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few minutes only a hundred yards or so from the plant our time there was very limited due to the risk of exposure to radioactivity and after only about 5 minutes a police officer came out of a nearby building and told us it was time to leave the area the most fascinating stop of the day was at a nearby ghost town named pripyet pripyet was built in 1970 to house the families of the chernobyl workers pripyet is less than 2 miles from the plant and was highly contaminated during the disaster shortly after the disaster occurred inhabitants of pripyet were told they were to temporarily evacuate the city and they were given 2 hours to collect their personal belongings and board government busses taking them away from the area none of pripyet s citizens were ever allowed to return our guide spent about 2 hours taking us to the most fascinating parts of the city and i have to say it is the most thorough and most fascinating visit i have ever made to any ghost town our first visit was to the top of an abandoned hotel where we enjoyed views of the entire area including views of chernobyl next we visited a gigantic abandoned shopping mall then a small amusement park to me the amusement park was the most saddening part of the entire visit the park was built by the soviet government as a reward to the citizens of pripyet for the completion of nuclear reactor 4 it was due to open on may 1 1986 and included a ferris wheel with bright yellow gondolas bumper cars and motorized swings among a few other rides to me the park was symbolic of the sense of accomplishment optimism and general desire to enjoy life that the citizens of pripyet must have felt when the disaster occurred on april 26 1986 only a few days before the park was scheduled to open the citizens of pripyet left behind everything including the new amusement park that they would have enjoyed with their families other visits in pripyet included a sports facility with a full basketball court and a gigantic empty pool complete with diving platforms and huge windows to let in plenty of natural light a shopping mall that had been newly constructed just before the disaster and an elementary school that was littered with hundreds of soviet era schoolbooks as well as hundreds of gas masks in one of the rooms apparently the gas masks were used by the school kids for emergency training during the cold war everything in pripyet had been completely destroyed by the elements and was overgrown with trees and weeds fully grown trees had burst straight through the asphalt in streets and schoolyards and weeds and small trees even grew from the interior rooms at the tops of the buildings our final visit was to a small grassy field containing a gigantic metal claw our guide informed us that the claw was used to remove radioactive material from chernobyl he told us it was not safe to approach the claw but he ran up to it himself just long enough to get a reading on his geiger counter the reading was 18 000 microroentgens per hour 1 500 times the safe level of radioactivity on our way back to kiev we stopped in the town of chernobyl where we had a quick dinner and measured ourselves for radioactivity to verify that none of us had become dangerously contaminated when exiting the exclusion zone we were each measured once again this time by a gigantic soviet era machine somewhat resembling an airport metal detector visiting chernobyl felt a lot like visiting north korea last year it s a place that is very unique and a bit bizarre and most people would never believe that outsiders are allowed to visit also both places left me feeling glad i had visited to gain a better understanding of the place but also feeling sympathetic towards the citizens chernobyl had been an accomplishment for communism and while i clearly don t agree with communist ideals myself i still feel sympathy for those who created chernobyl and hoped to provide a better future for themselves and their nation those people must have felt so proud of what they had accomplished and so devastated when the disaster occurred posted by mike spendlove at 3 09 pm 2 comments wednesday september 8 2010 kiev experiencing kiev has been a nice benefit of my excursion from russia to visit chernobyl this morning i took a taxi from the archaic hotel slavutich the soviet era hotel i m staying in while in kiev to livoberezhna station where i rode the metro into the center of the city i had heard great things about kiev before i came and while it still feels underdeveloped i was amazed at the golden domed architecture of the various monasteries and cathedrals i spotted while riding into the city my first visit of the day was to st michael s monastery a beautiful blue church with gold domes that was originally built in 1108 but rebuilt in 2001 after the soviets tore it down in 1937 murals of jesus and his disciples line the walls leading to the entrance of the monastery and the walkway into the grounds leads beneath a gigantic gold domed bell tower i spent a half hour or so enjoying the grounds of st michaels taking time to wander through the interior and circle the church passing several monks dressed in black on the way then headed back out and down the street to one of kiev s most famous sites st sophia s cathedral st sophia s cathedral is a large whitewashed church with green accents and gold domes at the top as i wandered through the interior of the church i passed by several 11th century mosaics including a few original mosaics on the floor it s always interesting to me as i discover such artwork to myself to imagine what life must have been like for those who originally created it the interior of the cathedral was cavernous but let in plenty of natural light that lit up the gold covered artwork and statues at the front of the cathedral while wandering upstairs i found a 20th century art exhibit an entire wall of intricately painted ukrainian eggs forming a larger mosaic of the virgin mary the piece was titled looking into eternity and was by a famous ukrainian artist named oksana mas the grounds of the cathedral also house the mansion formerly used by the metropolitans of kiev i m assuming that the metropolitan was equivalent to a governor or mayor the most interesting features of the mansion to me were the heating stoves in each room covered in intricately painted tiles and the imported white marble tiles covering the floor in one of the rooms imported tile must have been an incredible luxury during the time the mansion was used my favorite of the three churches i visited today was st andrew s church which sits at the top of andriyivsky uzviz a picturesque cobblestone street winding down a hillside in central kiev the interior of st andrew s church was much the same as the other ukrainian and russian churches i ve visited featuring gold covered artwork at the front several statues of angels and cherubim and a wide tiled expanse with no pews for visitors to stand in while worshiping but the real reason i enjoyed it was because of the exterior architecture st andrew s features dark green domes with golden accents that are very uniquely shaped and seem so exotic to me for some reason i spent several minutes on a staircase leading up to st andrews snapping pictures trying to capture what the architectural wonder really looks like after wandering to the bottom of andriyivsky uzviz i located the nearby chernobyl museum all the exhibits were in ukrainian but i paid 50 extra hryvnia to rent an english audio guide that brought the museum to life although the museum was small i spent over an hour inside observing each of the exhibits and listening to the audio description several exhibits were dedicated to the heroes of chernobyl who sacrificed their lives to stay on the site during the disaster and prevent further nuclear explosions after passing by several cases displaying id cards and photographs of the various engineers and other personnel at the plant i watched a few short documentaries one of them showed the excitement and optimism of the new workers at the plant when it opened in 1977 then contrasted it with the disappointment felt in 2000 when the workers carried out orders by the ukrainian president to turn an emergency shut off key that would shut the plant down forever other exhibits included a model of chernobyl nuclear reactor 4 with a description of how it operated and what went wrong and pictures of pine tree branches in the vicinity of chernobyl that had been mutated due to radioactive exposure for many visitors kiev s most intriguing visit is to a network of underground tunnels beneath cathedrals in a complex called the lavra the lavra contains several exquisite ukrainian cathedrals housed within whitewashed walls but i took only a few minutes to duck into them so that i could get to the underground tunnels before they closed at 4 30 a narrow staircase led me beneath one of the cathedrals at the lavra and i followed several ukrainian worshipers through the tiny whitewashed tunnels as their thin yellow candles flickered in front of me the tunnels contain several mummified monks laid inside glass coffins set in niches in the sides of the tunnels the monks are covered in intricately decorated tapestries and aren t visible but many of the ukrainian visitors to the tunnels apparently believe that kissing coffin near the feet or faces of the monks will heal them of various ailments there was an odd combination of eeriness and reverence inside the quiet tunnels and i passed by several worshipers as they placed their thin tall candles at various shrines and kissed the glass coffins of the monks exploring the underground tunnels at the lavra with the ukrainian worshipers was definitely one of those moments when i asked myself how in the world did i end up here i like those moments i finished off my day at a tasty ukrainian restaurant named pervak that was highly recommended in my lonely planet book i splurged on dinner tonight and ordered borsch with pampushkas veal a la ancient kiev veal with cherries baked in a honey mustard sauce two pervak cranberry concoctions and ice cream baked inside a pear covered with flaky crust and fruit sauce for dessert i have to say that it was one of the more delicious meals i ve had while traveling i ve become so conditioned to traveling on as tight a budget as possible that often times i overlook colorful experiences like eating at a nicer restaurant abroad i m thinking that now that i m working and don t have to be so conscious of that i might have a lot more dinners while traveling like the one i had at pervak posted by mike spendlove at 3 20 pm 1 comment tuesday september 7 2010 museum of cosmonauts the moscow subway is growing on me getting hopelessly lost a few hundred feet underground the other day was frustrating and it didn t help that there were very few signs and all of them were in russian but after getting used to it i actually really like it the network of tunnels is very comprehensive and has been able to get me nearly everywhere i ve wanted to go in moscow and besides that the many murals of lenin the hammer and sickle icon and even stalin are an exotic touch this morning i took a train a station in the north outskirts of moscow to visit a gigantic complex built by the soviets called the all russia exhibition center before exploring the place though i happened to pass by the memorial museum of cosmonauts which i had intended to visit anyway the memorial museum of cosmonauts is russia s premiere museum dedicated to their space program similar to the smithsonian air and space museum but more modern and dedicated exclusively to space flight i have to say that the museum of cosmonauts is probably the most amazing space museum i ve ever visited possibly even better than the air and space museum in washington dc the exterior of the museum is a gigantic monument featuring a shiny metal statue of a rocket soaring into the air and bronze murals at the bottom depicting the accomplishments of the russian space program when i walked inside i was instantly surrounded by soviet satellites space suits and even a couple of embalmed dogs that had been to space i m sure that many of the artifacts in the museum would have been instantly recognizable had i been able to read the descriptions but unfortunately the placards were only in russian still the museum was incredibly well done and i spent nearly two hours wandering slowly through the place a few other notable exhibits included detailed models of soviet rockets and launch pads capsules that had been used by cosmonauts to return from space and a small soviet flag carried by the americans to the moon with an accompanying plaque from richard nixon presenting the flag as a gift to the soviet union a short walk from the museum of cosmonauts took me to the entrance of the all russia exhibition center the center is a giant complex of buildings built by the soviets in the 1930 s then expanded in the 50 s and 60 s to serve as a showcase for soviet economic success i didn t know quite what to expect before i visited the place but i guess i hoped to find a collection of exhibits that had been sitting around at the place since the soviets created them as i walked into the complex through a gigantic arch resembling brandenburg gate a huge fairgrounds type atmosphere came into view a handful of small amusement park rides were spread throughout the place and cheap food kiosks and souvenir stalls were everywhere the most impressive part of the complex was easily a gigantic soviet era building that obviously served as the center of the all russia exhibition center a large statue of lenin greeted me in front of the building and bronze communist friezes and hammer and sickle emblems decorated the outside of it the inside of the building was an incredible surprise as i walked inside i realized that what once was likely a cavernous impressive interior had been converted to accommodate hundreds of cheap shops and food stalls the place was a run down shopping mall after walking through the building for a few minutes to get a feel for things i headed back outside and contemplated the symbolism of the place it seems incredibly ironic that the all russia exhibition center was built as a monument to showcase the successes of communism but since has become an unintentional monument to russia s underdeveloped capitalism if lenin could see it he d roll in his grave or his mausoleum another incredible irony i spent another hour or so wandering through the grounds and stepping inside a few of the other buildings originally each building had been dedicated to some aspect of accomplishment or culture within the soviet union but now each of the buildings is just like the first one i visited an old run down shopping mall one of the buildings i entered was very intricate on the outside yet also very decrepit but on the inside was entirely abandoned i took a few steps inside the place and pee...