their romance had been conducted largely by letter—this would be the only one to remain unanswered.“ “Two weeks earlier, Nadiika had given birth to their daughter, Natalka. Lieutenant Pravyk asked his superiors to move him to a different position without night shifts so he could spend more time with his family. They promised to arrange the move, but there was no one to replace him yet, so he had to stay for the time being. He loved his job and his crew, and he was always working on projects to improve things in the fire department. With the help of one of the firefighters, he designed and installed remote-control doors in the department’s garage, a rare feature at the time. That day he had brought his tape recorder to work with the idea of preparing a musical greeting to his crew for the coming holidays. At 2:00 a.m. he was supposed to be replaced on duty and take a nap before the end of the shift at 8:00 a.m. Later that morning, he, Nadiika, and their daughter were planning to visit his parents in Chernobyl. Like everyone else in his unit, he was preparing to help his parents with the gardening“ “Volodymyr Pravyk’s parents could not refuse their son when he begged them from a hospital ward to take his wife and daughter out of Prypiat as soon as possible. From the Prypiat hospital they went directly to Pravyk’s apartment, put his wife, Nadiika, and one-month-old daughter, Natalka, into a motorcycle sidecar, took them to the railway station, and got them on a train speeding away from Prypiat“ - Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

“From his bed, Pravik sent a cheerful letter to his young wife and their month-old daughter, in which he apologized for his poor handwriting and his absence from home.“Greetings, my darlings!” he wrote. “A big hello to you from the holiday-maker and moocher. . . . I’m slacking from my responsibilities in raising Natashka, our little one. Things are good here. They have settled us in the medical clinic for observation. As you know, everyone who was there before is now here, so I’m enjoying having my entire entourage around. We go out for walks, in the evenings we take in the sights of Moscow at night. The one downside is we have to take it all in from our window. And probably for the next one or two months. Sadly, those are the rules. Until they complete their assessment, they can’t discharge us.“Nadya, you are reading this letter and crying. Don’t—dry your eyes. Everything turned out okay. We will live until we’re a hundred. And our beloved little daughter will outgrow us three times over. I miss you both very much. . . . Mama is here with me now. She hotfooted it over here. She will call you and let you know how I’m feeling. And I’m feeling just fine.” “ - Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Ignatenko:

“In the dorm room above the garage of Fire Department No. 6 in Prypiat, Liudmyla Ihnatenko could not sleep after her husband, Vasyl, left for the plant before 2:00 a.m. She was pregnant with their first child, whose birth was expected soon, but it was more than that. She felt that something was wrong.” “Liudmyla asked her husband what she could do to help him. “Get out of here! Go! You have our child!” he said weakly. “Go! Leave! Save the baby!”“ “Guskova asked Liudmyla whether she had any children. The only thing on Liudmyla’s mind at the time was to get Guskova to let her see Vasyl. She assumed that claiming to have children would strengthen her case and said that she had two, a boy and girl. In reality, she had none. Liudmyla decided not to mention that she was six months pregnant“ - Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

Others:

“The older specialists, several of whom had followed Dyatlov from Komsomolsk, were as eager to teach the young as the young were to learn. There was no question of anyone expecting extra money for extra effort: Razim Davletbayev spent not only the evenings but also half his summer vacation studying the new technology of nuclear power. His wife, Inze – a woman with a wide Tatar face and gentle, soulful eyes – had a job in the department of industrial safety, checking the amount of radiation received by each worker, but all her ambitions were for her husband; she saw to all the household chores so that Razim could continue with his studies. After the birth of a baby, she spent much of the day with the child: Razim left for work at seven in the morning and only returned at nine at night.“ “For many raised as atheists, it was not easy to exchange their Marxist convictions for Christian beliefs. Moreover, there were Soviet citizens like the Tatar Davletbayevs whose traditional religion was not Christianity but Islam. Raised as Communists, and with no reason until Chernobyl to doubt its atheist philosophy, Inze had rediscovered through suffering her people’s one true God. No longer did she pray to the mummified body of Lenin or to the bronze statue of Pushkin but took her son Marat across Moscow to pray to Allah in a Mosque.” “The Palamarchuks’ younger daughter, who had been in Pripyat at the time of the accident, had developed continuous headaches, though the doctors assured them that this had nothing to do with radiation. “Not knowing when she would return, or how secure the flat would be in their absence, Ylena [Grishenka] put together all the things she prized most: her leather coat, her fur coat, her gold bracelets, her Italian shoes and her ice skates. Her daughter had a new rucksack, which she filled mostly with her party dress. By contrast, Lubov Lelechenko, assuming that they were to be taken out into the surrounding forest, put on her oldest clothes. Luba Akimov, who had spent the morning trying to keep her children away from the windows, along with Inze Davletbayev, Natasha Yuvchenko and the other wives of the injured operators who had been flown to Moscow, obediently packed their bags and waited for the buses. Katya Litovsky, the pretty girl whom Nikolai Steinberg had recruited into the turbine hall in the early days of the Chernobyl power station, had to prepare not just her ten-year-old daughter, but her daughter’s friend, who was visiting. Lubov Lelechenko got a call from her daughter in Kiev, who wanted to know if they were going to Poltava for the May Day holiday, as planned, or should she come to Pripyat? Lubov dared not tell her daughter what had happened, so she handed the telephone to her husband. ‘We won’t be going to Poltava,’ he said. ‘But don’t come here.’” “Lubov spent much of the following day in the post office, telephoning friends in Kiev and the friends of friends in Kharkov. Lelechenko was not there. Eventually, their daughter Ylena rang from Kiev to say that she had tracked him down at the Institute of Radiology there. ‘Things are bad,’ she told her mother. ‘You must come at once.’” “Katya had been married and had two children, who went first to live with her former husband in Krasnoyarsk, then to a boarding school in Kiev. To her, working for Steinberg at the nuclear power station came before both family life and her own well-being. The conditions were hard; she wore a mask to work, and the windows of her office were covered with lead. Nevertheless, she was happy, and whenever she went away on leave she longed to return to Chernobyl. As one of the few women at the plant, she sensed her value to the workers’ morale. ‘We were all a little in love with you,’ a naval officer told her later, ‘and tried to live up to the cheerful look on your face.’“ - Ablaze by Piers Paul Read "The medics wanted him to go to the medical center, but Shavrei refused. He went home instead, put his wife and young child in their car, and drove them away from Prypiat.“ - Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

“The third watch lacked discipline. It was packed with obstinate old hands who disliked following orders. Many of them were from peasant families, close relatives raised in the surrounding countryside. Among them were two Shavrey brothers, Ivan and Leonid, from just over the border in Belarus, and fifty-year-old “Grandpa” Grigori Khmel, who had two sons who were also firefighters—all of them born in a small village ten kilometers away from where the station now stood. The watch commander, Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik, was just twenty-three, a college graduate who dabbled in photography, drawing, and poetry and was a dedicated member of the Komsomol. His wife taught music at a kindergarten in Pripyat and had given birth to their first child, a daughter, just a few weeks before, at the end of March.” - Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham “For the first two years, Tolya lived at a dormitory in Pripyat, and our two daughters and I were in Nikolaev at my brother’s. Then they gave my husband an apartment, and we moved in with him.” - The Pain Doesn’t Fade: interview with Elvira Sitnikov

“ Letter from the 7-year-old son, Oleksiy Horbachenko, to Mykola Horbachenko (Chernobyl NPP dosimetrician on duty) to the 6th clinical hospital of the Institute of Biophysics, where he was treated for radiation sickness. Moscow, May, 1986 Mykola recalls the history of this letter: “Then no one was allowed to visit me. Only in July, they began to let visitors in. In the street in the garden tents were set up and soldiers in chemical protection were on duty on the stairs. Our chamber windows looked out onto the garden, where the tents stood, and early in the morning we saw how the soldiers took out the dead on gurneys. The wife arrived in May with the children to say goodbye to dad. I was taken out onto the balcony, all wrapped up, accompanied by two soldiers in chemical protection. My son then drew me that way – the dad on the balcony." - a post about Nikolai Gorbachenko on the Chornobyl National Museum’s FB page

Just because it’s funny:

“Kyzyma ran his directorate like a huge peasant household. The heads of the directorate’s units dreaded his invitations to the Romashka, one of the plant’s dining halls, for a meal of Ukrainian borscht. At the head of the long table, in the spot reserved for the family patriarch, sat Kyzyma, with his “children” (subordinates) on both sides.” - Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

Just because it makes me want to cry:

“Anatoly Dyatlov, the dictatorial deputy chief engineer, had spent his years of incarceration contesting the verdict of the Soviet court, writing letters and giving interviews from prison in an attempt to publicize what he’d learned about the failings of the RBMK reactor and clear his name and those of his staff. He wrote directly to Hans Blix at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to point out the failings of their technical analysis, but also to the parents of Leonid Toptunov, describing how their son had stayed at his post to try to save the crippled reactor and how he had been unjustly blamed for causing the accident. He explained that the reactor should never have been put into operation and that Toptunov and his dead colleagues were the victims of a judicial cover-up. “I fully sympathize with you, and grieve with you,” Dyatlov wrote. “There is nothing more unbearable than losing one’s child.””

- Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

#chernobyl #sachi's locker of random bullshit

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littlethingwithfeathers · 5 years ago

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HBO’s Chernobyl - A Content Guide

Hey everyone!

So... the docudrama “Chernobyl” on HBO is probably one of the best things to ever grace a television, and everyone should totally go watch it right this now.

However, it is not an easy watch, even if you’re stout of constitution like me. While the show does not over-dramatize or sensationalize the horrors that happened during and after the Chernobyl disaster, it also does not shy away from showing them when appropriate. So I thought I’d put together a watch-guide just to make people aware of the more graphic scenes and topics in the show. I don’t have time-stamps. This is just more painting with a broad brush. And if you’ve got questions, feel free to ask me.

I do my best to leave plot elements out of my summary, so as to avoid “spoilers” (if you can really have such a thing in something like this), but there are some plot points that could be potential problems for people so... spoiler warning?

Also, the full scripts are available online here if that’s helpful as well. They’re actually worth a read after you’ve seen the show... lots of interesting commentary in the blocking.

The guide is below the cut. Enjoy!

Episode 1 - "1:24:45"

This episode concerns the first eight hours after the reactor explodes. Point of view bounces back and forth between what's happening inside the reactor and what's happening in the nearby town of Pripyat.

Ep. 1 gets a blanket warning for pandemonium and confusion in the wake of the explosion (which happens almost immediately at the start of the episode), gore/blood/wounds consistent with very acute radiation sickness, including burns, frequent vomiting of blood, and vibrant "radiation tans" which appear similar to severe sunburns. There is very little screaming or crying save in a couple of specific cases I will detail below. Mostly, dying of radiation sickness looks like someone with a serious case of the stomach flu who also has a horrible sunburn.

There are no jumpscares, but the whole episode has a palpable escalating tension about it almost in the style of a horror movie. "No no no don't go in there! The core is open and you're going to die!" That's the general internal monologue while watching. The viewer knows, but characters do not really understand what's happened for the entirety of the episode. Most of the tension revolves around the plant management insisting that everything is fine and making people go to the reactor site to check on things and them becoming horribly ill. It's not until close to the end of the episode that someone goes and looks in daylight and sees what's happening (and even still the management doesn't believe it until the next episode).

Spot warnings:

The first scene is a suicide. A man hangs himself in the very beginning. We only see his feet dangling. It's very fast. We don't see a struggle.

The explosion is also very early in the episode (about 7 minutes in) and is not a jumpscare or particularly rattling. It's viewed from a far off window and is silent initially until the shockwave arrives. There isn't a huge tension build up. It's something very distant.

(personal note) This is one of my favorite things about the show… they don't go the traditional narrative route. Show starts and they do two things in the first ten minutes. Kill the main character, and blow up the reactor. All of it without any sort of ceremony or tension-building.

Any scenes in the wrecked reactor, turbine, and water pump halls get a blanket warning for radiation related gore and suffering. There is no screaming or yelling due to injury. It feels very claustrophobic and dread-inducing because of the way it's shot. It's almost as if there is a monster in these halls, but that monster is the rapidly leaking radiation.

Same goes for any scenes involving the firemen outside the reactor. They are standing next to an open reactor core spraying it with aerosolized water. They are going to get very sick, and many of them do on site. Vomiting, lethargy, and obvious radiation tans are the main symptoms shown.

One fireman picks up a hunk of graphite which is highly radioactive. Later, he is screaming on the ground in pain when they try to pull his glove off, revealing a very severe and graphically depicted radiation burn on the entirety of the palm of his hand.

A group of people from the town watch the fire burn from a railroad bridge. As they watch, ash falls from the sky. This is actual, honest to goodness fallout. Nothing happens while they are watching, but the cinematography and the score make sure you know that they are all going to get very sick.

Three men from the plant are sent to lower the control rods by hand, which has them going into the open reactor core (again, they don't know it's blown apart). Two go in and are instantly radiation tanned. The third, who pried the door open, is also partially radiation tanned, but because he had wedged himself against the radiation-leeching metal of the doorframe, he is severely and acutely burned where he'd braced himself. The burns are under his white clothes, but he begins bleeding profusely before collapsing in the hallway.

We find this man later, clothes soaked in blood. He is nearly incapacitated and obviously dying, but there's no screaming or wailing. He actually asks another plant worker for a cigarette and smokes it quietly.

Two men go down to open water pumps and are made incredibly ill by radiation poisoning. Again, there is no screaming. They just get weaker and weaker.

The control room manager, Dyatlov, vomits in a conference room near the end of the episode.

A man is sent to the roof of the reactor building at gunpoint to survey the damage. When he turns back from the edge of the reactor pit, his face has a severe radiation tan.

***

Episode 2 - "Please Remain Calm"

This episode happens over the next 60 hours or so after the accident and concerns the discovery of just how bad the accident is. Up until this point, no one really understood or accepted that the core had cracked open. This is the slow dawning of the apocalypse. There is less gore in this episode. It's more building tension as everyone comes to understand how awful things are and how much worse they are going to get. Blanket warning for general struggle and pandemonium in the hospital scenes, and milder images of radiation sickness (they're all still very sick and traumatized, but there's less actual blood).

Spot warnings:

In the burn ward of the hospital, the firemen are all there and very very ill. A doctor recognizes that it's radiation poisoning and begins pulling their clothes off. The clothes are thrown in the basement. As she's leaving, the doctor looks down at her hand, which had been holding a bundle of clothes and she has a mild radiation burn.

There is a tense scene when the fireman's wife arrives at the hospital. She runs into some of the people from the railway bridge who are very sick. One man begs her to take his baby and run away from Pripyat. There is a lot of pitched yelling and begging.

There is an argument between Legasov and Shcherbina in the helicopter about whether or not they're going to fly over the core. It gets quite tense with vivid threats on both sides.

The plan with the helicopters to drop sand and boron on the reactor goes about as well as one might imagine at least until they get the distance worked out.

When the decision is made to evacuate the city, people are forced to leave their pets behind.

Towards the end of the episode, it is discovered that there are pools of water under the reactor that need to be drained. This must be done by hand and it is made clear that whoever it is will likely die of radiation poisoning. Three men volunteer to go down under the burning reactor in diver suits, and wade through chest deep irradiated water to open the valves and drain the tanks. Again, this goes about as well as one would expect. It's probably the most tense moment in the whole episode. They get lost when their flashlights fail. The dosimeters are going bananas, and to top it all off… it ends on a cliffhanger with them lost in the dark. So�� you might want to keep going. Not that the next episode is much better.

***

Episode 3 - "Open Wide O Earth"

This episode sprawls out over the next couple of weeks post-explosion. It largely concerns itself with the immediate cost of human lives. It gets a huge blanket warning for radiation-related gore, most often in the Moscow Hospital. Radiation poisoning this acute is a horrible and incredibly visceral way to die, and while it's not sensationalized or overwrought… they don't shy away from showing how it truly is. Legasov actually lists the symptoms and progression early on in the episode before we watch it happen. Which goes in this order.

-Initial symptoms were seen last episode: "nuclear tan" surface burns on the skin, vomiting, lethargy, loss of consciousness. This continues for a day or two.

-Patients seem to rally as they enter a latency period and the immediate effects seem to subside. Recovery seems possible. The firefighters are shown playing cards at one point. Burns are visible on their skin but it looks like a really bad but healing sunburn. This lasts a day or two in these cases.

-Then the true breakdown begins as the cellular damage starts to catch up to the lack of new cell growth. Basically, you decompose from the inside out, starting with bone marrow, then organs, then the vascular system. This is incredibly painful as pain drugs cannot be administered due to failing tissue integrity. Visible symptoms are open, seeping sores, necrosis, eye discoloration, etc.

They show this on a few patients unflinchingly. Close ups. Full body shots. It's gross and difficult to look at. They are basically melting. Honestly… I stopped wondering why zombies are a thing after I watched this. :(

Spot warnings:

Episode opens back on the divers again, lost in the dark with the dosimeters going ballistic. It's pitched and panicked, but they formulate a plan to handle the situation and succeed in their mission.

Important scream warning: There is a scene that begins with water dripping in the sink. This is followed by a man screaming. The nurses are trying to get the fireman's clothes off and he is shrieking in pain. It's a quick scene but hard to watch. If you're bothered by agonized screaming, cover your ears from the time you see the water dripping until Gorbachev's face appears if you want to avoid. This is probably the worst instance of pain-screams.

After the scene with the miners and the minister, there's another long scene at the hospital. No screaming, but it's the fireman. His condition is clearly deteriorating. Long shots of skin lesions and bandages.

After the "no fans" conversation with the miners we return to the hospital. This time the patient is one of the men from the control room. The one that went down to work on the pumps. He is in severe condition. Eyes are discolored. Skin is swollen and red and shiny. He can barely speak. Again, this is a long scene with lingering shots on his face and body. After he gives his age to the person interviewing him, he gets a nosebleed, which the person cleans up.

After that scene, they transfer the worsening fireman to a critical care ward. His skin is in awful condition. Worse than the patient from the control room. This also has lots of long shots of his symptoms. His face is turning black and necrotic. His skin is pocked with necrosis and looks like it could slide off his bones. For me this was one of the most difficult things to watch, and I actually had to look away. And I pride myself on having a pretty strong stomach.

There's a short scene with Legasov and Shcherbina in their trailer-office, and then… NAKED PEOPLE!!! Naked miners to be precise. Lots of them. Full frontal and everything. It's actually a pretty funny scene… blessedly.

After the scene with the naked miners we go back to the control room operator in the hospital. Then to the other operator's room. We never see the other operator. Just the interviewer's face. Then we go back to the fireman's room briefly.

The episode ends with a funeral, shot to great but incredibly sensitive effect. The firemen are buried in metal coffins, welded shut and covered in concrete.

***

Episode 4 - "The Happiness of All Mankind"

This episode chronicles the efforts of the "Liquidators" who were sent to the surrounds of the plant to raze the forests, turn the turf, and kill all the animals.

So… blanket statement for lots and LOTS of animal death. We're talking critters wild and domestic alike killed by the truckload and buried in concrete to prevent the spread of radiation. Most of it is offscreen, but the spot warnings will have specific warnings of particularly sad/graphic instances. There are also some scenes of mild radiation sickness symptoms, but they are barely blips on the radar if you've watched his far. Just some vomiting and people looking generally unwell.

There's also a warning for pregnancy and child death, though labor, delivery, and death all happen off screen.

Spot warnings:

First scene is of an old woman milking a cow. There is a soldier trying to evacuate this old woman. She refuses. Then he shoots his gun, and for a moment you're unsure where the bullet landed. Then her cow falls over dead.

The episode is mostly conversations until you see the soldiers and Pavel roll into a neighborhood in a green truck and start pulling out guns. Bacho will give Pavel some instructions (don't let the animals suffer and so forth) and then he whistles for the animals. They come running and they start shooting them. We don't really see anything, but we hear it. Gunfire and some yelping/whimpering. Mostly we're just watching Pavel's reactions.

When Pavel gets sent to go door to door, he comes across a cream and gray colored dog. This is the worst scene regarding animal cruelty. You will definitely want to look away when Pavel says "Go… go go go away." He shoots the dog, wounds it but doesn't kill it. We see the dog lying in a pool of blood. Pavel is overcome with guilt and approaches. Bacho appears and shoots it to put it out of its misery. It's over when you hear Bacho say "You're dragging that to the truck."

There are brief glimpses of the animal corpses on the truck when the soldiers are having lunch but they're in the distance and out of focus.

If shouting and smashing things in anger is an issue, be warned that when the German robot gets fried on the roof, Shcherbina flips his shit. He calls Moscow and screams at them, ultimately smashing the phone to pieces.

After the discussion of what to do about the roofs after the German robot fails, we go back to Pavel working. He and the soldiers are shooting animals. Again, you don't see the animals. Just hear the shots and the whimpering. But it's short lived. No wails of suffering or anything.

After Bacho tells Pavel to go door-to-door, he goes up to a house and finds a mom-dog with puppies inside. Bacho follows him and when he sees what he found, sends Pavel outside and kills them himself. Again, you just hear the shots and see Pavel's face.

After this, the three soldiers bury the animals. There's a brief image of them being dumped from the truck, and another of them being covered in concrete.

One of the most pitched and harrowing scenes comes after the General gives a speech about how to clear the graphite off the roof to a new set of recruits. They are in crude lead shielding and rubber suits, they run out onto the roof and use shovels to clear graphite. They are stumbling and struggling, dosimeters going ballistic the entire time. It's incredibly tense. When they are called in, one of the men stumbles and gets caught on a piece of graphite. His boot tears. The scene lasts about 90 seconds.

In the scene that immediately follows, we see the fireman's widow. She picks up a girl's mitten to hand it to her, and she goes into labor.

The final scene of the episode is the labor ward in a hospital. We see the fireman's widow alone behind a partition.

***

Episode 5 - "Vichnaya Pamyat"

This episode is largely concerned with the trial of the plant management which is intercut with flashbacks to the day of the explosion.

There is a good deal of tension as they are showing step by step what went wrong, cutting between the trial testimony and the flashback to the reactor control room. There is a fair amount of arguing and yelling, mostly on Dyatlov's part both at the trial and in the control room. The flashbacks do not go beyond the explosion so there's no scenes of radiation related trauma.

Spot warnings:

Shcherbina begins having coughing fits during the trial. He later shows Legasov a bloody handkerchief.

There is a very tense scene with the head of the KGB after the trial is concluded.

Other than that, nothing to speak of.

***

Hope this is helpful! Happy watching, and again, if you have any specific questions, feel free to send me a message or an ask!

#chernobyl #hbo chernobyl #chernobyl hbo #chernobyl watch guide #content guide #watch guide

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letsriottogether · 5 years ago

Text

Circles

Another Valana fic that came to me yesterday night. At first I thought I would save it for later and implement it into Silence or something else, but I think it deserves to stand alone. This is going to be dark, so please

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Title: Circles

Relationship: Ulana Khomyuk/ Valery Legasov

Characters: Ulana Khomyuk, Valery Legasov, Boris Scherbina, other characters

Warning: pls don’t hate me

________________________________________

He slowly sat down on a chair next to bed. It was quiet in the dimm room, Ulana managed to fall asleep for just a moment. His eyes were fixed on her face, which didn’t look calm even in her sleep, she must be still in pain. Small beads of sweat were forming on her forhead, running down her pale skin, eyebrows curled together, hair wet from sweat stuck to her temples. He couldn’t help but notice how the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes ran much deeper than when he first met her in that sad empty hotel in Pripyat not even two years ago. If only they knew what future planned for them.

It wouldn’t change anything anyway

He put his glasses down on the bedside table and took her small hand in his big ones, resting his elbows on the mattress in process. Ulana stirred in her sleep but did not wake up, for which he was thankful. He pressed their joined hands to his forehead, clumsily planting soft kisses around her wrist. He slowly exhaled and pressed her hand against his stubble cheek. His eyes then drifted from her face, down her frame, resting on her belly protruding almost unnaturally from her noticabely thinner frame. The pregnancy took its inevitable cost on her, given to her age and radiation exposure in Chernobyl. No matter how much he tried to keep her away from the 4th reactor back there, she got her dose, and being around the victims in Moscow hospital wasn’t really a safe alternative.

Oh well. He mentaly chuckles to himself, even if sent army, she would always fight her way back, not being able to withdraw until the puzzle was solved, even if it would mean she would be dead within a month.

Ulana’s soft moan distract him from his thoughts. Her other hand is clutching the white fabric of the sheet that’s draped over her frame, mouth pouting in discomfort. He puts one of his hands on her belly, hesitantly caressing it, feeling small movements underneath. He knows Ulana will be awake soon, facing this hell, completely new kind of one for both of them. He feels even more lost than when he saw the reactor building split open, that was someone else’s fuck up that he had been called to solve and clean up. But this? This was completely and utterly his work. He knows that it takes two to make a child, but somehow feels more responsible for all this, for her suffering, for the life inside of her that is destined to be born with some sort of physical defeat, with inner disabilities (he cannot help but remember Lyudmila Ignatenko’s daughter), or maybe even born dead. He’s the one who should protect her from all of this and in the reality he ends up silently watching as week from week she gets worse, black circles under her eyes bigger, bones sticking out from underneath her marble skin no matter how much he’s making her eat, even contemplating feeding her during her worst moments. The bitter truth lingers in the air anyway. Even if they both weren’t banned from the outside world, from medical care, what would it matter? There was no help for the effects of radiation.

Please don’t let her suffer

With a loud groan her eyes open, blinking, searching around almost as if she had forgotten where she is. He immediately squeezes her hand and their eyes meet. She still looks exhausted, those few minutes of slumber helping only a little.

„How long was I asleep?“ she licks her dry lips, her voice raspy.

„Only for a moment,“ he replies, stands up a caresses her hair and hands her a cup of water. She nods in acknowledgement, taking a small sip with his help. Suddenly her breath turns deeper, she shifts her body and the sign of discomfort grows bigger in her face. He already knows this part, another contraction is coming. Not a long after that a wave runs through her muscles, her hands immediately fly to her belly, clumsily caressing it, sweat pouring down from her forehead, down her neck, down her spine. She’s biting her lip, keeping herself from screaming out in pain as the contraction grows stronger.

Valery sighs in frustration and runs hands through his thinning hair. He could explain to you how a nuclear reactor works, now also how to put out a fire if such reactor explodes, but when it comes to this, to normal life problem or these ‚women things‘, he is completely lost. He sits down on the edge of the bed, taking one of Ulana’s hands so she can squeeze it as hard as she needs. No matter how weak she might seem, she still has her power, he thinks to himself and is absolutely sure that there is a good chance she will crack at least one of his knuckles or simply leave nail marks on his freckled skin.

Ulana shifts her body again, pulling her legs up, bending them in the knees to support herself better. The pain gets weaker as the contraction fades away. She exhales and collapses back to the pillows that are stacked up behind her, to give her at least some comfort.

Her eyes turn to Valery with a small reassuring smile, when her scream cuts through the air like a knife. A new kind of pain takes over her body, different one, and panic washes over her. She went through labor back when she was younger, she can remember how it goes, and this definitely wasn’t a contraction. This was something else.

Valery sees the horror in her eyes and freezes for a moment. Ulana’s hand grips on the white sheet covering her body and tears it away, swiftly pushing it to the side. She can feel something sticky on her inner thighs, making a small pool between her legs.

„Valery!“ her voice trembles with desperation, which finally has effect on him. New energy in his veins kicks in, he lets go of her hand and in one swift motion he’s at the door, flicking the light switch on. That’s when he sees what she already knew. Her crimson red blood shining out from the white sheets, and he can’t help but notice how her skin turns one shade paler. She’s breathing heavily, staring at the bloody cloth. Suddenly there’s deafening humming in his ears, breath catches in his throat and he switches to automatic. He runs out of the bedroom door, heart pounding loudly. He hears himself as if from a distance calling over his shoulder that he’s going to get Nastya. Or was that only in his head?

Nastya was almost like an angel sent from heaven, as much as they both refuse to believe in such things. Once Ulana and Valery were moved to new much smaller apartment, it was as if neighbours were already warned that they are blacklisted from normal world. And then Nastya moved to the apartment above. Old lady, with heart as big as Russian land, with witty comments and loud laugh. She immediately fell in love with the couple, not caring about any restrictions. She understood there was a secret surrounding these two. But when Ulana started showing, it was just so natural to offer them her help. She used to be a midwife after all. Oh, how many lives these hands helped to deliver. And now, her skills were needed more than ever.

Valery runs through the dark apartment, stumbling over shoes he meant to put away, almost falling down to his feet. In the distance he can hear Ulana’s whimpers. He opens the door to their apartment, leaving them wide open. He runs the stairs to the upper floor as fast as a fifty year old man can, his lungs and muscles in his legs burning. He starts franzily bashing at Nastya’s door and in a second her face appears in the doorway. From his expression she knows it’s bad. She pushes him to the side and starts waddling as fast as she can downstairs to Legasov’s apartment, her lips anxiously smacking as she straightens her old apron.

What she sees in their bedroom only confirms her fears. She rushes over to Ulana and starts checking her, pulling her legs open a bit wider to see better, so she can examine her, muttering under her breath.

Dievochka moya…

Their eyes meet, tears rolling down Ulana’s face. There’s no point in lying to her that everything is going to be just fine, she’s not stupid. Nastya’s expression softens, she shifts her stubby body to the younger woman and makes a small cross on Ulana’s forehead with her chubby finger. Valery watches this intimate scene between the two women, as if Nastya was Ulana’s mother and can’t help but feel a bit ashamed they had him as a witness. His hands are grabbing the door frame as he’s leaning on it, his knuckles turning white. There’s got to be something he can do. Fuck the KGB, fuck the ban of contacting anyone, fuck them for not allowing them medical care. He finds himself standing at the phone, not remembering he even left the bedroom filled with the smell of sweat and heavy sweet taste of blood. Of Ulana’s blood.

His fingers dial the number to call an ambulance. His voice raging, as soon as he gives the address and the name, there’s a small hesitation followed by silence on the other side of the phone.

„Are you there? This is an emergency! Send the ambulance now!“

„Yes, comrade,“ and the phone clicks.

Valery clenches his fist and hammers it against the wall in frustration. He would be surprised if the ambulance actually came. He can hear sheets ripping from the bedroom, Nasya’s soothing voice trying to calm the mother to be. All of the emotion a man can feel are running through him.

Endless love for the woman who is sweat drenched lying in the next room, trying to survive birth of their child.

Admiration for all she has gone through, for all the things that are still to happen.

Gratitude for being with him, for choosing him, for coping with his sometimes annoying bachelor habits.

Happiness from all the small moments they shared, from just the simple fact of being together, near each other.

Sadness that in moment like this, when he would need someone to slap him to senses, Boris is god knows where. That he cannot tell his best friend what is happening in his life right now. Boris, I’m gonna be a father.

Shame for feeling completely useless, for not being able to get them better life even for their limited days together.

Betrayal from the world he grew up in, that he used to trust. The great soviet will take care of all its children. Well, of all the good behaving ones, he bitterly thought. He never ever wanted to play some political charades, he was just fine with his position at Kurchatov Institute, no need to climb up the social ladder. Surrounded by scientists, by knowledge, that’s where he felt content. And this knowledge sucked him into the madness called Chernobyl. He was only doing his job, helping to save others, to prevent further explosions and spreading the radioactive particles across the whole continent. And as a scientist he had to say truth about the cause. And this was how the party pays him?

And this all leads to one emotion that begins to swallow him.

Anger. Deep, raging anger.

After a moment of hesitation he picks up the phone again and dials familiar number, hoping to hear the deep voice of their friend Scherbina on the other side. Instead, only mechanic beeping is ringing through the plastic, penetrating his ear. This number has been disconnected, no longer belonging to Boris.

Fuck, fuck this, fuck them all

And it all ends with resignation.

/////////

Few hours pass, it’s still dark outside. At the horizon a slight strip of a bit lighter dark blue can be seen, announcing that the sunrise is coming to lift up the darkness the night has brought. The Moscow streets are empty, only few windows are lit, the city peacefully sleeps, resting before another day comes.

The Legasov apartment is silent. Nastya disappeared a moment ago, knowing there’s no place for her now, not for what’s about to come. Even though she has no idea how many years she will be here on this earth, she knows one thing for sure – until her last breath, she won’t forget this night. Who cares if there will be any consequences for her after tonight. She made a cross on her wide chest and muttered a small prayer for the life that has been born today, as she tried to calm her horrified mind and replays the scene.

Few moments earlier:

Ulana’s never ending panting and groaning changes into one last agonizing scream. The sound dies on her lips as a small weak cry echoes through the room, the newborn life sliding into Nastya’s hands.

„It’s a boy,“ she whispers and looks at Ulana, who is hypnotizing the tiny body, squirming, clearly unhappy with the change of its surroundings.

Valery is by her side, he has been the whole time, and plants a kiss on her temple, relieved that at least this part is over, proud goofy smile on his face. She looks at him her relieved expression slowly changing, the unspoken question in her eyes. Valery nods and steps to Nastya, who skillfully tied the umbilical cord, her gaze is now glued to the whining newborn, horror written over her features. And then he sees it too.

„Oh no…“

„What.. How is this possible?“ Nastya stutters. Valery takes the boy wrapped in a blanket to his arms, studying him, looking him all over. Instead of baby blue eyes accustomating to the new world, there’s.. Nothing. As if his eyelids simply coalesced with the skin of his soft cheeks.

„Valera,“ he can hear Ulana calling him, but he feels as if his body and his mind are in trance.

„Valery! What is wrong with him?! Give me my son!“

He looks over his shoulder and winces. Ulana lays sprawled on the bed, her skin sickly white more than ever, her boney arms pointed out to him in gesture to take the wrapped baby in her arms.

„His eyes…“ he whispers, somber look on his face. He hesitantly walks to Ulana and hands her the small squirming bundle. Her arms immediately wrap around her son, tears streaming down her face, sobs shaking her body.

„We knew this would happen,“ Valery says with trembling voice, getting down on his knees to be at her eye level. She looks at him with those blue piercing eyes, she knows all of this, she knew all along it would end up like this. Guilt washes over her. If only she noticed sooner that she was expecting, if only she wasn’t so daft when it came to women’s problems and herself. She would have… done it differently. Looking at their son, she couldn’t help but feel ashamed as the word ‚abortion‘ ran through her head. And anyway, back then at almost four months along and her age it would most likely mean a death sentence, especially under the conditions that applied to her and Valery. And again, she was left in a situation with no other choice than to carry on and hope for better tomorrows. Yet she couldn’t help but blame herself for putting both him and her and this innocent life through this.

Her gaze turns back to her son, and just like any other mother she begins to examine him, smiling sadly as he waves his tiny hands in the air. Valery watches them, his insides in death grip, thoughts in his brain running at speed of thousand miles per hour, hundreds of other diseases and complications enter his mind that can be invisible to them, but still can be occurring in this small body.

He vaguely notices Nastya standing beside him and turns to her. She steps aside, a bit away from the bed Ulana is lying on, and starts whispering urgently to Valery:

„I cannot stop the bleeding,“ and nods her head towards Ulana.

„What?“

„Ulyanochka… She’s been bleeding all night-„

„Tell me what to do, how to help her“ he begs, the situation dawning down on him. Nastya only shakes her head.

„I’ll try to call someone. You stay here and pray for her. Pray for them both,“ with that, Nastya emerges out of the room, determination shining in her eyes.

Valery hangs his shoulders down, hopeless. His gaze wanders to the scene on the bed, where exhausted Ulana coos at their son. He only hopes that Nastya will be back with the help in time.

He walks over back to them, Ulana raising her eyes to him, smile lighting up her face. Even though she’s tired beyond words, her hair is sticking to her skin, she’s still the most beautiful thing he‘s ever laid his eyes on. With slow motion she scoots to the side to make room for him and pattes the mattress, gesturing him to lie down. He obeys, making himself as comfortable as possible with his back propped up against the headboard, Ulana cuddling to him, holding their son. His arms encircle her and the small bundle.

The paths of life can be so unpredictable…

He can hear her start humming some old lullaby he could not recognize. The tenderness of her voice revealing him another side of her, that until now she was trying so hard to hide.

„That was beautiful,“ he whispered and kissed her into her hair.

„It’s byelorussian. My grandmother used to sing it to me, but I cannot remember the words. Only the melody remained,“ her voice trailed off. Silence took over the room, only every now and then quiet baby noises could be heard. Outside the sun was slowly rising, shining over the sleepy city, shining through the dirty glass on them.

„Valery, promise me one thing,“

„Don’t. Stop it, right now,“

„We both know that some things cannot be avoided no matter how much we wish they would disappear,“

„Have you ever wished to go back in time? Change your mind and never coming to Chernobyl?“ he asks, knowing that at some point they both came across this question in their mind, his pathetic attempt to turn the conversation somewhere else.

Ulana sighs, looks out of the window, then back to their son and finally lays her head down back on his chest.

„I only wish we had more time. Or that we had met before. But I think that our paths would be anyway connected with Chernobyl. No matter what happened, no matter what is stil going tol happen, I do not regret any choice I made since that April morning,“ Valery silently nods. Her breathing is getting heavier, she speaks slowly. Her whole body relaxes against him. Where the hell is Nastya?

Another silence, almost sacred, both feeling something inescapeable, fateful in the air.

Ulana lifts her head to him, and it breaks his heart into million pieces as he can see the flame in them slowly dying away.

„Take care of him. For as much time as he has,“ she whispers. Words get caught in his throat and he looks at the sleeping infant, gently rocking him in his arms.

„I will,“

She contentedly closes her eyes, single tear sliding down her cheek. He bends down, planting soft kiss on the skin of her forehead. Her eyes flutter open, and she lifts her head to meet his lips in a slow yet powerful kiss. As they break apart, he rests his forehead against hers and hears her whisper:

„I love you, Valery Aleksiyevich,“

„I love you, Ulana Yuriyevna,“

He starts planting small kisses all around her nose, cheeks, making her chuckle.

„Have I ever told you the story of how Schrebina destroyed a phone?“

She slowly shakes her head and rests against him.

„We just tried the robot on Masha roof, it was sent from Germans. Of course, the robot died after few minutes. We all were trying to absorb the reality, of what it meant, while Scherbina ran out like a bull after a red flag. Back in the trailer, oh, you should have heard him the words he said to the poor guy on the phone. He learned that the party gave Germans official numbers regarding radiation levels, which was his undoing, as he kept smashing the earpiece against the phone,“ Valery went back in his memories to that day, which made them unmistakably send many men to die ‚for the greater good‘. He couldn’t sleep few nights after that, but decided that to keep his mind sane, he has to focus on these small moments, to help him carry through the darkness.

As he took another breath to continue, he felt Ulana’s body grow heavier on him. His whole being froze, as her hand slid down from the blanket in which their son was wrapped. Tears filled his eyes as reality hit him hard in the face, knocking out every single atom of air hiding in his lungs. He moved a bit to the side, so he could see her better, placing their son between them, taking her empty face to his hands, her eyes still halfway open, but the burning fire in them was gone. Sobs were shaking his body violently, as he closed her eyelids and placed a soft kiss on both of them, whispering over and over.

„Ulana moya, moya Ulyanochka…“

////////

If Chernobyl cut his life into five years living expectancy, that night took another half of that.

In the early morning, when finally KGB allowed anyone to get to their apartment, his son died in his arms, while he was watching the paramedics wrapping Ulana’s limp body.

As much as he was trying to be ready for any possible outcome ever since the moment they learned she was pregnant, nothing could ever prepare him for this. He was never able to sleep again in that room, keeping it locked away. Only in moments of despair and a lot of vodka in his system he would allow himself to go inside and weep everything that he lost.

He never got to know where Ulana nor little Valentin Valyrievich were buried.

To his great surprise, Boris was allowed to visit him twice, for no more than fifteen minutes. The first time Valery could have sworn he was on the brink of drinking himself to death.

As the April 88’ got closer, he knew one thing for sure. He has to collect everything he knows, everything he remembers. Not for fame, not to boast about his knowledge. For the memory of all the lost lives, for all the hope that has been taken away from so many people. In attempt to prevent this from happening ever again. He had to say it, all of it. For her. For them.

On the second year anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the night which started a completely new chapter of his life, he brought the circle to end and at least this part of his existence took in his own hands, taking his life with it.

#chernobyl fanfic #valana #chernobyl hbo #fanfic #ulana khomyuk #valery legasov #boris scherbina #ulana/valery #writing #angst #tragedy #valery x ulana #ChernobHbo fanfic #Ulana Khomyuk/Valery Legasov

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sophiesjourney · 5 years ago

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As you know I visited Kiev in Ukraine at the start of May. The reason I booked to go there was because I’ve always wanted to visit Chernobyl. That and the fact I managed to bag flights with Ryanair costing only a fiver each way!!

Now before I begin to go through my day in Chernobyl and what you can expect if you do a day tour I will say.. I visited before the HBO series began. Literally only days before aswell luckily.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because there has been a lot of press lately. The show was very popular and now doing trips there seems to be too! This unfortunately means my review of the tour may no longer be reflective of what the tours are like.

I expect that it is now a lot busier, a lot more expensive and booking is probably required much further in advance.

But I will tell you about my experience with the no.1 operator on TripAdvisor: Chernobyl Tours. To avoid any confusion, this is the tour I did:

Finding the pickup point

The pickup point was easy to find in person despite being difficult to locate on Google! Jump on a metro or train to Central station then come out on the side that KFC is on. You want to walk out of the station where you will find a bunch of restaurants across the road. Don’t cross, just turn right and walk past a hotel. You’ll see a bunch of buses lined up, don’t forget to check the front of them for your name on a list.

Chernobyl day trip

We boarded the bus to find 2 English guides who told us stories about Chernobyl as we drove for approximately 2 hours. We also watched a documentary about the place before we arrived which was really interesting and really helped to set the scene.

If you book this tour through TripAdvisor in the UK you will get lunch included and a Geiger Counter which you get given before you arrive. We were able to check the reading before hitting the Exclusion Zone so we could do some comparing!

First stop was Zalissya an abandoned village just outside of the 10km Exclusion zone.

This was one of my favourite parts of the day because we were allowed to venture in to the buildings and go where ever we wanted.

There was a hospital to explore and a few houses that people had been forced to leave behind.

It was crazy to see the playground completely overgrown and abandoned.

I personally didn’t think we had enough time to spend here. I’m not sure if other tours would allow you to explore more but 20 minutes definitely didn’t allow us to venture far.. But perhaps that is the point so you don’t get lost deep in the forest!

We then headed for the Kindergarden and were told the stories of the children that had to leave without notice.

The geiger counter was going crazy here.

Next we listened to stories about Radar Duga-1.

This is fascinating. Definitely worth a Google search. Who knows what the truth is about this place really..

Midday we stopped for lunch close to the sight of the explosion. This was a strange experience! First we had to pass through detectors that would ensure we weren’t covered in nuclear particles… At least I think that’s what we were doing!

Lunch was interesting.. Felt like we were queuing up in a prison canteen or something. Such an incredible experience though and I really had no clue what I was eating!

Some of my favourite canine friends were there to greet us outside too.

We got to visit the iconic structure that took them years to build over the reactor. The new safe confinement cost them 1.5 billion euros to make and I’ve read that it should only expect to last 100 years… Wow.

Again not far from here I got to wave to the stray pooches. They really did look creepy at the end of this bridge.

Finally, we visited Pripyat. The town that is probably the most talked about when Chernobyl is mentioned.

This is where most people lived and is probably the worst effected part with empty buildings left everywhere.

Its where you will find the iconic Amusement Park.

Pripyat Amusement Park

This is where we found the highest geiger counter reading. Right by the ferris wheel!

We got to walk around Pripyat for over an hour. Venturing around outside the empty buildings whilst hearing stories of what they used to be.

Entering the football stadium and imagining what it must have been like to leave all this behind.

Whilst on the bus the guides were very informative. They told us stories to relate to what we were seeing. We drove through the outskirts of the red forest and watched our geiger counters spring to life.

If you ever ventured in to the forest I’m not sure how long you would live to tell the tale.

We even drove along the bridge of death. I’ll leave that one for you to learn about if you ever do manage to visit.

Overall I’d recommend this tour if you are looking for good value.

It was very good and reasonably priced.

I’m unsure how the latest TV series might have had an impact on tour prices but I personally would recommend that you go private. This is my only regret.

After visiting Kupari Resort last year, the abandoned luxury hotel resort – Read my post here. We were quite overwhelmed by the amount of people at Chernobyl. Kupari was neglected and we were completely alone however Chernobyl was quite the opposite.

If you take this tour there will be around 50+ at each place together. Imagine how much better the experience would be if there was only you and the guide!

If you have any questions about the tour just drop me a comment anytime and I’d be happy to help.

But don’t miss this dark piece of tragic history.

One eye opening day in Chernobyl As you know I visited Kiev in Ukraine at the start of May. The reason I booked to go there was because I've always wanted to visit Chernobyl.

#Chernobyl #Chernobyl tour review #Chernobyl Tours #chornobyl #day trip from Kiev #HBO #Pripyat #prypiat #Ukraine

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asklittlepip · 7 years ago

Note

Regarding your opinion on STALKER, it should be worth noting that the setting isn't post-apocalyptic... an apocalypse didn't really happen...

Well, it’s a “localized” apocalypse, really, not global. So far. And don’t say those things can’t happen, cause what about zombie ones? Those are often confined to a nation; it doesn’t make it any less “fall of civilization-y” within those borders.

Also, in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s case, it’s said that things like medicine and technology are advancing due to the artifacts taken from The Zone. But, uh, considering the thing that lies at the heart of said Zone; how long will that last? And is that even a good idea? It didn’t exactly work out well for the Illusive Man. Building your own science off something that can warp reality & isn’t friendly to humanity to begin with often turns out badly.. and who’s to say that series isn’t working up to something exactly like that happening worldwide, eh?

Why bother spreading your influence, when you can just let the humans do it for you? It’s worked out pretty damn good for rats, and they don’t have a wish-granting eldritch abomination uniting them. At least, not in the prime world..

(And I just checked, and concerns about The Zone expanding and what I just said actually happening is mentioned within Call of Pripyat itself, so I’m not just extrapolating here. It’s not the traditional apocalyptic situation, and is far smaller than usual, sure; but the potential for it to become far worse and much more widespread is very much possible.)

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deepseawritings · 7 years ago

Text

Breaking Point

At first glance it was difficult to believe this was the famous Strelok, the stalker who disabled the Brain Scorcher and then went into Pripyat by himself to defy the Monolith. Degtaryev had been expecting a man though as nails, probably carrying an exosuit, not a skinny, mousy man who looked about to collapse in exhaustion. Degtyarev would lie if he said he hadn't been slightly disappointed.

Upon further reflection though, the man had been surviving on his own in this Monolith infested city for God knows how long. Yeah, he could totally believe that was the same man he'd heard so much about. And he even had the gall to come strolling into the military base, after driving them nuts with the signal they kept detecting, and paint the higher ups as total incompetents with just a couple of phrases. Degtyarev immediately liked him. He was itching to talk with him and give him back the content of the stashes he found. But Degtyarev had no idea of how to approach him without looking like a creep; because, let's face it, what kind of person collects pieces of another person's life? So he decided first to strike up a conversation with him regarding other things.

After a some of questions about the CNPP and the Monolith –he was curious, ok?– Degtyarev finally confessed finding the caches of Strelok's group. To say Strelok was surprised was an understatement.

"Wonder how you could find them..." Yeah, they had been well hidden, but Degtyarev was damn good at finding clues and hidden things. "There should have been some records left. Found any of them?"

The barely disguised hope in the stalker's voice caught him off guard. Degtyarev had supposed he would be grateful to have back the notes from his comrades, yet he never imagined Strelok was going to react like those messages were life's greatest treasure. Strelok looked like he was going to hug him, but in the end he settled for a heartfelt "Thank you", and a promise to not forget what Degtyarev had done.

The evacuation was a nightmare. Just after stepping out of the Laundromat, a horde of zombified stalkers was waiting for them. They kept coming, wave after wave, until Degtyarev almost thought he was in the Night of the living dead.

Then, when they were done with the zombies, it was the turn for the endless hordes of mutants coming for them. If this kept up they would run out of ammo before arriving to the evacuation point. It was Strelok who solved their problem when he started running in an effort to leave the mutants behind. No shame in running away when you were about to be overrun, it was a sound strategy. Although this panicked sprinting through the streets of Pripyat could hardly be called a strategic fall back. But dignity comes a distant second to survival.

Nevertheless, herding mutants against them wasn't the only trick at the disposal of the Zone. A massive psy emission hit them on their way to the evacuation point, though thankfully it wasn't a full blown blowout. Several soldiers stumbled like drunk at the sudden emission, and Rogovets went down babbling like a madman. Degtyarev helped him up and tried to calm him, yet he ended shaking the stunned man to bring him out of his trance. It worked, sort of. However Rogovets was in no fit state to continue right now, he could barely stand up. Kovalsky materialized by their side and ordered Degtyarev to press on to the evacuation point with Strelok and Tarasov. The rest would follow in a moment, once Rogovets could keep himself upright.

Once they arrived to the extraction point the chopper wasn't waiting for them as it should. The evacuation team had been surprised by a Monolith squad and now they couldn't land. This mission had been a shitstorm since setting foot on this godforsaken city and it looked like it wasn't going to change now. Degtyarev was sure he'd cleansed the Prometheus Theatre just yesterday, as well as their base on the River Port. Where the hell were these bastards coming from?

Kovalsky and the rest arrived just in time to help. Degtyarev had already taken out the preacher, but more and more Monolith fighters kept appearing at an alarming pace.

The small square was swept in chaos. Bullets flew from one side to the other while more snipers targeted them and the helicopter from the roof of the River Port. One of them landed a crippling shot on Sokolov and another one killed Valentyr. Wounded as he was, Sokolov died shortly after in the brutal firefight against the Monolithians. Kovalsky ordered them all to fall back to the centre of the square and let the chopper blast the snipers off the roof. Still, that did not get rid of the Monolith fighters already surrounding them. It was a brutal fight that had no end in sight, as the Monolithians seemed to have never ending reinforcements. No matter how many enemies Degtyarev killed, more would come. In comparison to the military and Monolith, Strelok was underequipped with his modified AK and the recently returned SIG. And yet he was killing as many Monolith fighters as the soldiers, if not more. He truly was a legend of the Zone.

When they reached a lull in their fighting and the helicopter finally landed, Strelok was one of the first to get in, but only because Tarasov dragged him inside. He looked awfully indignant at that and Degtyarev understood his outrage. Getting the stalker out from here alive was one of their priorities, true, but maybe that hadn't been the most elegant way to ensure he boarded the chopper in one piece.

The helicopter took to the air and Degtyarev watched as the buildings of Pripyat became smaller and smaller in the distance. They had done it! This was it, his mission was over. Degtyarev didn't know how he felt about that. On one hand, good riddance to Pripyat, with its mutants and crazed Monolithians. On the other hand, judging by the introspective silence that had taken over the chopper, he wasn't the only one having conflicting feelings about their departure.

The Scientific Institute for Research of the Chernobyl Anomalous Area –or you know, just the Institute– was a monstrously huge building in the heart of Kyiv. Very new and modern, especially when compared with the cheap apartment where Strelok now lived, and utterly alien to him after living in the Zone for so long.

The government had given him a job there. Officially, he was a consultant, an expert of the Zone here to share his knowledge. What a fancy name to say the labcoats would grill him with their questions in an effort to understand a place they had never seen in person. But they were paying him more than he expected, so it wasn't that bad. He even had small breaks every hour, like fancy office jobs did. And he spent every single of those breaks outside, smoking by the Institute's entrance. It was a habit he picked up recently, or so Strelok thought. He truly had no idea if he had ever smoked before, although given how he quickly turned it into an essential part of his days, he would say he'd at least been a casual smoker.

Observing Kyiv's busy life going on around him always put him a bit on edge. There were so many people, all of them blissfully unaware of what he'd seen. Of the horrors that lurked not so far away from here. He wanted to spare them that, and if it meant enduring hours of questions day after day, it was a small price to pay to save humanity from the expanding Zone.

"Hey man, I hadn't expected to find you here!"

Turning around to the source of the voice he found himself face to face with Major Degtyarev.

"I could say the same," he was pleasantly surprised to see the Major here. Up until now he hadn't realized how much he missed having anything or anyone remotely familiar around. Ever since coming back Strelok's life had been new and disconcerting. "Are you going to be the new military liaison?"

"Nah, I'm here for a medical exam," Degtyarev sighed dramatically. "They want to see if being exposed to all that weird shit left some permanent sequels."

"If it's any consolation, I also had to go through it." Strelok chuckled darkly. They still wanted to run more tests on him, but he had refused multiple times, and so they eventually gave up.

He took one last drag of the cigarette before throwing it to the ground and followed Degtyarev inside. A group of scientist dressed in their crisp, white coats where talking in one of the corners of the main hall, but it was otherwise empty.

"Nice," Degtyarev whistled in admiration. "Although everything's a bit too white and shiny for my taste."

One of the scientists, a short and plump woman, had left the group and was coming to the front door. She walked in a way that reminded Strelok of a boar about to charge.

"Eh, I suppose it's not bad." Strelok shrugged. He truly didn't give a damn about the building. "I heard the military was going to promote you."

"Mr. Konstantinovich?" The woman politely asked. Strelok moved slightly to the side, not wanting to block her way.

"Oh, that." Degtyarev also moved aside, following Strelok's lead. "Yeah, they want to make me Colonel. I'll accept it, of course, but they're mistaken if they think I'll take a desk job."

"Mr. Konstantinovich," the woman insisted. And still no answer.

"I think that might be you dude," Degtyarev said to him, then graced the woman with a respectful nod.

Strelok whipped around to check if there was somebody behind him, because that was surely a mistake. Then he grimaced when he remember that no, Degtyarev was right, it was him she was waiting for. Apparently his family's name was Konstantinovich, even if he could never remember it for more than five seconds.

"Sorry miss, I don't remember your name." He finally faced her with a sheepish expression.

"It's doctor Nina Yovenko," she corrected him with a glacial voice. "We're ready whenever you are, Mr. Konstantinovich."

"Right, sure." Fuck, he wasn't looking forward to explain his findings on the C-Consciousness project to the top researchers of the Institute. Again.

"Listen, we're both short on time right now," Degtyarev said as he checked his watch. "But I'll be free in about an hour and half. Catch you later, ok? I know a place not very far from here."

He was gone before Strelok had time to say yes, leaving him with the irritated scientist. She didn't say anything else, yet Strelok could almost feel the impatience radiating from her.

"After you, doctor Yovenko." He gestured at her to lead the way, hoping she would take it as a courteous gesture of deference. Truth was Strelok had no idea where he was supposed to go.

The bar was the textbook definition of a seedy dive. Cramped and not very clean, badly illuminated and, of course, it boasted an impressive collection of cheap booze on the shelves behind the counter. A dusty TV hung up on the wall, but it was tuned on some random news channel with the sound turned off. The barman was tinkering with an old radio, trying to repair it. This place was so reminiscent of The 100 Rads that Strelok felt like he was back in Rostok. It was only missing the stalkers drinking to forget their days. And some music instead of the incessant crackling of static.

"To Colonel Degtyarev," Strelok raised his beer up and the liquid sloshed wildly inside the bottle. "And all the paperwork and red tape that comes with his new position!"

Degtyarev laughed and raised his beer as well. "And to your newfound name, Mr. Konstantinovich."

"Oh no," he said after taking a generous swig of the beer. "I can tolerate it from the eggheads, but you calling me anything else but Strelok would feel wrong."

"I thought you would be happy to reclaim your identity."

It was a fair point, and also one with a difficult answer. How to explain that this identity didn't feel real, not like the name of Strelok felt real? Hell, he even felt more comfortable being Marked One than when they addressed him as Pavel Konstantinovich. Who was this guy? Not him, that was for sure.

"A name doesn't mean much to me anymore," Strelok downed the rest of his beer. "After the amnesia and everything I just stuck with Strelok because it's shorter than Marked One." That felt weird to acknowledge, so far only Doc had known that Marked One and Strelok were the same person.

Degtyarev admitted he preferred Strelok too, he said it suited him better than Marked One. They fell into a companionable silence while Degtyarev finished his beer.

"Have you remembered anything from your life before the Zone?"

"No." Strelok tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but his success was limited and Degtyarev was looking at him with something too similar to pity. "Nobody's told me anything either. Just that I have no family waiting for me."

He felt uncomfortable venting his frustrations like that. Deep down Strelok was afraid of complaining too much. He didn't want to sound ungrateful, after all it was thanks to the military he was where he was now. And Degtyarev might be friendly with him, but he worked for the government. As far as he knew, Degtyarev's loyalties lay largely with the USS.

"Shit, that's rough dude." Well, at least his sympathy felt genuine. That was enough for Strelok.

Meeting up with Degtyarev twice a week for a couple of beers became part of his routine.

Every morning Strelok would wake up after a handful of hours of restless sleep, take a quick shower and change into whatever clothes he found that weren't too rumpled, making a conscious effort to not grab the SEVA suit lying at the bottom of his wardrobe.

Taking the metro to the central district was a tedious journey, and the only thing fuelling him to carry on with another pointless day was the extra strong coffee he swallowed before leaving the apartment.

Once he arrived at the Institute he knew his days could only go two ways: he would either spend hours being questioned about the Zone and then ignored while the scientists talked over him; or he would be up for another battery of tests and a review of how the prescribed meds were working. And when he invariably told them the meds weren't doing shit to help with his memory, they would change his medication again in hopes of getting it right this time.

Afterwards Strelok usually went straight to home, or to the bar with Degtyarev and then back home. The metro ride from Kyiv's centre to downtown was long and mightily uncomfortable. So much people crammed in so little space; and the noise, oh God, the noise. Thousands of people going up and down, chatting, laughing, making noise with their phones... it was almost unbearable. Strelok was used to empty spaces and silence. Even the most populated parts of the Zone were almost empty when compared with Kyiv's metro at rush hours. The uneasiness always persisted until he got to his apartment and closed the door behind him, isolating himself from the world.

His evenings at home were a sad affair. He would eat some of the canned food he compulsively stored and call it a day. Or if Strelok felt like indulging himself he would have some kefir and bread with condensed milk. On a memorable occasion his neighbour had given him a tray of homemade potato salad and he'd wolfed it down in one go. Nonetheless, he tried to avoid Mrs. Kravchenko, who got one look at Strelok and decided to treat him like he was one of her sons. Now, don't get him wrong, she was very nice and affable, but it was so awkward to be mothered by a woman who was almost surely younger than him.

The nights were long and boring. Television was rubbish most of the time, but regular sleeping patterns were something Strelok never got right. Therefore, he spent his nights sprawled on the couch, watching reruns of old series and history documentals until he eventually fell asleep.

Almost four months had passed since he started working at the Institute and nothing had changed. All his days were carbon copies of the previous ones, and they had all blurred together in Strelok's mind. He looked at himself in the mirror as every morning, barely noticing the bags under his eyes anymore, and repeated to himself this was better than staying in the Zone. It had to be.

He was washing his face when he felt his muscles go rigid and his legs gave in. What the fuck was happening? The floor rushed up to him and pain bloomed brightly in his forehead. The last thing he noticed before fainting was the red stain of blood smeared over the sink's edge.

The file in front of him had been bothering him since he read it. And now, sitting in the bar while he waited for Strelok to arrive, Degtyarev wasn't so sure he did the right thing.

Look at him, recently promoted to Colonel and what was the first thing he did? He used his newfound influence to acquire a copy of Strelok's restricted file, that's what he did. Degtyarev might work for the government, but he thought Strelok deserved to know what his life had been like, secrecy be damned. He knew the ex-stalker's memories hadn't come back, and they probably never would, so reading about it was the second best option. Of course Degtyarev hadn't even tried to resist the temptation and read the file first.

Real name was Pavel Konstantinovich, as they already knew. His parents died in a car crash when he was nine. Strelok was sent to an orphanage and stayed in the system until he came of age, and then he joined the military. By all accounts he spent eighteen miserable months there since following orders was not his strong suit, or so it was suggested by his rather large disciplinary record. After his military stint he went to Karkhiv and lived there for five months, and then he moved to Donestk for a year. Afterwards he disappeared for another three months, until he was spotted crossing the border to Belarus under the name of Anton Chernov. And that was the end of the personal section. So Strelok had always been a paranoid and slippery bastard, good to know. Then there were the results of the psychological evaluations and medical tests he had since coming back. In Degtyarev's opinion, that part was even more depressing.

He had retrieved the file in the hopes it would motivate Strelok to find an old friend, or a way to reconnect with his old life and stop looking so dead inside. But after reading it he wasn't so sure it would work. The last thing he wanted was to exacerbate his current apathy towards the world. Should he give it to him, or should he keep quiet?

"I see you have begun without me."

Speaking of the devil, here he was. The ex-stalker sat in front of him and signalled the barman to bring him a beer. Even in the poor lightning of the bar, when he turned his head to the side, the fresh cut on his forehead was rather noticeable.

"Shit, what happened to you?"

"I felt like adding some symmetry," Strelok ran his fingers over the old scar on the other side of his head, but that one was barely visible under his hair.

"Did you get in a brawl with one of the scientists? Was it because they asked you to explain blowouts again?" Degtyarev's joke got a small chuckle out of Strelok, but it soon turned into a bitter grimace.

"If only. Epilepsy attack, hit the sink pretty hard on my way down to the floor."

The barman set the beer in the table and they drank in gloomy silence. Eventually Strelok noticed the manila envelope on the side of the table. He did not ask, but he kept looking at it like he was expecting it to burst open on its own. Making up his mind, Degtyarev pushed the envelope in front of him.

"I acquired a copy of your file, thought you might want to have a look."

The look on his face was a painful mix of amazement and surprise, and Degtyarev felt guilty for his earlier thoughts of hiding the file from him.

"Thank you." Strelok touched the envelope reverently. "Won't you get in trouble for that?"

"For this? I don't think so," Degtyarev waved his concerns away.

Appeased by that, Strelok tucked the envelope inside his jacket and relaxed for the first time since he arrived. "Good, good. So, how have you been? Wasn't your brother coming to visit you this week?"

"No. My brother in law," Degytarev was offended at the thought of having that man as his brother. Strelok didn't bother to hide his amusement at Degtyarev's unusual display of disdain. "The moron wanted money to settle a gambling debt."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I might have threatened to dump him in Chernobyl if he didn't solve this mess soon or if he hurt my sister in any way." Degtyarev admitted without regrets. Strelok laughed so hard he snorted beer.

They spent the rest of the evening getting drunk and coming up with scenarios in which to dump Degtyarev's brother in law if he didn't get his act together. Strelok offered to smuggle the moron into the Zone if Degtyarev ever decided to go with it, and he wasn't sure if he was joking or not. Never mind, it was good to know he could count with Strelok's help.

He hadn't showered in days. It wasn't that bad, he'd gone far longer without washing while in the Zone. Also, his apartment was starting to look like it had been hit by a hurricane, yet Strelok did not care at all.

He hadn't gone to work in a week and didn't care about that either. His days were spent going from the bed to the couch, eating his dwindling stores of canned food and avoiding answering the phone.

The beginning of Strelok's spiral downwards had been months ago, the day he had the first epilepsy attack. But that was only the start. Then he started losing time. He would be getting dressed and next thing he knew he was in the kitchen putting water to boil. Or he was going to the metro, and then he realised it was half an hour later and he was sitting on a bench in a park with no memories of getting there.

Of course, that was simply fascinating to the scientists, and Strelok had to endure more brain scans and blood tests and questioning, only to be told they had no idea why he was having those lapses. There was no reason for his epilepsy either. So he ended up with no explanation and yet more medication to take daily. Fucking great.

His medical situation also fucked him over in other ways. Strelok had been looking forward to guiding an expedition of the military into the Zone. He wasn't thrilled to be acting as a nanny, but hey, at least he was going to get some time back in the field. He was sick of being cooped up in the Institute. However, after the time lapses and the random epilepsy attacks, he was deemed unfit for the mission. No matter how much he argued, the decision was final. He wasn't going to see the Zone again anytime soon, except maybe in his nightmares.

As if that wasn't enough, weeks later the hallucinations started. One morning he arrived at the Institute, harried and stressed after days of barely sleeping, and saw a bloodsucker emerging from behind the receptionist's counter. Strelok may have reacted violently, throwing a nearby stapler to the ghostly figure and actually hitting an unlucky lab assistant, but in Strelok's opinion having the security guards tackle him to the ground was a bit of an over-reaction. Explaining why he had thrown the damned stapler turned out to be a mistake.

After that incident Strelok's position on the Institute changed from specialist consultant to glorified lab rat. They did not treat him badly, but he was so tired of being a curiosity to study. Apparently that was all he was good for. All his previous help served for nothing, they weren't remotely closer to understanding the Zone, much less to know how to neutralize it. His life since coming back had been just a massive waste of time.

When Strelok was in the Zone he'd thought he wanted to purge it from the world and spare its horrors to everyone else. Now that he was back in the Big Land he missed it more than he ever imagined. Life was funny like that.

The Zone had a certain allure, a simple honesty about its brutality. He missed it. He literally couldn't remember anything else about his life except being a stalker. The file Degtyarev brought him offered no consolation either. He had nothing and no one to tie him here, apparently Strelok had always been a loner.

On his worst moment Strelok had taken out his old Makarov from the bottom of his backpack and contemplated putting an end to it all. He left it on the coffee table for hours, looking at it and thinking about what it would be like to eat a bullet. But he couldn't do it. It felt too cowardly. No, he had a better idea, one that had been hounding him for weeks, no, months. It would require some planning, tough.

The ghostly snork crawling from beneath the table made him remember he hadn't taken his meds in days. It was fine, he wouldn't be taking his pills where he was going either.

Just arrived from his last mission the top brass swiftly informed Degtyarev that nobody had seen Strelok for weeks. They hoped Colonel Degtyarev would be able to persuade their wayward consultant to come back to the Institute. Particularly, he couldn't care less about making Strelok come back to the fold, but this total shutdown from Strelok's part worried him. Twenty six attempted calls, and Strelok hadn't bothered to answer any of them. He went on a mission for a few weeks and when he came back he was slapped in the face with yet more problems. Fuck, couldn't he catch a break? He just needed a day off, it wasn't that much to ask for.

However, there was no rest for Degtyarev. So here he was now, in front of one of downtown's typical highrise buildings. The entrance door was wide open and one of the neighbours was mopping the floor. Ignoring the old woman's disapproving glare Degtyarev went up to the fifth floor.

Now if he remembered correctly, Strelok's was the third door. He knocked. No answer. He knocked again, harder and for longer than before. Eventually Strelok showed up to open the door. He looked like he'd been sleeping just before Degtyarev arrived.

"Alexander," He seemed stunned to see him. "What are you doing here?"

"May I come in?" The ex-stalker didn't look worse than any other time, but Degtyarev wasn't appeased just with that.

"Yeah, sure." After an uncomfortably long silence Strelok finally agreed and led him inside, apologising for the mess.

For once that statement was spot on. In the ten months Strelok had been living here it had never been in such a state of disarray. A pile of clothes and blankets threatened to drown the couch, there was a chair on the floor, a mountain of empty cans surrounded a pile of papers on the table, and a sea of empty cigarette packs covered the coffee table. Surprisingly enough there was also a plate with pelmeni, looking freshly made and delicious.

"Didn't know you cooked," Degtyarev grabbed one of the dumplings. Oh yes. They tasted as good as they looked.

"Those are from Mrs. Kravchenko. My cooking is not that good." Strelok admitted, hovering awkwardly near the table. "So did you have a reason for coming, apart from eating my food?"

"What about being worried because you have secluded like an animal in its lair?" Degtyarev asked him, sitting on the couch. "Is that reason enough?"

A certain object on the coffee table caught his attention. Even half buried by trash as it was, he could recognize a Makarov at first glance. Fuck, this was not a good sign.

"Are you here on the Institute's behalf?" Strelok's suspicions were spot on, and also so very wrong.

"Hang the Institute, I'm here because my friend has apparently been missing for days!"

"Oh." Strelok's surprise was almost comical. He picked up the fallen chair and sat down. "I'm fine, really. I just needed some time off."

Degtyarev picked the Makarov with a scowl. "Really?"

Of course Strelok rushed to assure him this wasn't what he thought. Though his nervousness did not put Degtyarev at ease. He'd been planning to do something stupid, Degtyarev was sure. If it wasn't suicide, thank God, then what was he planning?

In a moment of inspiration Degtyarev realised the answer. The weapon, the heavy suit draped over the couch and half hidden under a blanket, the notes and papers scattered around, and even a map over the table; it all became clear.

"You insane idiot, you're going back." It wasn't even a question, no need to ask what was more than evident.

"Alexander, Sasha... You have to understand, I'm going crazy here. The only thing left for me is the Zone."

It was the plea of a desperate and broken man. The Zone was a dangerous place and sooner or later it would eventually succeed in killing you, no matter how careful you were. Degtyarev knew it, Strelok knew it, and all stalkers who survived their first mission out of the rookie camp knew it. And yet Degtyarev understood why Strelok felt like he did. The pull of the Zone was strong, calling you like a siren, always in the back of your mind.

Strelok raised his head and met his eyes. Everything in him spoke of stubborn determination. "I'm not changing my mind. You can try to stop me but–"

"Wasn't thinking to," Degtyarev sighed while leaning back on the couch. And even if he wanted to, he wasn't sure anyone could keep Strelok out of the Zone. Frayed memory or not he knew more about the secrets of the Zone than anyone else. "You know, they're sending me back to the Zone soon."

There was a pregnant pause where Strelok said nothing but looked questioningly at him, no doubt trying to work out why he was telling him that.

"What I mean," Degtyarev continued, "is that once I arrive to Cordon's outpost, they'll all be very busy greeting the newly arrived Colonel. Perhaps busy enough to leave the perimeter unguarded for a few minutes."

"I don't need help, I have my ways of getting in!" Strelok scoffed.

Just as Degtyarev thought he would, nonetheless he felt the need to point out something. "Once someone realizes you've escaped back to the Zone, they'll probably send someone after you."

"Only if they know where to search." Strelok said like it was no big deal.

He didn't seem worried at all, but the name of Strelok was well known in the Zone and tracking a PDA was child's play. However, he supposed Strelok knew what he was doing. After all it wouldn't be the first time someone was after him. Degtyarev wasn't sure what he would do if he was the one assigned to track Strelok down. But that was a worry for the future.

"In that case," Degtyarev got up from the couch, "I say we should get properly hammered, as a send-off."

The stalker smiled relieved and agreed with him. Degtyarev hoped they would see each other again one day.

The barbed fence was about twenty meters ahead. It wasn't what Strelok was looking for. Somewhere here, hidden under the tall grass and massive shrubs, there should be the entrance of a tunnel. That was his ticket to freedom.

He'd arrived here with the golden light of dawn, after a night of hitch-hiking rides to get away from Kyiv. It was that or robbing a vehicle, but he didn't know how to drive, so that would prove pointless. Neither of that mattered now. He was finally a few steps away from the Zone and he felt better than he'd felt in months.

The tunnel entrance was behind a curtain of hanging vines and plant's roots. The inside was damp and pitch black, so Strelok turned on the flashlight. You may never know what lay in the dark, waiting for an unsuspecting soul. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but that didn't mean the way was clear. Strelok threw a bolt and the metallic sound echoed in the tunnel. He listened intently. Apart from the dripping of water nothing else could be heard. Good. It was rare to find mutants or anomalies this close to the border, but not unheard of.

The ground was slippery with mud and moss and the weak light of his flashlight barely breached the inky darkness that surrounded him. The passage got narrower until Strelok had to crawl on his hands and knees, sliding over jagged rocks where the wall had crumbled down. A distant spot of shining daylight acted like a beacon, and Strelok crawled as fast as he could towards it.

When he got out he lay down on a patch of grass and let the sun bathe him. Yes, this was exactly where he was supposed to be. Now it was time to put an end to Strelok's story.

A scant week later a Duty patrol came to Yanov bringing Strelok's broken PDA, saying they found it near a whirligig and the vaporised remains of an unlucky stalker. The news spread like wildfire, reaching even the military. The legendary stalker had finally been claimed by the Zone. May he rest in peace.

Coincidentally, that very same day an unknown loner arrived to Yanov Station searching for a technician to fix his PDA. It took Nitro most part of the day to fix it, the PDA had taken some serious damage and most of its pieces had to be replaced. The owner waited patiently at the station, though he preferred to keep to himself like most loners did. No one paid much attention to him, he was a pretty unremarkable traveller who left as soon as his PDA was repaired.

That same evening two stalkers, one with the military and one living in the Great Swamp, received the same message.

20:49 – Marked One, Loner.

I'm back! : )

Author’s note: I got two possibilities for Strelok's real name from the wiki, and since I didn't know which one to choose I used both XD

#S.T.A.L.K.E.R.#fanfic #Strelok #degtyarev

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sandytree1 · 6 years ago

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Radioactive hazards

Just a jumbled mess of notes. I’m still thinking about that Project 7 where we were supposed to design a live-work research pod for Chernobyl that I didn’t finish. So began googling stuff and looking up and working out details I’m wondering about.

How to visit and live in radioactive areas? How to dress? How to prepare (local) food? What are the most radioactive places on earth? (contrast and compare) How to walk around radioactive sites? How to stay safe? How dangerous is radiation? How long should and could you stay in a radioactive area? How is it for people who moved back - what are their lives like? How to resettle the site?

What do people do here? What can you research on here? What kind of data from site would be interesting? What tools, equipment and facilities do you need to do this research? How would their day by day routine look like - throughout a month - throughout the four season?

What’s the geography like? Where do I find reliable maps of the area? How to I access these maps? geography, typology, contour relief map, political boundaries, rivers and seas, mountains, flora, fauna, exclusion zone. travel paths, roads, infrastructure, landmarks, world map location, prevailing winds, climate, habitat type.

What are the dimensions of a wolf? What does a wolf need to survive and thrive-ish? What does the day to day life of a wolf look like?

Nuclear power is a reliable source of energy, but comes with the risk of meltdown.

Be careful of what you touch and where you step, because there’s all this radioactive dust and particles floating everywhere.

When it blew, it spewed radiation across dozens of towns. Triggering a 12 mile evacuation zone that’s still partially in effect today. The plant itself is the hazardous site.

Yet Japan is encouraging people to move back. How has conditions improved in the years since the disaster? Radiation researcher Azby Brown. You need to get permission to enter. Play it safe and stay in my protective gear.

Fukushima Daiichi -- actually a massive cleanup in there, 5000 people working there. They can get into parts of the buildings, but they send robots there to take video etc. People can’t even go in there, since the radiation is so high. How long could people survive in there? A couple of minutes. There’s so much radiation damaging and killing your cells, that your organs would simply shut down. There might be some way of cleaning up to make it livable in 20 years, but it’s an incredibly daunting task.

They’re removing the top inches of soil where the dust has settled. Dropped into plastic bags and stored in a temporary site. 9 million bags and counting. “Watch your speed, careful.”

Town has become overrun with wild boars. They’re ravaging homes and everything in their path. They eat and destroy crops, making it hard for farmers. They’re not only aggressive and known to attack, they’re radioactive.

for everyone who returns, they build a new school and house from scratch. In the school yard there’s a radiation monitor so parents can check if its safe when they drop off their kids. “We teach our students about the volume and strength of the radiation, as well as how to avoid it.”

Children are actually the most vulnerable to radiation.

Everyday Ouji-san prepares food for the students and has to test the local ingredients that they use for radiation. Has there been times when the radiation levels were too high? Yes, there has. Test once per ingredient, which takes 30 min per ingredient to measure.

For some living elsewhere is simply not an option. “We have our ancestors with a long history in this town as family. This is the most comfortable place for me, and I wish to continue to live here. I wasn’t worried that much to return, really.” Kids play outside on the ground, and we were concerned about soil contamination. After the accident, we carried a radiation detector with us, although the radiation level in the town of Naraha is low and safe. We’ve gotten used to this. I truly hope more families return and the town will be more active again.” People really trying and working to rebuild.

youtube

A Geiger counter only measures ionizing radiation -- aka radiation with enough energy to rip electrons off atoms. Measured in units called sieverts. If above 2 sieverts, then you’ll probably die shortly after.

Nautral background radiation coming from earth itself. The soil, rocks, air, space. Average .1 - .2 microsieverts per hour. The radiation in Hiroshima today is only 0.3 microsieverts per hour, 70 years later. Uranium ore is fluorescent under UV light. Marie Curie discovered uranium in Chech republic. In her office her doorknob is 0.10 and then the back of her chair when she pulled it out leaving traces of radium. New Mexico, Trinity test site where the world’s first nuclear bomb was set off. The whole area was vaporated. There was so much heat coming off the bomb that it fused all the desert sand into this green glass which you can still find it here. They’ve named these pellets Trinitite. 0.8 per hour in average, while the pellets are 2-3 microsieverts per hour.

Which place has higher radiation than any place we’ve seen so far? Answer: airplanes. As you gain altitude, there’s less atmosphere above you to shield you from the cosmic rays: 0.5 microsieverts - 3 microsieverts per hour.

Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor 4, Ukraine. Just walking close (100 m) gives off 5-6 microsieverts. So much heat was generated that it blew the top off and spead radioactive isotopes throughout this whole surrounding area and over into Europe. If I stayed here for 1 hour, my body will receive as mcuh when you’d receive a dental x-ray. So not a huge amount of radiation. Reason why it’s not that high is because they removed a couple of meters worth of topsoil from this whole area, then dumped it somewhere. Which is why we can stand here.

Fukushima, Japan. Geiger counter goes up: 3. Mask is overkill, it’s just to stop the dust from getting into my lungs. 10% lesser radiaction material spread than Chernobyl. But because it’s not as long ago, much less of the radiation has decayed. Getting readings up to 5-10 microsieverts. Don’t stay too long because of that.

Pripyat hospital was where the firemen were brought. The ones who fought the fires at the reactor, and in the basement they left their clothes once they realized it was so contaminated - they chucked it down there. 200-500 microsieverts by the door of them. 2000 microsieverts is a years worth of natural background radiation. CT scan is 3 years worth of microsieverts. Fukushima residents will receive an additional 10 000 worth of microsieverts in their lifetime. US radiation workers limited to 50 000 microsieverts. Astronauts receive 80 000 microsieverts. Smokers lungs receive on average 160 000 microsieverts every year.

Uranium is not limitless supply (230 years). The largest problem is not meltdown or anything, but nuclear waste. Many different designs.

youtube

Nowadays Chernobyl has become a site for dark tourism. 30 years later more than 10 000 tourists explore the disaster site every year. They snap photos of the stricken power plant and wanders the empty streets of Pripyat. Visitors are screened before they enter the zone. 19 miles surrounding blast area. Told not to sit down nor touch items within this cordon. Checked for radioactive particles when they leave again. Tour operators mainly based in Kiev. They insist the site is safe to see. Even offers overnight stays at a hotel which has been freshly built.

Chernobyl power plant blew up 26 april 1986, Soviet Union. Nowadays Pripyat, Ukraine. Secret didn’t break until 50 hours later when radioactive particles were detected in Forsmark power plant in Sweden near Stockholm. Accompanied by a toxic cloud sweeping the continent. Belarus suffered the worst effects: poisonous rain, damage to plants and crops, birth of mutated animals. Impact also felt in Scandinavia, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, France, UK. Only 31 people were killed directly - mostly staff and brave souls that battled to encase the bleeding reactor in concrete. But for all its notoriety and its pan-European aftermath, it was largely a localised affair. 400 x more radiocactive material realised into atmosphere than by the Hiroshima bomb. Pripyat was evacuated 27. april - far too late in terms of citizen’s health.

Exclusion zone is on border between Belarus and Ukraine: Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (Ukraine) and Polesian Exclusion Zone (Belarus). 19 miles surrounding blast area.

Ukraine is at war with Russia over Krim peninsula, although Putin won’t acknowledge their involvement in the civil conflict. But the capital Kiev is 450 miles north-west of troubled Donetsk. The current Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advice says “the situation in Kiev and western cities is generally calm.”

Tour operators insists that site is safe to visit. Ukrainian officials have suggested that Pripyat won’t be habitable for another 20 000 years though. Crew maintaining concrete sarcophagus work strictly monitored 5 hour days over the course of a month then take 15 days off.

Place has become a time capsule of Cold War era beyond scope of what a museum can recreate. It IS 1986 with all its suspicion, frission and atomic fear.

Rusted swimming pools, dusty gymnasium, giant ferris wheel. Amusement park was due to open 4 days after explosion. They’ve all become a symbol of the disaster.

East European forest has reclaimed the city. Unchecked by man’s hand in 30 years. ABANDONED site. Trees begun to creep in. Wildlife skitters and darts in the shelter they provide. Wolves, lynx, brown bears have returned. Blissfully free of human footprints.

Chornobyl tour (chernobyl-tour.com) offers 1 day foray to both power plant and Pripyat from £62 a head. Or a detailed 5 day itinerary from £361 per person.

Welcome to Chernobyl (chernobylwel.com) specialises in 2 day trips which stay overnight from £240.

Ukrainian National Chornobyl Museum (chornobylmuseum.kiev.ua) is a safer compromise. Charts the event with an exhibit of gas masks, images of deformed animals. Moving through a corridor of name signs for villages that were deleted from the map when the reactor burst. How many people were displaced?

It was without comparison until Fukushima 2011.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/ukraine/articles/how-can-i-visit-chernobyl-and-is-it-safe/

25 things you didn’t know about Ukraine, the heart of Europe

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/ukraine/articles/amazing-fact-you-probably-didnt-know-about-ukraine/

How to travel to radioactive places (GOOGLE)

Watch Derek Muller travel to the world’s most radioactive places

Ten most radioactive places on earth - Brainz

About radiation danger/safety of short-term trips to the Chernobyl Zone (chernobyl-tour.com)

The most radioactive places in Chernobyl - ChernobylWEL.com

Nuclear tourism - Wikivoyage

Is Chernobyl safe? what you need to know - World Nomads

What’s it like to visit Chernobyl exclusion zone (The Independent)

Fukushima Travel Guide (Japan-Guide.com)

Netflix’s Dark Tourist: Japan investigating Fukushima tour episode (news.com)

travel the most radioactive places in the world (youniversitytv.com)

How to decontaminate a radioactive environment (MPH online)

Fukushima travel guide (GOOGLE)

Nuclear Waste problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU3kLBo_ruo

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gypsyhcart · 7 years ago

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@vixxyvampire you should totally check out the buzzfeed unsolved video they did on Waverly Sanatorium, as well as Bright Sun Gaming's entire abandoned series. He did Pripyat on there and it was seriously interesting. I have to look up, someone did a walk through of the old abandoned Six Flags New Orleans, which was neat as fuck and a few people, who promptly got banned, did walk throughs of Disney's River Country and also Nara Dreamland!

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photomaniacs · 7 years ago

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How Photographing an Abandoned Hotel Cost Me $2,800 http://ift.tt/2txyXT8

Unfortunately, this story is not a joke. On the 20th of June 2017, I transferred €2,365.67 (~$2,702) to a lawyer in Austria because I photographed an abandoned hotel in Austria in 2013 and put those photos online without permission. In this article I will tell you exactly what happened and how it happened.

In an attempt to not “poke the bear,” I’ve removed some of the personal information in the letters I will be sharing with you and I won’t be sharing any of the photos I took back then. The photo at the top of this blog was shot in an abandoned hotel in Italy.

In December 2013, I went to Austria to photograph abandoned buildings. There is a village where there are lots of abandoned buildings, mostly hotels. Photographing one of these abandoned hotels turned out to be a very expensive visit.

Entering was easy since multiple windows were standing open and I could just hop in. I started exploring the huge building and found a couple of interesting rooms. Some of these rooms were extremely decayed — there was one room in particular in which the wall behind the bed was covered in black mold. I took a couple of photos and after about an hour or two I left. After exploring the rest of the village, I continued my journey through Austria and Germany and went back home to The Netherlands.

The first thing I usually do when I come back home from a photography trip is import my photos into Lightroom and have a quick look at them. I was disappointed to see that I kind of messed it up. Most of the photos had really blown out highlights and I wasn’t happy with the results at all. Nevertheless, a few days later I edited some of the pictures and uploaded them onto Flickr (when I still had an account). Something I used to do back then is create an album for each location I had visited and give the album the “Urbex name” of the location. This is how my photos were later discovered by the lawyer that charged me.

The envelope containing the first letter I received

While I completely forgot about having those pictures online, I received a letter in January this year from a lawyer in Austria. He accused me of entering the property without permission and uploading photos of the interior without having paid license fees. He wanted me to pay the fees and the labor it cost him to write me.

A total amount of €1,054.46 (~$1,204).

At first, not knowing which location this was about, I did some research and found out it was the hotel I shot in December 2013. I hadn’t looked at the photos for a few years and when I saw them again I thought they were utter crap and I felt stupid for not having removed them earlier.

Because I do not have a very good understanding of the German language, I requested legal counsel, both from a lawyer in The Netherlands and from a lawyer in Austria. The lawyer from Austria basically advised me not to reply to the letter, thinking it was just an attempt to get easy money and that the accuser wouldn’t take the effort to go any further with it. The lawyer from The Netherlands wrote an e-mail to the accuser telling him that I was not planning on paying the amount he was requesting.

A few days after the e-mail from the Dutch lawyer was sent, we received a reply from the accuser warning me that if I didn’t pay he would take it to court. I was advised to not take the warning seriously and to leave it alone. It would supposedly go away… which did not turn out to happen.

While I was shooting my report in Pripyat, Chernobyl, in May this year, a package with a lot of papers was delivered to my house. When I got home I read it and, while most of it was in German, I thought I understood this was a letter from court informing me that I was officially being charged.

Since I live in Europe, I apparently have the right to refuse the receival of these official papers since the papers were written in a language I did not fully understand. I was allowed to request a translation into a language I did understand and I requested a translation into Dutch using the attached form.

I did not receive a translation, but weeks later I received the official judgement of the court in Austria telling me that I was found guilty. Since I didn’t show up at the court session, not knowing when it was since I never received a translation, I was immediately found guilty. There was no defense from my side. I had to pay a crazy amount of money and was never allowed to go back to the building that I entered without permission, or appeal.

At first I still was not planning to pay since I had the feeling I was being treated unfairly. I should have at least have the chance to defend myself or be aware of the official charges by being able to read them in a language I understand. I’ve checked whether my request had been sent correctly to and been received in Austria, and it was. So if the request was delivered why didn’t I get a translation? I have no idea.

Again, I requested legal advice in The Netherland. I was told, by three separate lawyers, that in my case the best thing to do was to pay and bring the whole thing to an end. That advice was based on the fact that I don’t have an endless amount of money to appeal. The process costs were already very high and if I appealed and lost the appeal, the amount of money I had to pay would only go up. The risk of losing the appeal was quite high because, in all fairness, I did enter the building and post the photos online without permission.

In addition to that, I became aware of the fact that other photographers have had to pay the accuser as well. Another option was to simply not pay but again, since this is happening in Europe, they would have a bailiff get the money from me and it would cost me extra.

Do I feel like it’s my own fault that I had to pay this much money for photos that I will never ever use after taking them in an abandoned building? Mostly, yes. The risk of entering a building without permission, taking photos, and sharing them online is to receive a punishment. I’m completely aware of the fact that I’m doing something I’m not allowed to do.

Do I feel like the amount of money I had to pay is out of proportion and I have been wrongly advised by lawyers in The Netherlands and Austria? Yes, I do. But there is nothing I feel I can do, not having any knowledge about the legal system and only basic understanding of the German language. Will I stop doing what I love doing so much? No, I will not. While this is definitely a major setback I will continue to explore and document the beauty of abandoned buildings.

Lesson well learned.

About the author: Roman Robroek is a Netherlands-based urban exploration photographer. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can see more of his work on his website, or by following him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

Go to Source Author: Roman Robroek If you’d like us to remove any content please send us a message here CHECK OUT THE TOP SELLING CAMERAS!

The post How Photographing an Abandoned Hotel Cost Me $2,800 appeared first on CameraFreaks.

July 01, 2017 at 08:04PM

#photo photography art camera cameras

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fadingfartconnoisseur · 7 years ago

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AK Monthly Recap: May 2017

This month I returned to my roots — I took a nice juicy solo trip to some countries I hadn’t visited before. Man, that always feels great. I took long walks. I photographed everything in sight. I drank lots of coffees in lots of cool cafes. Absolute bliss.

Since settling down in New York last year, I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve struggled with my identity. When you earn your salary based on your personality and then you make a major shift in lifestyle, on top of going from a moderate cost of living to a high cost of living, it can be quite disorienting. But after a year and a few months, I’m finding myself more relaxed.

Now, I think I’m getting pretty close to where I want to be — one week away per month, or two weeks away every two months, plus an occasional weekend trip thrown in. And the rest of the time I get to hang out in fabulous New York City. That feels right to me now.

Destinations Visited

New York, NY

Bucharest, Romania

Chisinau, Moldova

Odessa, Kiev, Chernobyl, and Pripyat, Ukraine

Favorite Destination

Odessa. Far and away. I’ve been dreaming of visiting Odessa for so long, and it didn’t disappoint me in the slightest.

Highlights

Bucharest was a lot of fun. I visited for the #ExperienceBucharest campaign, designed by volunteer tourism professionals to promote Bucharest to an international audience. Everyone was so passionate about sharing their hometown with us!

And I discovered a fabulous city. It felt a lot like Berlin in that the strangest little cafes and restaurants were hiding behind innocuous looking doors, but it also had a grandeur reminiscent of Paris. I loved getting to know the people of Bucharest, from formerly homeless tour guides to artists and entrepreneurs to the expats who had made Bucharest their home. It’s a special city. And while many Romania tourists skip Bucharest, you really shouldn’t.

At the conference portion of the event, I spoke on a panel about visual storytelling and didn’t mince words: “I am so sick of travel bloggers posting a million acro-yoga photos.” (Seriously, bloggers…no offense to my friends who are really into acro, but I hate looking at tons of photos of you balanced on the hairy legs of some random dude in short-shorts. Plus, doesn’t taking tons of photos of yourself doing yoga kind of defeat the mental benefits of doing yoga in the first place?)

Ukraine was awesome. Man, did I love that country! I had plans to visit Odessa, Kiev, and Chernobyl, and I partnered last-minute with JayWay Travel, a boutique Central and Eastern European travel company, for a custom itinerary they built for me with hotels, transfers, and tours throughout the country.

There is so much beauty and pride in Ukraine — a sharp contrast from Moldova. And it is by far the cheapest European country I’ve visited. Much cheaper than Albania and Macedonia! Think 95-cent lattes in fancy cafes and two-course meals with both wine and water for $8.

Odessa was my favorite spot, with its elegant streets and pastel colors, but I also really liked Kiev (especially the parts without Soviet architecture).

Chernobyl was unforgettable. It’s so hard to find the words to describe visiting the location of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. (Yes, it’s safe to visit today. It’s the equivalent of staying in Kiev plus eating two and a half bananas. There’s radiation in everything.) It’s a site of great tragedy, but it’s also moving to see a town left frozen in time, as well as the effect of nature reclaiming a whole settlement.

Learning Cyrillic. I did learn a bit when I traveled to Macedonia and Bulgaria back in 2013, but I had forgotten most of it. This time in Ukraine, I jumped in and worked hard — and it paid off. There’s nothing more rewarding than sounding out a word and recognizing it. Once, I yelled out, “Oh! Sushi Bar!”

Some strange and lovely New York adventures. Like finally making it to Punderdrome, a monthly pun competition in Brooklyn. About a dozen people, some of them professional comedians, get up on stage and out-pun each other until there’s only one winner remaining. I loved it!

And, um, I ventured to HUMP!, Dan Savage’s independent sex-positive pornographic short film festival. If you ever feel like you’ve seen everything…that festival will assure you that nope, you haven’t.

I also made an appearance at Smorgasburg, a weekend food festival in Brooklyn, for the first time in forever. If you visit New York on a weekend, you should try to attend — they have tons of delicious and unique food offerings. It’s not a cheap outing, but it’s lots of fun!

Making lots of new friends — and connecting with two people in particular. I usually keep to myself when traveling solo, so that’s a bit of a novelty for me. And on this trip I met two different people — one in Bucharest, one in Kiev — with whom I connected in a deep, unfiltered way. The kind of connection you can only have with a stranger. It’s crazy to feel like someone can hold your soul in their hand for a few minutes.

Challenges

Moldova was a bit of a bust. After a few hours of walking around Chisinau, I felt like I had made a huge mistake choosing to spend three nights there. Over time, I found a few cool businesses and developed a bit of affection for the city, but I feel no need to return to Moldova and wouldn’t recommend Chisinau to the vast majority of travelers.

I wanted to see more of Moldova — Cricova Winery and Orhei Vechei — but Cricova wasn’t doing wine tastings (and what’s the point of visiting a winery without tastings? The visit is the boring part!) and the minibuses ran on a schedule that would have left me in the middle of nowhere for hours. I would have hired a driver, but I couldn’t find a professional and as a solo woman, I would only hire a professional, not some random dude wanting to make a few bucks.

By that time, I was just exhausted and didn’t even feel like venturing to Transnistria.

Illness in Bucharest. Conferences are a hotbed of germs to begin with, particularly when you combine it with party nights and lack of sleep. I usually get sick a few days after a conference, but this time it hit me earlier. Probably because everyone was sick. When it’s that bad, you know it’s a matter of time before you get sick, too.

Yet another far-longer-than-necessary journey home. It wasn’t quite as bad as my 48-hour Broome-Perth-overnight-Singapore-London-long layover-Boston journey last fall (which I am NEVER REPEATING), but my Kiev-Bucharest-overnight-Amsterdam-New York journey was 24 hours long. It pained me when I realized that I could have flown nonstop from Kiev to New York in just 10 hours, but alas, circumstances brought me elsewhere.

The older I get, the less I can tolerate those long journeys. I need to keep that in mind.

The Raindrop Cake is a lie! New York’s Raindrop Cake, a clear gelatinous half-sphere became an Instagram star a few months ago, and when I saw it at Smorgasburg, I wanted to give it a try. Well, it wasn’t anything great. It didn’t look THAT good, and it tasted like plain sugar-flavored gelatin.

Honestly, this was the most “the emperor has no clothes” trend I’ve found since moving to New York. And the fact that it cost $8 added insult to injury. Skip this one and walk to Ample Hills for ice cream instead.

And I dealt with a stye. I don’t get styes very often, but if you’ve had one, you know how unpleasant they are. They hurt, your face looks like you’re having a stroke, and you may need to throw your eye makeup away. A few days of tea bag compresses and baby shampoo washings got rid of it. Though several people told me that the best cure for a stye is URINE!

Most Popular Instagram Photo

Want likes? Post the Eiffel Tower. Pretty simple. I actually posted this photo to celebrate the election of Emmanuel Macron in France.

For more live updates in real time, you can follow me on Instagram (@adventurouskate) and Snapchat (also @adventurouskate).

Fitness Update

I’m officially in the worst fitness rut I’ve been in since the beginning of the year. I’ve just gotten lazy and I need to pick things up again.

I was so determined to work out throughout my Eastern Europe trip, but it didn’t happen. As a result, when I had my first zumba/training combo day after my trip, I was PAINFULLY sore for the next three days.

The good news? My trainer asked if I could keep my weight steady while away, and I actually kept it exactly the same, despite consuming tons of dumplings and wine. That’s something.

This month I also took the “Dance!” class at Equinox. The description said it could be from any genre of dance and I hoped it would be hip-hop…no. It was jazz. A jazz routine. I felt like I was back in high school drama class. Yeah, that one I won’t be repeating. I didn’t even break a sweat!

I’ll get back in there. I need to.

I’m also thinking about expanding to a global Equinox membership. It doesn’t make the most sense, since I live in Harlem and all the gyms are south of me, but it might be worth it to take classes with my favorite instructors on a more regular basis…

What I Read This Month

I’m up to 28 books read so far this year — I’m now officially more than halfway through the 52-book 2017 PopSugar Book Challenge! I had actually hoped to have read six to eight books this month rather than just five, but I’m working on a few others and will get there.

Also, I keep meaning to read literature from the country I’m visiting, but of course I spent two weeks in Eastern Europe and only read books set in Oklahoma, Florida, and Kansas. Go figure.

Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson (updated 2011 edition) — I knew “a book that’s mentioned in another book” would be a challenging category — somehow, I could only think of the books that were mentioned throughout the Baby-Sitters Club series (Little Women and Baby Island?). But when I read You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero earlier this year, she had a list of recommended books and said that while you should always read books by people you admire, Richard Branson’s memoir was her absolute favorite. I was sold!

And what a thrilling ride this book was! It’s an in-depth account of Branson’s wild journey as an entrepreneur, as well as his adventures through love, life, and record-breaking. And I found it fascinating to see how he sees the world and makes decisions. He is just so optimistic and willing to jump into anything that seems fun, without even putting that much thought into it. I was also surprised to hear that Virgin had very little cash on hand until the mid-1990s, when they won a huge settlement from British Airways. (Consequently, I never want to fly BA again. They spied on Richard Branson and his family!!)

The best memoirs are ones that either show a major transformation or bare the soul of the writer. This book falls more into the latter category, and it’s absolutely worth it. Category: a book that’s mentioned in another book.

Nyssa Glass and the House of Mirrors by H.L. Burke (2016) — You know, I’ve made an effort to read a good book in every category, even the ones that aren’t really my thing, but when it came time to read a steampunk novel, I just wanted to get through one quickly. So I found the Nyssa Glass series: a set of mysteries about a teenage girl who solves mysteries in Victorian times while aided by cutting-edge steam technology. Steampunk has always made me roll my eyes a bit, but I’m sure it can be done well in the hands of a skilled author.

And this book? Just a quickie Young Adult book that wasn’t that compelling. I think younger readers might get more out of it. Category: a steampunk novel.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (2017) — I chose this book from Book of the Month because it’s one of the hottest nonfiction releases of the year and it tells a fascinating story forgotten by history. In the 1920s, the Osage Indians of Oklahoma were the richest people per capita in the world because there was oil on their land and the rights couldn’t be sold, only inherited through family. Then dozens of Osage began dying unexpectedly — some from illness, some from gunshots. Eventually the newly formed FBI discovered a mass conspiracy to murder as many Osage as possible.

In addition to learning about this heartbreaking and forgotten chapter of history, I found it fascinating to see how Native Americans were treated by white people and how it differed from other races. It was common for Native Americans and white people to marry, and rather than being segregated, the attitude was more, “They need to assimilate and start doing things our way.” Like other forms of racism, it never ended — it just changed form. Also, I was very interested in the FBI parts and think I might want to read a biography of J. Edgar Hoover next. Category: a book recommended by a librarian. (PS — Library Reads is a great resource to find books recommended by librarians.)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937) — I had been meaning to read this book forever, along with more Harlem Renaissance authors, and when I saw it in a used bookstore near my gym, I snapped it up. In this novel, taking place in Florida not too long after Emancipation, a teenage girl named Janie yearns to fall in love — but she feels nothing for her first husband and runs off with a second, controlling husband. Then finally, as a 40-year-old widow, she meets a handsome 25-year-old and falls in love for the first time.

I love a good romance, and this delivered. But more than that, this book was about Florida, its stickiness and humidity, and its fledgling all-black communities created in the years post-slavery. And the only thing I love more than a good romance is a good ending — not necessarily a happy or sad ending, but an ending you’ll never forget. This falls into that category. Category: a book you got at a used bookstore.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965) — This was my book club’s pick for the month, and I was glad to read a book that I’ve always heard about. Truman Capote invented the nonfiction novel! It’s because of him that one of my favorite books, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, exists today! At the time of publication, it was unheard of for a nonfiction book to be written in the literary style of fiction.

In 1959, four members of a family were murdered on their farm in Kansas. There were no clues and no motive — but eventually an unlikely source led to the case cracking open. Capote tells the story of the murder from the points of view of the victims, the perpetrators, and the local community.

The writing is captivating but something felt wrong to me — it felt so voyeuristic. These people died, and there was no reason for their deaths. (It’s the same reason why I don’t listen to murder podcasts, despite their popularity — it feels cruel to me to geek out over the deaths of people.) But I appreciated it as a piece of literature. I also enjoyed that my hometown of Reading, Massachusetts, made a most unexpected appearance near the end of the book. Category: a book with an eccentric character.

What I Watched This Month

Master of None, Season Two. This show means so much to me and I’m glad it’s finally back after a year and a half. Not only is it the show I relate to the most, it somehow hits me straight in the feels and brings me nearly to tears, even when it’s not that sad. HOW DOES IT DO THAT? Do they have a blueprint of my brain?!

And then it was like Season Two was even more precisely tailored to me:

–They had a performance by my favorite singer, John Legend.

–They cast my favorite celebrity crush, Bobby Cannavale (yeah, I say it’s The Rock, but it’s really Bobby Cannavale) playing an Anthony Bourdain-like role and it’s the hottest he’s ever looked onscreen.

–They filmed in two of my favorite small towns in Italy: Modena in Emilia-Romagna and Pienza in Tuscany.

–They had a discussion about the Italian word allora that was pretty much lifted from my time living in Italy — I had no idea what it meant, but somehow I always knew when to say it!

–There was an homage to my favorite American quirk: giant pharmacies. Which is one thing I talk about all the time — I always LOVE returning to giant American pharmacies when I come home from my travels! They have everything you could possibly need!

At any rate, it was such a lovely season and I highly recommend you watch. It’s tough, though — Netflix hit us hard this month with new seasons of House of Cards, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Bloodline simultaneously…

Image: Jon Roberts

Coming Up in June 2017

After having a big trip in May, I’m taking it easier in June with only two short trips scheduled. First, I’m heading home to Massachusetts for my dad’s (milestone!) birthday at the beginning of the month.

And later in the month, I’m visiting Asheville, North Carolina, for the first time ever! I’ve wanted to visit this mountainside city for so long, but I was hesitant to visit North Carolina while HB2 (a.k.a. the bathroom law) was in place. The law has since been repealed by the new Democratic governor, so I feel comfortable going now. (Many LGBT advocates think that the repeal doesn’t go far enough. I agree with them. But I also know that political progress is most effective when it’s incremental and the repeal is a necessary step in gaining full equality for LGBT citizens in North Carolina.)

North Carolina is actually a new state for me — my final state to visit on the East Coast! And I’ve been working with Asheville to create a responsible and ethical itinerary that’s heavy on outdoorsy pursuits and features small local businesses. I’m really excited about it.

Any suggestions for Asheville? Let me know!

via Travel Blogs http://ift.tt/2rM9c1a

#IFTTT #Travel Blogs

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deepseawritings · 8 years ago

Text

The Long Road (part 1/2)

In Scar's opinion, there had never been a more appropriate time to use the expression raining with a vengeance. Normal raining, even torrential rain, was nothing like this. This was like a flood. Water came pouring down like a waterfall, drenching you to the very bones and making it nearly impossible to see anything further than a hand span away from your face. It didn't help that sun had already set.

He had no idea of where he was. Okay, that wasn't exactly true. He knew he was in Limansk, but he didn't exactly know where in the city he was. He would check it on his PDA, but Scar wasn't one hundred percent sure the water would not damage it. That supposing he could decipher the display on the screen under such deluge. He could sort of see the indistinct shape of a big building looming ahead. That meant refuge and a roof to sleep until the raining stopped, or until morning. Whichever came first. Scar just hoped it wasn't too irradiated or worse, crawling with Monolith troops. He'd had enough of Monolith for the rest of his life.

It turned out to be a familiar looking building. He'd been here before. Still, that didn't save him from stepping into the overflowing pond on his way to the entrance. Fuck, he was now drenched to his socks. At least this time there was no barbed fence barring the entrance to the building. Once on the inside he now checked his PDA. There was someone else here, another person. He supposed it would be a lost bandit or a renegade, Monolith always went in groups. Scar didn't even bother turning off the flashlight, he just went in search of the bandit. He would kill him and then find a decent spot to sleep.

Strelok was tired. Not just a physical tiredness, but an emotional one as well. His life had been such a rollercoaster in the last weeks: becoming amnesiac, being tasked to basically kill himself, recovering his memory, going to Pripyat and facing hordes of Monolith bastards, infiltrating the CNPP and destroying the C-Consciousness. And that was the condensed version. If it was up to him, he would just lie in a ditch and sleep in the grass. Unfortunately, he couldn't do that forever.

A small group of Monolithians spotted him this past morning and took great exception to his presence. The persistent sons of bitches had been chasing him from a distance since then. Nothing like the occasional sniper shot aimed at him to motivate Strelok to run faster. Then came the rain; thick, persistent rain. At least it would serve to shake them off his trail, or so he hoped. Anyways, he could always be ambushed by another Monolith group here in this city. In deserted urban spaces it was always a possibility, and his unfamiliarity with this place put him at a disadvantage.

The sun was setting. Soon it would get dark, well, darker than it had been all afternoon long. Strelok decided to take shelter in a big nearby building, some kind of institute or something similar. He would find a place to spend the night, and spare himself the torture of walking around in the dark, under heavy rain, in a city he'd never been in before.

Scouring the building was an eerie experience. Scar almost expected to stumble into someone wearing the Clear Sky uniform every time he turned a corner. It was like chasing ghosts.

He'd been as loud as possible, trying to lure whoever was there out of its hiding place, but no luck so far. He started to think there was nobody else in the building and his PDA was faulty. Then he finally heard a faint noise coming from one of the dark rooms. Good, at last a clue to follow. He readied his rifle, and then went into the room. A jarring impact rattled him when he collided against someone at the door's threshold.

It was not a bandit. And his face was unmistakeable. Strelok. The man looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights. They stood there, looking at each other, not daring to move. Strelok's gaze went from confused to startled realization. He narrowed his eyes and moved his gun, the intent to shoot Scar plainly written in his face. Nevertheless, Scar was quicker. He wacked Strelok up the head with the butt of his Vintar, and Strelok fell down like a sack of flour. Well, that had been unexpected.

Deciding to play it safe, Scar took all of Strelok's weapons (including the knife) and tied his hands with a spare bandage, because there was nothing else around he could use. What was he going to do with him?

He could finish his assignment and kill Strelok, but it was pointless now. Besides, he didn't work for free, and there was no Clear Sky faction anymore. Lebedev and the rest were dead; or, if they were unlucky enough to survive massive amounts of psy damage, they would now be part of the brainwashed forces of Monolith. Killing Strelok now would achieve nothing. So he wasn't going to kill the stalker, at least for now, but neither could he let him go free. He'd already seen that Strelok didn't have any qualms about trying to shoot him in the face.

He gave up on thinking what to do with his captive. Strelok was unconscious and tied up, he wasn't going anywhere. Scar moved him to a corner of the room, tied his feet as well just in case, and then lied down on the floor to sleep.

The first thing Strelok noticed upon waking up was the throbbing pain on the side of his head. Ouch, he must have hit his head really hard. Then he remembered the night before. Scar had found him! He opened his eyes and there he was, sleeping just a few meters away. He had to flee. Then he noticed he couldn't move freely and Strelok panicked. His hands and feet were tied! He squirmed, trying to slip free of his restraints, but it wasn't working. Fuck!

"Stop it." Scar grumbled. His thrashing must have woken him up. Then he proceeded to calmly check his PDA and eat a loaf of bread, like having Strelok tied up at his feet wasn't worthy of more than a passing glance. Eventually, he finished and regarded Strelok with a strange expression on his face.

"And what now? You kill me here or do you prefer to make me run for a while before shoot me in the back?"

"Don't be stupid, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be already dead." Scar answered him while he picked up his backpack and Strelok's confiscated weapons. "I'm going to untie your feet. Don't make me regret it, ok?" The mercenary warned him.

If looks could kill, Scar would have dropped dead in the spot. However, the mercenary didn't seem very impressed with Strelok's hate filled stare. He was sorely tempted to kick the bastard in the face, but that would only worsen his situation.

It was a miserable experience for Strelok. He was made to walk all morning in front of Scar, hand still tied because the mercenary didn't trust him unbound. Smart of him. He remembered all too well how the mercenary relentlessly followed him across the Zone, hunting him like an animal. It was because of him and his damned Clear Sky friends that Strelok ended up amnesiac. And if he remembered correctly, it was also their fault that Fang died. Yes, Strelok would not doubt to jump at him and try to kill him if he wasn't tied and unarmed.

The day was oddly peaceful in the ghost town of Limansk. The most dangerous thing they encountered was a cluster of whirligigs in the middle of the road and a heavily irradiated construction site, but otherwise nothing worth worrying about. They should have known that peace didn't last long in the Zone. At some point Strelok's old Monolith chasers caught up with them. And they brought reinforcements. They fell upon them like an avalanche, shooting at them, while a pair of snipers shot from the balcony of a nearby building. At least none of them had a Gauss Rifle. Scar bodily dragged him behind a rusted car.

"Stay put and don't try anything stupid." The mercenary warned him.

He took up his Vintar and focused on taking out the snipers. The mercenary shot twice and then changed his focus of attention to the approaching Monolithians on the other side of the street. Strelok tugged with his teeth at the bindings on his wrists, loosening the bandage enough to move his hands a bit. After some more twisting, he eventually got his hands free.

The mercenary was completely focused on killing the Monolith troops, with his back to Strelok. If he was quick enough, this was the perfect opportunity to take something out of the mercenary's backpack. Like for example, one of his weapons. He could see the shotgun poking out, so he decided to risk it. He really hoped Scar hadn't bothered to unload his weapons, otherwise this would prove useless.

Strelok yanked the shotgun out in a fluid movement. Of course, Scar noticed it. He turned around, furious. Strelok went beneath the vehicle and rolled to the other side. Right after emerging from beneath the car, he came face to face with a surprised Monolithian. He fired his shotgun and the man stumbled back, a dark red stain expanding on his chest. Thank God it was still loaded. Strelok shot him again, just to be sure. The Monolithian fell to the ground with a dull thud. He saw another one further away go down with a bullet in his head, courtesy of Scar and his Vintar.

He ran to the nearest tree and hid behind it, then surveyed the street. The reason he'd taken his shotgun back was to kill Scar, but it was actually more advantageous to have the mercenary alive and helping him kill those angry Monolithians. So for now he would not turn against him, at least not until the Monolith guys were all dead. Strelok gunned down one of them that got too close to where he was hiding. A bullet sailed inches away from his face, courtesy of yet another sniper, and Scar made quick work of him.

The usual cacophony of a gunfight was suddenly drowned by a hellish chorus of menacing growls and barking. A pack of wild dogs poured in from an adjacent street. It wouldn't be a great problem if there were only blind dogs since those were cowardly beasts. The problem was the half dozen pseudo-dogs leading the pack.

The dogs came out of nowhere, or so thought Scar. The pack of beasts quickly swarmed up their improvised battlefield, lured in by the smell of fresh blood. Scar made good use of his enemies' distraction and shot down one of the Monolithians, who'd been too busy shooting at the dogs to remember he was in the middle of a firefight. Scar saw another Monolithian on the ground, being torn apart by the dogs. His raw screams were one of the worst things Scar heard in a long time. It was a horrible way to die and Scar actually thought about gifting him a quick death, but his screams soon turned into low, wet gurgles and then stopped.

However, not all the pseudo-dogs were feasting on the dead, a couple of them were chasing someone else. Strelok. The stalker was running like the wind, coming back to Scar's position. He trained his Vintar on the pseudo-dogs, but judging by Strelok's reaction the stalker thought he was aiming at him. One of the pseudo-dogs lunged against Strelok and Scar shot at the beast. The stalker's astonished face was priceless.

While Strelok finished off the injured pseudo-dog, Scar jumped on top of the rusted car's hood to get away from the dogs swarming him. He shot at them, spraying blood and fur on the asphalt. Some ran away hurt and yelping, and some continued growling and trying to jump after him. Meanwhile, Strelok finally arrived there and jumped on the car as well. They were face to face, eyeing each other warily. However, they had more pressing concerns right now. Like the furious, vicious dogs trying to rip them to shreds.

By silent agreement, they started shooting at the beasts at the same time. Strelok killed the ones closest to them with the shotgun, while Scar took care of the pseudo-dogs with his rifle. Perhaps the pseudo-dogs were mostly chewing on the fallen Monolithians, but Scar didn't want to risk being jumped by one of them later on. He shot down most of them, but two were still missing. Strelok stopped to reload the shotgun, so Scar took out his pistol, a Martha, and killed the blind dogs still circling around the car.

Like summoned by his earlier thoughts, the remaining two pseudo-dogs appeared around a corner. Scar emptied the pistol's magazine on one of them. The other jumped at Strelok while he was still reloading and dragged him down the car. The stalker rolled around, trying to evade the mutant's vicious attack. The first one wasn't dead either. Instead of reloading the pistol, Scar grabbed his rifle and finished off the pseudo-dog. Then he focused his attention on Strelok. He saw the stalker trying to hit the mutant with his shotgun like it was melee weapon, in a desperate attempt to get away from the pseudo-dog. That only enraged the animal. The beast got him by the leg and shook its head, tearing into the flesh. Strelok screamed in pain.

Scar shot at the pseudo-dog once, twice, thrice. Finally, it died. He jumped down the car and approached Strelok. He dragged the animal's carcass off of the injured stalker and caught a flash of fear on Strelok's eyes when he saw him, rifle still in hand. He kicked the shotgun out of his grasp, just in case he got any funny ideas.

"What am I going to do with you?" The stalker only meant trouble and headaches, Scar was sure of that.

"If you're going to kill me, make it quick." Strelok hissed between pained groans.

The stalker's leg was a disaster. Pieces of torn fabric clung to the wound, soaked in blood. The bite wound was a ghastly sight, the flesh torn by deep tears and lacerations that bled profusely. Strelok could count himself lucky if the bone wasn't splintered or crushed. It definitely was easy to feel sympathy for him right now.

Scar ignored his earlier question and fished around the backpack for a medkit, one of the military issued packages. Strelok's trouser leg was so torn he didn't need to rip it to treat the wound. Scar cleaned the wound as best as he could, but that wasn't enough. It hadn't stopped bleeding and probably needed to be stitched. He could try to just bandage it, but he knew it wouldn't do much. The only good news was that the bone didn't seem damaged, as far as he could tell.

"Why are you doing this?" Strelok asked him, clearly confused.

"Because I'm a fucking saint, obviously." Scar deadpanned. It was an excellent question. One he couldn't really answer. He still didn't know if it was out of gratitude for not turning against him while they fought, or if it was a rare act of compassion or what.

"Need to take the Urchin off before I bleed to death." Strelok said with urgency.

He fiddled with the containers on the belt and took out the artifact. Scar put it in the backpack, taking great care to not prick himself on the spiky surface.

"That will help but this still needs stitching." Scar warned him.

He had some experience dealing with bad wounds, but he was far from being an expert. At least it wasn't the first time he stitched someone. Strelok passed out soon after Scar started the process. It was for the best.

Time became a blurred haze for Strelok. His last coherent memory was getting attacked by the pseudo-dog, and then Scar showed up like a knight in shining armour. Except in such scenarios, one usually didn't fear the saviour could blow your head off as well. He vaguely remembered Scar cleaning his wounded leg and trying to stitch it closed. After the pain came the darkness, and then all sense of time went out of the window.

Whatever else he remembered, it had a dreamlike quality to it; he couldn't be sure they weren't hallucinations induced by the pain or the blood loss. Someone carried him around, his head against a hard backpack; lying on a lumpy surface that smelled musty...

He awoke to rumbling thunder, reddish light filtering into the darkness. Strelok sat up startled, he had to find a refuge if he wanted to survive the blowout!

Wide awake now, and aware of his surroundings, he realised he was already indoors. He'd apparently been sleeping on a ratty couch, covered with a dusty and moth-eaten blanket. He supposed all this must have been the mercenary's doing. It was quite difficult to wrap his mind around the fact Scar had taken care of him and, most probably, saved his life. Which made him wonder where was said mercenary now. The light filtering through the windows was redder with each passing moment and the emission would soon be deadly.

"I see you're awake." Scar's voice startled Strelok. When he surveyed the room before, he hadn't noticed the mercenary sitting quietly in a shadowed corner.

"How long did I sleep?"

"You were out of it since yesterday afternoon."

A horde of questions danced in Strelok's mind, most of them starting with Why, but the mercenary had already proved he wasn't going to answer those truthfully.

"Thank you, I guess," he finally said. The words were heavy and bitter on his tongue.

They sat in silence, enduring the trembling ground and thunderous noise that always accompanied the emissions. Strelok blindly played with the frayed blanket, tugging at the threads until they unravelled. It was difficult to see much in the hellish red twilight, but at least this time Strelok didn't see ghostly figures attacking him. He hated those illusions. Eventually, the thundering faded and the sky cleared again, like that terrifying interlude never happened.

"Are you going to tie me up again?" Strelok broke the tense silence.

He could try to fight him, but he was unarmed and his wounded leg was a liability. The odds were definitely not in his favour.

"Are you going to try to kill me?" The mercenary asked him in return. Strelok remained stubbornly quiet. "Look, if you agree that we're even and don't try anything funny, you're free to go. If not..."

Scar's answer surprised him. He wanted Strelok to forget about the past? The blowout had definitely messed him up.

"Are you out of your mind? You and your Clear Sky pals made my life hell, killed one of my best friends and are the reason I ended up with amnesia for weeks!" Strelok sputtered enraged.

"For me it was just a contract, nothing personal." Scar told him, like that absolved him of any responsibility! "Clear Sky honestly thought you had to be stopped for the good of the Zone. Doesn't matter now. In case you haven't noticed, there is no more Clear Sky. Because of you, they're either dead or under the thrall of the Monolith."

They could all rot in Hell for all Strelok cared. Fang was dead. Strelok remembered how he had to flee for his life as Scar chased him relentlessly. He would never forget the panic he felt when they caught up with him in the CNPP and the mercenary fired that Gauss Rifle against him. And more recently, Scar hit him on the head and tied him up like a prisoner waiting for the execution. Except the execution never came. Instead, they fought together against Monolith and rabid dogs. And then he saved him from that pseudo-dog, and patched him up. It seems he even had taken care of him when he could just have left him to die. Ugh, why had he done that?!

"So what's your answer, are we even?" Scar asked him

"Alright, we're even." Strelok spat out, angry that he was forced to accept this. Strelok wasn't fit to run away or fight against Scar right now, and he supposed the mercenary's recent actions sort of made up for some of his past transgressions. Sort of.

The mercenary said nothing, he just looked at him intently. It was unnerving, those impossiby clear eyes seemed to pierce right through him. It sent shivers down Strelok's spine. He didn't know what Scar was searching for, but eventually he nodded.

After reaching such agreement, Scar told Strelok he was free to go if he pleased, and gave him his weapons back. The stalker eyed him with suspicion, and declared that he preferred to stay close and keep an eye on him, as he told Scar, because he didn't trust him at all. Apparently, he still expected Scar to shoot him in the back from afar. Fair enough, he didn't trust Strelok much, either. He would have sworn Strelok had been bitterly sincere when he agreed to bury the hatchet, but perhaps he'd been wrong and the stalker wanted to kill him in his sleep. Or perhaps Strelok didn't want to admit that, in his current state, he would probably need help to walk across the city and its obstacles.

Travelling together was mostly a silent, tense and awkward affair. They traversed Limansk at a slow pace, the city was difficult to navigate, especially if one wanted to avoid radiation hotspots, the odd Monolith patrol and bandits roaming around. It didn't help either that parts of the city were almost inaccessible, or some were even fenced off with barbed wire.

"Where are you actually headed?" Strelok asked him out of the blue.

"Someplace where I can drink and get a job. Like the 100 Rads."

"I thought mercs stuck together in Wild Territory, killing stalkers and terrorizing the scientists. That's what they do best, isn't it?" Scar could say that Strelok's bitterness surprised him, but that would be a lie. Besides, what he said was sort of true.

"I guess. The same way one could say that what stalkers do best is risking their lives stupidly and dying." Strelok didn't seem to appreciate Scar's quip very much, judging by his disgusted huff.

After that, a dense silence stretched between them. It wasn't until a good while later that Strelok broke it again. "So why won't you go back to Wild Territory? Did you kill someone of your own faction or is it something else?"

This question was missing much of the venom from before, so he decided to answer him instead of ignoring his question.

"Honestly, I just don't care. I'm getting too old to go back to an endless fight with Duty over a handful of railways and warehouses." That was true, there was nothing he missed from Wild Territory.

"Yeah, that place sucks big time. Mercs have lousy taste setting up base." Strelok chuckled. He looked oddly endearing when he wasn't frowning at him all the time.

They lapsed into silence once again. Thankfully, their brief exchange seemed to have defused the tension somewhat. The relative peace was broken once again that same evening, when Strelok saw a fruit punch anomaly between two buildings. The detector pointed there was a lone artifact lost in there, and of course Strelok wanted to get it. Scar couldn't understand why he wanted to hobble around an anomalous acid pool to retrieve a Bubble. Must be an instinct of all stalkers, to gather artifacts even if they had to risk their necks to retrieve it. In his opinion, it was much easier to just loot artifacts from your victim's belongings, or getting one in payment for killing said victim.

None of them noticed they were being observed. The chimera seemed to appear out of nowhere, leaping with deadly grace. Scar was thrown to the ground, ears ringing from the harsh impact. The chimera then pounced away and Scar finally could breathe again, now that he wasn't being crushed by the mutant. He knew the chimera would either leap at him once more and crush his neck in its mouth, or play with its prey by slashing him with those sharp claws. He desperately searched around for his Vintar, but it had fallen far away from him. The Martha was all he had right now. Except that wasn't one hundred percent true.

Surprisingly enough, Strelok came to his aid, shooting at the chimera with his SIG and attracting the mutant's wrath. A terrible clicking sound could be heard when the weapon jammed. The chimera leaped towards Strelok the moment he stopped shooting at it. Luckily, he evaded the attack, but his leg gave out on him and he fell to the ground as well. In the meantime, Scar got his pistol out and then he fired all fifteen rounds, one after the other, right into the mutant's back. The resistant bitch wasn't dead yet, but at least it was limping. It turned again towards Scar, and Strelok took it down with the shotgun. At long last, the chimera died. Both Strelok and Scar lay on the ground, panting in pain and exhaustion.

"I hate chimeras." Strelok declared from his spot on the ground. Scar couldn't agree more.

It must have certainly been a curious sight, Strelok pondered, a mercenary and a loner travelling together, both injured and tired. It sounded like the set up to one of those terrible jokes Ghost liked so much.

They continued their way until the sun started to set. Scar insisted that the tunnel that would lead them out of the city was close, and if they kept going they would be out of Limansk that same night. Yeah, Strelok heard about that passage. It led to the fucking Red Forest. He would sooner shoot himself in the foot than prance around Red Forest past nightfall. Scar was free to go on, if he wanted. However, he reluctantly agreed with Strelok. Probably because after being almost crushed by the chimera, he wasn't feeling so great either. They decided to find a place to set camp and rest, and maybe they would feel better in the morning.

Nevertheless, the houses they checked out turned out to be completely unsuitable. One was a giant nest of rats, better to stay the hell away from it. Another was so collapsed it was impossible to enter. And the other one was too radioactive, the dosimeter going crazy once they were inside. The last one seemed fine until Strelok noticed a faint distortion in the air. One bolt later the room was like an oven when no less than four burners started spouting fire. Scar just muttered "like that damn tunnel in Wild Territory", and it brought a small smirk to Strelok 's face. He remembered that place all too well, Kruglov almost got them both roasted in there.

The tunnel out of Limansk was their last option. It was just there, so close, and it offered good cover. It would be definitely better than staying out in the open or, God forbid, actually going to Red Forest. Strelok sincerely hopped nothing tried to get in from that side. Limansk was no walk in the park, but he remembered Red Forest being a radioactive hell full of Monolithians, zombies, bloodsuckers and home of at least one vicious psy-dog. He was pretty sure a pseudo-giant wouldn't fit in the tunnel, so that was something he didn't have to worry about.

The inside of the tunnel was full of old vehicles and the occasional pile of debris where the walls had started to fall down. They found the remains of a campfire between two rusted cars, the ashes cold and brittle. Well, that meant no one had been here in a while. It was a spot as good as any to pass the night. Strelok sat down and proceeded to change the bandages on his leg, while Scar searched the cars for anything that could be of use.

"Find anything good?" Strelok idly asked him, suppressing a wince of pain when he tied the bandages around his swollen wound. It would be a godsend if they found more medkits or bandages.

"A loaded Makarov and a bottle of vodka." Scar showed him his bounty. So no, nothing good. Nevertheless, he supposed it was better than nothing at all.

The vodka was always good. Perhaps they should have saved it for later, to deal with the radiation in Red Forest, but sometimes you just need a drink. They sat side by side, reclined against the decaying wall, sharing a bottle of vodka in silence. If someone had told Strelok a week ago that he would ever be this close to Scar willingly, and without trying to gut him, he would have never believed it. And yet, here he was. He blamed the vodka.

Although Strelok had to admit having some company was almost nice. Almost. He still wanted to strangle Scar most of the time, but Strelok would keep his word. They were even for now. However, he didn't know why he helped him before, with the chimera. He could have just finished off the mutant after it killed Scar. Yet somehow that idea didn't sit right with him. Maybe it was because Strelok was a good person deep down. He hoped it wasn't because of any misplaced feelings of gratitude, because... A blood chilling screech rang in the distance, shattering his train of thought. They looked at each other in alarm. After a few seconds, when no unknown mutant or dangerous beast appeared, they relaxed slightly. Whatever that was, at least it wasn't close to them.

"What the hell makes that noise?" Scar asked before taking a long gulp of liquor.

"I don't know, and I don't think I want to meet the creature." Strelok scratched his neck, trying to forget how that sound froze the blood in his veins and made him want to scoot closer to Scar.

"You could invent a story and scare the rookies like everyone does." The mercenary suggested.

"I think there are enough tall tales floating around." He remembered many scare tales being told around campfires, especially in the rookie's camp. The majority of them were nonsense, and the ones that were true were vastly exaggerated after several retellings.

"Did you ever hear that one about some kind marsh creature similar to bloodsuckers, which can imitate voices and then drag you underwater until you drown?"

"Yes, it was a popular story amongst Clear Sky, even though their base was on a fucking swamp." Scar chuckled. He looked different when he did that, kinder. "I remember a fellow merc that used to swear there was an electric chimera roaming in Dark Valley. He said he fought against it, a monster that electrocuted its prey when it jumped at them. Bullshit."

From that point the conversation evolved into sharing some of the most outrageously fake stories that circulated in the Zone. Neither of them noticed it was the first time they carried on a wholly civil conversation for more than a minute. At some point, long after the vodka ran out and Scar closed his eyes, Strelok fell asleep against the mercenary's shoulder. He felt Scar putting his arm around him, but maybe he dreamt that part.

He awoke to total silence, yet Scar felt uneasy. Something wasn't right. However, he saw nothing unusual. His right side was unexpectedly cold, Strelok wasn't leaning against him anymore. What a shame, he'd felt so nice and warm pressed against his side.

The dim light of early morning painted some strange shadows on the tunnel walls, but nothing seemed to move around. Then he heard it, the wheezing sound and unnatural grunts. It sounded like a bloodsucker. They needed to get the fuck out of here. He elbowed Strelok to wake him up.

"Yes, I hear it." The stalker whispered, already awake. "Where's it coming from?"

"I'm not sure." He strained to hear better, but the sounds on the tunnel echoed weirdly. "Red Forest end, probably."

"I knew it." Strelok grumbled. Yeah, he could harp about how much he hated Red Forest all he wanted, once they were out of here.

Scar got up, ignoring the pain radiating from his stiff back, and helped Strelok up as well. The stalker gathered his backpack and went towards the exit to Limansk as quietly as possible. Scar followed behind him. The tunnel did indeed distort the sounds, but for a moment he believed he had the mutant just at his back, growling and grunting, prepared to attack. Scar halted and turned around, dreading what he might find. There was nothing. The noises echoed further down now and then stopped, like the mutant had gone away. He wasn't fooled, not even for a second. He observed the dark corridor intently and spied a pair of bright eyes in the distance. Shit, he hoped the bloodsucker hadn't seen him. Scar slowly backed away, paranoid that the mutant would attack him from behind the moment he turned away. Then he heard voices coming from the other end of the tunnel. That got his attention. Was Strelok saying something?

"And you said we wouldn't find anything worth it at these hours!" It wasn't Strelok talking.

That raised all kind of alarms in his mind. He would bet good money on bandits. God damn it that was the last thing they needed! He was too far away to hear everything they said, only the loudest words or sentences got to him. Scar crept closer, hidden in the shadows and readying his Vintar, waiting for the right moment to shoot.

"... it's better to rob the dead Yashka."

He was finally close enough to hear all they said. There were three bandits aiming their pistols at Strelok.

"First I want to have some fun. Don't you want to?"

He saw Strelok posture become rigid at such idea.

"S'not my type."

Scar watched the scene unfold through his scope. He followed the first guy's movements, ready to shot.

"Whatever Gleb, they all look the same from behind."

Scar pulled the trigger and observed with satisfaction as the bullet went through the bandit's head like it was a rotten watermelon.

"Fuck, this little shit wasn't alone!" The other bandit, Gleb, shot blindly in Scar's direction. He had a frightening accuracy, the bullets ricocheting uncomfortably close to him. Scar tried to gun him down, but he missed the shot.

The remaining bandit seemed to doubt between joining Gleb in his target practice or getting rid of Strelok. Making good use of his indecision, Strelok got his knife out and slashed the bandit's hand. The injured bandit screamed in pain and surprise as he dropped his pistol.

Amidst all this chaos, an invisible, hissing presence rushed past Scar, going directly to the thick of the action. All that noise had attracted the bloodsucker.

The mutant became visible and slashed at the face of Gleb the bandit, whom in turn emptied the pistol's clip shooting at the air, since the bloodsucker turned invisible once again and evaded the attack. Scar shot down the bandit while he was distracted by the mutant. Meanwhile, Strelok had managed to kill the other bandit, and now was nervously trying to locate the bloodsucker. Scar went out of the tunnel, also searching for the bloodsucker.

"Where the hell were you?" Strelok yelled at him. The grunting and hissing sounds came one moment from their right, next from the left. The bloodsucker was circling around them.

"I was trying to prevent the bloodsucker from following me," Scar replied.

"What an excellent job you did." The stalker deadpanned.

The bloodsucker growled and materialised before Strelok. He opened fire, making it stagger. Scar also turned around and shot at it. The damned thing still didn't die. It turned invisible once more and began their little dance around them again. The bloodsucker attacked Scar, catching him unaware and clawing at his right side. Strelok fired his SIG and half the bullets missed the target. The damn thing moved too quickly. It took yet another round of this weird choreography, with both Strelok and Scar shooting madly at it, until the bloodsucker dropped down.

"You alright?" Strelok asked while poking the mutant with the barrel of the rifle, making sure it was dead.

"Yeah, it only sliced my jacket." He liked his jacket, damn, but better to have holes on the coat than on his body.

Scar heard Strelok mutter something that sounded like "figures, the lucky bastard," and it brought a small smile to his lips. One of the bandits had been wearing an oversized trench coat, so Scar just took it. The bandit wouldn't need it anymore, and it was in better condition than his now slashed jacket. Of course, first he ripped out the faction patch on it; he wouldn't want to be mistaken for a bandit.

At long last they went into the tunnel and crossed into Red Forest.

Author’s note: well, here it is, the longest fic I've ever written (at least for now). I'm splitting this in two parts, I'll post the second one in a few days.

EDIT : Second part here

#S.T.A.L.K.E.R.#fanfic #Strelok #Scar #scar/strelok

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