Reflections on Ruin

It's been a long road, filtering through the hundreds of photos from Pripyat and the reactor, trying to whittle them down to those few perfect ones. The ones that capture the essence of our trip, truly convey the mood of that abandoned and silent city, and tell the story that we ourselves can only begin to fully comprehend.

On the overnight train ride from Odessa to Lviv, Photomat had shown me the documentary he had about the Chernobyl incident - I really have to get the name of it from him. It had footage of Pripyat, showing it as an active and lively city just before and after the explosion.

I was amazed at how well preserved the buildings were from what I could see in the footage. Other than windows being shattered, which can probably be chalked up to vandalism more than decay, the structures themselves were in amazing shape. The big difference was the vegetation and animal life.

When we had passed through the main checkpoint heading into the city proper, we were told by Evgeny (photo at right with me), our (amazing) guide that we were now driving on the main thoroughfare. Considering that the road was just wide enough for his car and the trees were canopied and just brushing the top, this seemed quite an impossibility. However, the documentary clearly showed that this main thoroughfare was quite an avenue - along the lines of Toronto's University Avenue - two grand roads with a garden-like divide. We just couldn't see it, nature had taken over completely and the road was one big pothole.

Another difference was in the overall layout of the city. We had made our way to the top of the hotel, sweating in our white alien-like anti-radiation suits, climbing 9 (or 10?) floors to get a wonderful view of the entire city from the long-gone wall-to-wall windows in what I assume had been a penthouse suite. Scanning the horizon, you felt like you were in some Green Party's Utopian cityscape - you could barely see below the 3rd floor of any building as everything was overgrown with trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, and other native forms of vegetation. It was quite beautiful - so green and lush and quiet. You could almost imagine that you were an explorer and had found a lost civilization - until your dosimeter would go off to remind you of all the radiation.

Looking at the documentary gave us a completely different view of the cityscape. Pripyat looked more like what you would expect to see in European locations like Kyiv, Prague, or Vienna. Most of the buildings had vast concrete plazas in front of them and the city had a larger metal/concrete to nature ratio. They were surrounded by forest and had some garden areas around the housing but schoolyards were concrete, and so were roads, and walkways. It's amazing just how easily plants were able to take hold in this concrete jungle and reclaim it.

The other night, we caught a bit of the series Life After People, which is supposed to chronicle in a timeline what will happen to cities once man is gone and nature and animals take over again. Sounded interesting and it's been recommended to me since I like to shoot abandoned spaces. The episode which looks at life after 20 years is supposed to focus entirely on Pripyat as they used it as the real-life example of the level of decay for this time span. I'm looking forward to finding some time to look at that episode and see how well it meshes with my own personal experience.

I was glad that we had watched the documentary after our trip as we could compare what we had seen and experienced to how the city looked and functioned when it was still vital.

A Shopaholic in Ukraine

What do you do when you've seen all the sights (or at least you think you have?) in the city of Ukrainian love? You go shopping.

It's easier said than done, though, when it turns out you're in a city that doesn't seem to recognize any of your credit cards (thank you MC and VISA) and spits out your bank card from the ATMs like a bad piece of meat. To top it off, most restaurants and shops only take cash - Ukrainian hryvnias and not US dollars either. It was definitely a challenge to get my shopping groove on.

We hit the artist's market for a second day, hoping to see something new or perhaps overlooked and finally get some souvenirs. The most interesting sight there was the row of embroidery with the ladies (and one or two men) sitting in front of their wares with needle and thread in hand working on new pieces. Some beautiful men's and women's shirts as well as cute little girl's costumes could be purchased at really reasonable prices. The more complicated patterns could be seen on the rushnyky (like table runners) and full table cloths. Everything from border patterns to full overall patterns in every colour with patterns from every region of the country were on display. It was really beautiful.

After the market we made our way towards the main park near the Opera House for some people watching. They have about a dozen small electric cars here that parents rent out for about 10 minutes for their children. Half of them allow for the children to drive themselves and the other half are remote controlled with the parents actually driving the car. It was really adorable watching the little girls in the remote control cars, completely oblivious to the wheel or direction they were going in, more intent on their dresses, hands, birds, really anything but the experience. I think the parents were having the most fun.

Near the park there was quite a commotion with police, ambulance, and secret service agents surrounding an outdoor cafe. When we stumbled upon it - being really oblivious to the whole scene until it was too late - we realized that the President of Ukraine was having lunch with a large group of people right on the patio and was engaged in some grand conversation. Lots of hand gesturing and glass raising was going on. You never know if this was a political luncheon or if he just wanted to get out and have a nice patio lunch. I would have taken a photo if I wasn't worried about being pounced upon by a dozen secret service agents.

We're sitting in the "luxurious internet lounge" at the Lviv train station (3 hryvnia/hour to sit + 7 hryvnia/hour to use the internet) waiting for our train to show up. Another night of back breaking travel back to Kyiv - I love the fact that I can close my eyes in one city and open them in another, but those "beds" are murder on the spine, and we're traveling in luxe. I'd hate to see how they travel in the regular cars.

One more day in Ukraine tomorrow and then it's a short hop to Frankfurt and back home. It will be nice to be home - the adventure has been grand!

Surreal in the City

It's been a strange 24 (36?) hours since we left Toronto. I'm in Kyiv now and we headed straight into the city to try and keep awake long enough to get our sleep patterns to mesh with the new time change.

After a good solid dinner at a cafeteria-style diner that served all Ukrainian dishes (the goulash was nice and soft), Mat and I headed out for some walking and photo snapping with no real intentions of where to go. We just knew where the subway was and how to get back to the apartment.

Detours - they can be a lot of fun. You take a cobblestone path up a hill and you spot a pink decaying building behind a fence. We knew it was a hospital of some kind and that picqued our interest. Of course this is Eastern Europe - never assume something is not in use just because it looks worn out - that's just character. The main gate had an open doorway in it with a sign that roughly said "Clinic this way", so we went.

The buildings on the grounds were amazing. Mostly in shades of fading pink and moss green, with definite signs of decay and rot, evident from half missing cement balconies. I kept waiting for someone to ask us why we were there, who we were. It never happened - everyone was polite and just left us to do our thing. I finally read the sign on the way out - Ministry of Health.

On the way back to the Metro, we came upon a big crowd watching a group of breakdancers on the sidewalk near Indepence Square. Pretty talented bunch. What a great ending to a wonderful adventure and surprise-filled day.

Let's Play It By Ear - Sort Of

Two weeks to go before we fly out so we decided to meet and firm up our itinerary for the trip. We realized we needed to do the math on the train schedules, bus information, and distances to see if our ambitious plan would work.

As much as we want to see everything the country has to offer, we're realistic about only having 2 weeks on the road. Our main objective was always to get to Chernobyl for photography - and with that booked and in place, being able to get around the rest of the country and photograph Soviet-era structures, onion domed churches, historic Ukrainian architecture, and many other of Ukraine's forgotten and decaying structures is a wonderful extra.

Since we don't know just how much we'll see in the different locations we visit, we've decided to keep it loose. It's usually the way I like to travel anyway. The flexibility allows you to spend as much or as little time as you need in one place without the worry of having to make it to a reservation. I've traveled with people who need every single hour of every day scheduled out for them - I'm not really like that, doesn't leave room for those great detours in life. Luckily we both seem to be more into the adventure and not the schedule so I think we're going to travel quite well together.

So if it's a loose itinerary, do we even know where we're going now, you might ask? Sure:

Kyiv > Chernobyl > Kyiv > Odesa > Lviv > Kyiv

Where we go in between and how long we stay in the main cities is the adventure right now. As long as we're back in Kyiv to fly home on time, I'm happy flittering around the country and exploring, meeting people, adding stories and images to our project.


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