For 20th Anniversary of Chernobyl accident www.chernobyl.info presents a special project "Chernobyl Journey". A Belarusian journalist Vasily Semashko travels in Chernobyl region and reports on his impressions about everyday life of the people living in the contaminated area.

09.04.2006.Homemade vodka helps to forget about radiation
09.04.2006.Homemade vodka helps to forget about radiation. American photojournalist Dan decided to make me company to see areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster. I decided to take the colleague along though I knew having him around would not make the trip easier given the Minsk-Washington dissent
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11.04.2006.Bragin waits for Lukashenko.
11.04.2006.Bragin waits for Lukashenko.We decide to go to Bragin. The city almost right up adjoins the compulsory evacuation zone, which no one may enter without an access permit.
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13.04.2006. Are there many two-headed calves in Chernobyl zone?
13.04.2006. Are there many two-headed calves in Chernobyl zone? Polesski radiation- ecological reserve was created in 1988 in a part of the territories contaminated as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. The project aimed at overseeing the wildlife in conditions of the high radiation level, and forest planting as it prevents emission of radioactive particles with dust.
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15.04.2006. Wildlife recovers to its natural state in Chernobyl zone
15.04.2006. Wildlife recovers to its natural state in Chernobyl zone. Roads in the evacuation zone somewhat remind of roads to deserted military grounds: quite good surface and no traffic. Alder forests flooded in spring, then endless swamp lands along both sides of the roads.
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17.04.2006. Radiation vanishes from some of Chernobyl-affected villages.
17.04.2006. Radiation vanishes from some of Chernobyl-affected villages.In my previous notes I forgot to mention the categories of lands in the Chernobyl-affected districts. We start with the restricted zone, the 30-kilometer circle around Chernobyl.
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17.04.2006. Night in the exclusion zone
17.04.2006. Night in exclusion zone. We decide to go to Tulgovichi village of Khoyniki district, the only inhabited village in the Polesski radiation- ecological reserve. This time we will do without escort.
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18.04.2006. Boarding schools need "everything" from donors
18.04.2006. Boarding schools need "everything" from donors. On the way from Khoyniki to Gomel we decide to visit Vasilevichi village boarding school for children from single-parent or disfunctional families. “Disfunctional family” means family with lower income or family, in which one of the parents neglects a child, being an alcohol addict as a rule.
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19.04.2006. Radiation strikes at thyroid gland
19.04.2006. Radiation strikes at thyroid gland. When in Gomel we head for the Republican Research Centre of Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology. The city center. Rather dirty buildings of Stalin’s period for the most part, residential areas full of “Khrushchev’s blocks” behind them, standard bearing-wall houses in outskirts. Looks very much like Minsk, only dirtier.
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20.04.2006.Besed near Vetka. Beautiful, but dangerous
20.04.2006.Besed near Vetka. Beautiful, but dangerous. We destine for Vetka, which is 15 kilometers from Gomel. It was one of Old Believers’ centers once.
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21.04.2006.How Russia combats radiation?
21.04.2006. How Russia combats radiation? From Belarus I continue the trip to Bryansk region affected by the Chernobyl accident. From the window of the Gomel - Novozybkov bus I see radiation hazard signs at forest cross-over roads.
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26.04.2006.Wisents did not survive near Chernobyl plant
26.04.2006. Wisents did not survive near Chernobyl plant.As a result of the Chernobyl accident a huge area of three countries, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, has turned into an open-air museum where human activity stopped right after April 26, 1986. Now the nature tries to disguise traces of men, and man-made constructions are being overrun with bushes and trees little by little.
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01.05.2006.City turned into museum by radiation
01.05.2006.City turned into museum by radiation. The birth of the city of Pripyat was predetermined by the decree on construction of the Central Ukrainian nuclear power plant in the Kiev region issued by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on September 29, 1966. Northern Ukraine’s territory poorest in black earth soil was allocated for the nuclear power plant construction.
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03.05.2006.Life with dosimeter
03.05.2006. Life with dosimeter. Krasnoye village of the Bragin district is 31 kilometers far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A railway, which is used by the plant personnel going to work from Slavutich through Belarus by commuter trains, is nearby. The trains go through our country without stops.
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04.05.2006. Social haze in Zamglai
04.05.2006. Social haze in Zamglai.In Ukraine I go to the village of Zamglai of the Chernigov region, which is 87 kilometers far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The area is rated the fourth level of contamination.
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06.05.2006. “Thank God it didn’t happen on my shift”
06.05.2006. “Thank God it didn’t happen on my shift”. After the accident at the Chernobyl station most of the residents of the town of Pripyat were evacuated to Kiev, some were sent to other Ukrainian regions, Moldova or the Baltic States. Radiation turned their native town into a life-size city-museum. A brand new town was built for the staff of the Chernobyl power station instead of the contaminated Pripyat. It was named Slavutich.
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