Nuclear Bengley - Bengley's trip to Chernobyl and Prypiat

[Bengley]

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You may have guessed from the title: I went to Ukraine to visit Chernobyl at the beginning of the month. I'm not going to do too much explaining because the pictures I have shortlisted for the thread will probably do the job rather well. I'm posting [I]only[/I] 191 of the [B]933[/B] photographs in total I took while in Ukraine. I didn't think you'd be interested in the majority of the 'touristy shots'. As there are a lot of photographs here, you will probably respect that I may have posted two similar images twice (for which I do not apologise). None of these images have been edited - they are all straight off the camera as I saw them.

So, yes, 58mb of pictures coming right your way! I hope you enjoy them. If you don't, I don't care!

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So, after an overnight flight connection in Milan, we decided these stone benches outside Milan Cadorna station were the best place to sleep. Apparently not - we missed the connecting flight and had to fork out £377 each for new flights. Oh well!

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This is Liam. Liam is standing at Semykhody station, which is just a couple of hundred metres from the plant. This is where the plant workers arrive to go to work.

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The group scrambling for a seat on the bus which would be taking us to Prypiat and back again in the afternoon.

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The new sarcophagus taking shape. We're not supposed to take photos of this, but hey!

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A rather high reading of background radiation meant we couldn't stay for very long outside the plant. 12usv/h

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This is Sergey. Sergey was only 100 metres from the plant when it exploded. How he is still alive is beyond me. He has since had a stroke, but rather amazingly, joined us at the bar for a dance! He's a right party animal, bless him. From this point until I say, photographs are in Prypiat.

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The infamous radioactive moss which grows all around the zone.

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This was a rather sad sight, this was once a busy school, but would have been evacuated in 1986, never fulfilling its purpose since.

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Cold war gas masks all over the floor. These will have been sitting here since 1986.

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Creepy mixed race doll

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Now for a more familiar sight for those of you who have read about Prypiat - the swimming pool.

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Sadly I didn't have any 9v batteries with me to fire the ferris wheel up.

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[Bengley]

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The dosimeter was reading a worryingly high level of radiation by this manhole. We didn't go down there.

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This crane also read a rather high radiation level.

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The athletics track

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And leaving Prypiat on the first day now. One of the eeyrie radiation signs dotted around the zone.

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Sergey by the 'Chernobyl' town road sign.

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This is a small vehicle 'museum' where a few of the robots used in the disaster are stored. They have dangerously high radiation levels.

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This is a monument to all the towns and villages lost in the disaster.

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Some abandoned boats, rusting away and sinking

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The memorial to the firefighters who died in the disaster.

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Reactor 5 which never opened. It was still being built when the disaster happened.

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Our group had to go through these radiation detectors before entering the cafe for lunch, and also before getting on the train. Luckily we were all clean!

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Liam

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A bit more of Semykhody station.

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The trains we travelled on from Slavutych.

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Duga3 array (unfortunately we were not able to visit it, but seeing it was cool)

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Me

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I don't recommend trying this at home.

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Or this.

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One of the group almost trod on this rather angry looking snake. Everyone scarpered, except me who stopped for some close up shots. He was hissing.

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This lift looks as though it has not been maintained for a while... Oh wait.

[Bengley]

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The chernobyl memorial in Slavutych.

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We did some naughty rooftopping on the roof of our hotel in Kyiv.

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Ukraine's KFC/McDonalds type thing. I got shouted at by a scary Ukrainian security guard for taking this photo. Luckily in the actual McDonalds they speak pretty good english, so I got my big tasty with no issues.

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Kyiv Central station - on the wrong platform? No problem - just walk across the track! This seems to be the norm here. I'd be arrested for doing that in England!

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Crapdog!s anyone?

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Liam inspecting my new passport cover

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They have cool traffic lights in Kyiv, they tell you how long you have to cross, or how long you have to wait before you can cross!

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An abandoned railway with a footpath next to it.

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Police using a radar.

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The man in the tractor shouted at me for this.

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Fuck bad peaple.

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And finally, I jumped off a bridge.

Thanks for listening.

[Saza]

That's amazing and also terrifying. Especially the pictures on top of buildings.

I'd like to visit Chernobyl someday.

[don818]

Awesome! I'd love to take my camera to a place like this :v:

[ImCrimson]

I've seen many Chernobyl photos but these are extraordinarily pretty, can't put my finger on what it is about them. Very nice work, thanks for sharing. Are you uploading the other pics elsewhere?

[Zarjk]

Ungodly neat.

[the rifleman]

I'm extremely jealous

[HeavyGuy]

I'd love to go there one day, Pripyat gives such a mysterious feeling, but a sad feeling also.

[smfE]

I lol'd at the amazing traffic lights, those are pretty normal in my country too :V. Fantastic pictures! How much did the travel cost. I wanna go there some time in the future and see it myself.

[ashton93]

thank you for making my life seem dull and boring :(

[Arnold]

Wow, thanks for sharing.

[Blackwater]

Many of these pictures deserves their full resolution. Are you doing an album somewhere in their original sizes?

[Spirit_Breaker]

Good job with the pics

[Pardalis]

That's a place I'm adding to my bucket list. The pictures in the school were surreal, and the ones of the pool brought back memories.
[I]"Look at this place... Fifty thousand people used to live in this city. Now it's a ghost town... I've never seen anything like it." [/I]

[Alcoholocaust]

Carry on -bitter pause- S.T.A.L.K.E.R!

[JustExtreme]

This is incredible, thank you so much for sharing these. I really want to visit Chernobyl one day and similar places - I've explored abandoned buildings and underground reconnaisance stations in England but a whole city? Shit, must be so eery and amazing.

Are you planning on uploading these and more at higher resolution anywhere? I'd love to use some of them as wallpapers as they're beautiful.

Anyway, thank you for sharing this amazing trip with me

[Kamwi.003]

Thank you for sharing, would you mind posting the complete set of pictures? Id like to print some of these.

[yy958]

Your photos are delicious 10/10 bring me next time. I also think that is the greatest place to shoot a short action film.

[trotskygrad]

[quote]They have cool traffic lights in Kyiv, [B]they tell you how long you have to cross, or how long you have to wait before you can cross[/B]![/quote]

in chicago they do the first thing but not the second... damn americans

but yeah, excellent photos, you captured the feeling really well.

[OficerHonkHonk]

Beautiful photos.

[Viva_]

Absolutely beautiful photos, not just the subject matter but your actual camera work.

[Mike_Tyson]

Looking at these sort of scared me, especially the school. I mean as you said that was once a hub with children laughing and now its abandoned. Its scary to think about, "What if that happened to me?"

[Chernobyl426]

You should make an album of all 933 pictures.

[IPK]

Welp,you found a snake in Chernobyl,that is a good sign,it might become liveable again in the future

[Araknid]

[QUOTE=IPK;38122740]Welp,you found a snake in Chernobyl,that is a good sign,it might become liveable again in the future[/QUOTE]

Chernobyl is already filled with wild animals dingus.

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Regardless, in a way its good that there aren't many humans there anymore.
Rare species such as the lynx and Przewalski's horse are thriving there.

[Audio-Surfer]

I thought the title said bengay and this was about making testicles sterile in addition to causing them extreme pain.

[Tydrain]

Very intresting seeing all those photographs, I really want to go there once aswell.

[Bengley]

[QUOTE=JustExtreme;38118045]This is incredible, thank you so much for sharing these. I really want to visit Chernobyl one day and similar places - I've explored abandoned buildings and underground reconnaisance stations in England but a whole city? Shit, must be so eery and amazing.

Are you planning on uploading these and more at higher resolution anywhere? I'd love to use some of them as wallpapers as they're beautiful.

Anyway, thank you for sharing this amazing trip with me[/QUOTE]

If you can provide me with a list of the ones you want at full res, I will be happy to do that, but they're about 11mb each so I don't want to upload all of them.

[editline]21st October 2012[/editline]

[QUOTE=Im Crimson;38117592]I've seen many Chernobyl photos but these are extraordinarily pretty, can't put my finger on what it is about them. Very nice work, thanks for sharing. Are you uploading the other pics elsewhere?[/QUOTE]

I may upload some to flickr at some point.

[url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/bengley[/url]

[g@mergeek]

Always wanted to go there, how much did the trip cost in total?