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Extreme sport-touring - Chernobyl


Drake

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I came accross this great and sobering story yesterday, by the time I came across it, the lady had to take her site down because it was getting overwhelmed with hits.

 

One of the guys from www.Sport-touring.net copied her pages before she took it off line. He posted it back up again on a server he has access to. This story is NOT to be missed.

 

Chernobyl

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Greetings all,

 

The link was pulled again at the authors request, she wants to update the pages and make some corrections...

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When and if you can I would appreciate it if you would post the article. I am assuming it has something to do with Chernobyl and I've been there twice. Or if possible to copy it and send it my way. Thanks.

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1st Shirt,

 

I did make a copy of her site before it was taken down again. I have it stored on my computer at work, and won't be able to access it until tomorrow morning, but here's the good news, I just checked the www.Sport-touring.net site again and there is another link to her work...

 

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/page2.html

 

Hopefully this link will remain active. Lena stated, that after she posted this story, she had over 15000 hits in less than 3 days. She never expected this kind of attention and was not prepared for the attention her work generated, which is why she wanted to update it.

 

Here is the thread where she has been posting as well, I think she joins the conversation about page 9. Sport-touring.net - extreme sport-touring....

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I read this twice...What sobering pictures. I'm quite surprised it was so easy to get inside the city (what with radioactive levels 4-5x greater off the pavement!). And to think that she actually went INSIDE some of these homes.

 

Gives me a whole new respectful insight into our environment.

 

Mike O

 

P.S. I'm disappointed in how the accompanying thread degraded so far off topic. Glad we don't see that here.

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This is an amazing piece. The pictures really bring home the impact that the event had on people's lives, and how the government covered it up.

 

It brings up a question for me........If we are concerned about the storage and management of nuclear waste (spent rods from power generating stations), why wouldn't Chernoble be a natural location for a state of the art storage facility?

 

I already know the answer..........politics. Please don't let this degrade into a political discussion. I'm more interested in the scientific aspects.

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Thanks very much for posting this. As I mentioned I have been there, and the pictures brought back a lot of memories. I went while I was stationed at the White House. VP Gore went as part of an invitation from the Russians. I'd like to state just a couple of things that this girl may not know or is not privy to. As part of the tour we recieved we were briefed by not only the Russians, but by a group of international representatives as well.

 

The Russians had invited the U.S. because they wanted money, lot's of money for Chernobyl. Now, money is not the problem - the international community wants to give them lot's of money - but the use of the money is the problem. If you look closely at the picture she posted of the reactor, you will see huge plates. The Russians just covered this thing up - never has it been properly "cleaned up/buried." They just put hug plates all around it. That's it! So the international community wants to go in and take care of it properly. The Russians - they want to complete the two reactors that are not completely built! Yes, there are two more reactors that they had begun building when reactor #4 melted down. Needless to say the international community is dead set against this. So, the politics go on. This was about 6-7 years ago, I'm not sure what has been done in the mean time. (not sure the date of her picture of reactor #4, but there was no change from when I was there)

 

The town that she shows many photo's from, I also did a tour of that town and she is absolutely right about the silence. But for me the silence told a story. Also, she touched on it lightly but I think it should be mentioned again. She talked about how the people were just put into military buses and sent away. I'd like to elaborate just a little more. This town was a model town. It was souly for those who work at the power plant. If you weren't employed by the power plant in some form, you couldn't live there. And you lived there FREE. Now, think about the average Russian citizen and what their living standard was. Take that, and offer someone a fulltime job with decent pay AND free living in a brand new town. The housing would have been consider castles by the average Russian. They had a small amusement park, a bus system that took them back and forth to the plant, and a big new grocery store. The common Russian citizen was lucky to see groceries, let alone have access to a nice store like that. Now, take these really, really lucky citizens and all of a sudden tell them you are running a drill, that they need to walk out to the bus and get on. That they will be back in a few hours after the drill is over. Don't worry, you don't need extra clothes, this will all be over soon. That's exactly what they did. And these folks were never allowed back into that town. They lost everything. They went from living like kings and queens to having absolutely nothing.

 

The Firemen - a very, very sad story. When the building started to burn of course the fire department responded. They had their own fire department which was large by Russian standards. When they arrived they were informed that yes, there was some radiation, but not to worry because the effects of radiation are NOT accumalitive. So the Chief of the Fire Department put his men on shifts. They would go into the reactor and fight the fire for 2-3 minutes at a time. Then he would send in another shift. They fought this fire for many hours, just alternating shifts. ALL of the firemen died within weeks!

 

She mentioned the current radiation. When I was there the international community was testing and was becoming very alarmed. The radiation had gotten into the ground water and of course was swelling up FAR from the reactor. Think about this - the reactor sits on a major river. Once this stuff is in the ground water, no telling where it will go. Very sad.

 

During my time there the Russians gave us a tour of reactor #3. Yes, it was online and operating safely - according to them. But when I went into the control room it really made me wonder. It looked like it was right out of a 1950's B Science Fiction movie. Big huge dials and needles. My first thought when I saw that control room was "No wonder you had a meltdown." Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the old analog age, but there is no way these engineers are getting half the information that they need to REALLY monitor a nuclear reactor. The meltdown was caused by human error DURING a drill.

 

Well, I could go on and on, but I do appreciate seeing that article. Having been there a couple of times in one week, I can now picture her riding down those roads. And I worry about her safety. Yes, her dad has taught her many things, but from the sound of what she said I worry that some of it could be tainted by "political propoganda." Radiation IS accumalitive. I hope that she doesn't ride there too much.

 

Thanks again!

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1st Shirt,

 

Thanks for posting this. Elena's story has taken a life of it's own, she really did a nice piece of work and it has grabbed ALOT of attention.

 

Slashdot...

I can't believe some girl's photo album was the single greatest link I have ever read off slashdot. And it wasn't even M$ or SCO related. Incredible.

Here is another page she missed linking. page 16

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Just a heads up. When I went to her link I got a Spybot Seach and Destroy ( http://www.safer-networking.org/ ) message saying that the site was trying to download "Avenue A, Inc., a known threat." Maybe someone with more computer saavy than myself can analyze what that means. Since I had Spybot S&D installed, it gave me the option of not taking the download but still permitted me to view the site.

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I have family over there... after the disaster my cousin was sent in from kiev as a radiation tech to monitor the fire fighters... she had seen some pretty high doses herself. haven't heard from them for a while...

 

my aunt died a fe weeks after my dad, and since i never learned Ukranian, not to sure how there ar doing now.

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This was a great story. A wonderful point of why we love these ride reports.

 

Not sure I'd really make that trip a regular occasion. But a one-time trip would certainly be a fun one, if I get to that corner of the world on 2 wheels...

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An extremely interesting article, but I wonder. Do, or will we ever know what really went on, and even worse do we or will we ever know what is going on visa vie radiation leakage. frown.gif

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wow, talk about getting a spooky feeling....

 

It is like something out of a SciFi movie - fact is indeed stranger than fiction.

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Wow. I'm not sure I'd even want to ride those roads. It might be too strange. It's wonderfull that she could take those pictures and write that story for the rest of the world to read.

 

BTW, we'll see how long she can keep her site up. She was getting nearly 100 counts per second on her home page web counter when I looked at it. She's currently at over 800,000 hits. Yowza!

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Elana has done a pretty good job so far. Elana buys her bandwidth chunks at a time for what seems to be a pretty reasonable price from Anglefire.

 

I have exchanged a few emails with Elana in the past when she first brought her site online, I asked if she needed help paying for the bandwidth and she indicated she was financially secure and the cost wasn't a issue for her.

 

Amazing website, and even more amazing young woman... thumbsup.gif

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Agent_Orange

I am at a complete loss for words. Being in fire-rescue for the last 28 years and seeing those trucks and the empty bays at the fire house, well 9-11 came roaring back. bncry.gif

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