A Russian Babe on a Big Bike Rides Through a Nuclear Wasteland
This site presents a series of haunting and disturbing pictures taken by Biker-chick, Elena, on her several rides through the ghost towns created by the Chernobyl accident. Click here to join Elena on her rides.
Comment by Dan Mehlhorn
30 March 2004 @ 11:09 pm
Beautiful woman. She must not worry about radiation ruining her excellent looks. American Biker chics should look so good.
Comment by Scott
31 March 2004 @ 4:38 am
Dan - Bwahahaha. The 5 ugliest (with a capital ‘U’) women I have seen in Japan place in the middle of American looks. And yes, I wish biker chicks in the USA were as hot as this woman.
Her knowledge of physics is turning me on more than I care to admit. She’s good-lookin’, rides a Ninja, knows physics. That’s hard to top….
Comment by Dan Mehlhorn
31 March 2004 @ 10:51 pm
Think I have Paul Teutel, Sr. drooling yet? Think Paul, Jr. will build an appropriate theme bike for her?
Comment by Scott
1 April 2004 @ 3:28 am
My first bike was a Honda CBR-1100XX (black, of course, hence the monkier ‘BlackBird’).
Her Ninja is a nice approximation, though. The hard-bags are a nice touch. I’m still a sports-bike guy, though (although I am looking at a cruiser for the next ride).
Between her choice of bike (especially considering her age), her physics knowledge*, and her overall-balls-for-going-to-Chernobyl - she can have me anyway she wants.
* - being knowledgable (sp?) is better than being smart in this case
Comment by veronika
1 April 2004 @ 3:56 am
this woman’s knowledge of physics is as limited as her knowledge of history.
alexander akimov didn’t push “the wrong button”. a novice engineer would know not to design a reactor that can be destroyed by push of a button. he flipped a switch. an EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN switch, which was supposed to SHUT THE REACTOR DOWN. and it was the right thing to do. he followed the protocol. she doesn’t mention that it was a gas explosion because xenon built up and the excess neutrons was not absorbed. she also doesn’t mention that the man who tried to stop the chain reaction died 3 weeks after the accident. a careless, insensitive and ignorant narrator.
and would someone tell me, how can she smile in these pictures?
Comment by Dan Mehlhorn
1 April 2004 @ 4:01 am
She’s not from New York.
That’s the smartass answer.
She smiles showing off her ride. She is what we call in America, a Free spirit.
Comment by Jeff in Korea
1 April 2004 @ 4:24 am
Veronika,
You make some interesting observations. Please tell me about yourself, why you posted your response, what your experience and backgound with Chernobyl is. I’m curious.
Comment by veronika
1 April 2004 @ 4:40 am
i am 23 years old. during the accident, i was a 5-year-old sleeping in her bed less than 2 miles away from the reactor. i was evacuated with my family after the announcement came on april 27th 1986.
the site, the link to which was forwarded to me by a friend a few days ago, first disturbed me. the more i read it/thought about it, the more it began to anger me. people simply don’t know enough about it, and when something as impressive as this comes up, everyone is too quick to pass judgment and sing praise. yes, it looks good. yes, her story is different. wow, it makes it look pretty glorious, doesn’t it?
it’s not that she’s bring up the topic, it’s how she does it. the appears to know what she’s talking about, but throws in a lot of false information. little things, like saying that radiation will “evaporate”, for example. misquoting numbers. laying blame on people who are considered heroes. my father was an operator at unit 4. he is a nuclear physicist/engineer. never in my life would i ever dream of being so careless with this topic.
we live in the u.s. now. i am educated as a cell biologist, but work in biochemistry. i also have a strong interest in physics (and can describe how a nuclear reactor of RBMK design works).
her smiling face in the pictures shows little emotion appropriate for this place; i remember being on the verge of a nervous breakdown when i went to our old apartment 5 years ago. they told us we’d be back. i’d dreamt as a child of coming back home, but after seeing the shelves where i had my toys and the peeling wallpaper, i knew i never wanted to go back there. calling pripyat the “favorite part” of the joyride or whatever, is disgusting.
i’m sorry if my initial post came off as offensive. i just want people to question a few things. -veronika
Comment by Dan Mehlhorn
1 April 2004 @ 5:04 am
New York people never smile for the camera. They make obscene jestures as a greeting.
Comment by jtb
1 April 2004 @ 5:39 am
Thanks to the Elena for the photos. Thanks to Veronika for setting the story straight.
While I won’t say I cry about the tragedy (too macho to admit anything like tht); I can imagine what my own childhood might have been if my local power plant had a similar accident…
(http://geogweb.berkeley.edu/GeoImages/BainCalif/Cal400/humnuc.html, http://www.hrw.com/science/si-science/physical/electricity/powering/images/gallry12.html )
The Humboldt Bay Plant was another of the older flat-roofed designs, similar to those at Chernoyl… and it was shut down after thirteen years of operating on an earthquake fault…
We were more than “lucky”…
Comment by Jeff in Korea
1 April 2004 @ 10:55 am
Thanks for your additional post, Veronika. I completely understand where you are coming from. I have many of the same emotions when I see kids running around and adults picnicing and having a wonderful time in places like UN cemetaries or battlefields.
My point in posting the pictures was not to highlight her or her motorcycle. The purpose was to show the horrors of Chernobyl and the devastation that can be knowingly and unknowingly unleashed on the world by humans when we become careless with our presumed power over nature.
To be honest, I didn’t even notice her smiling in any of the pictures. I was too struck by the absolute emptiness of villages and cities and the knowledge that they would remain unfit for habitation for potentially tens of thousands of years. It is quite awesome and breathtaking.
If you want to write a more detailed post on the events, your own experiences then, during your visit, and now, and post any pictures you may have, I would be happy to post it and give you credit as my very first guest columnist.
By the way, how did you stumble upon my humble little site?
-Jeff
Comment by veronika
2 April 2004 @ 1:50 am
hi again, jeff.
actually, if you’d like a more detailed account, i wrote a long “comment” on her main site, http://elenaschernobyl.com or www.elenaschernobyl.com. if you’d like, i can send you a word doc of it.
the reason i posted what i did is because after i saw her site, i typed ‘chernobyl elena’ into google and came up with a ton of blogs, etc. citing her site. everyone has the same comments, the oohs and aahhs. so i started posting refuting statements everywhere :) someone’s got to do it!
actually, there were two more posts that marginally questioned the content, which i were happy to see. an older gentleman, who mentioned that her numbers are out of whack (i believe he had links to international atomic energy agency reports - a very good reference), and another gentleman who politely told her not to slander the communist regime since she was way too young to know anything about it at the time. he just told her to be careful about making blanket statements, a very reasonable thing.
so, there. thank you for your consideration. i just hate the “easy to digest, no additional research needed” information of this sort. i’m glad that what i wrote was read.
-v
Comment by veronika
3 April 2004 @ 3:32 am
hey, guess what?!
i have been tracking her website, and i just saw that she corrected what i had suggested (cutting and pasting what i wrote, in fact).
-veronika
Comment by Dan Mehlhorn
3 April 2004 @ 4:07 am
Veronika,
I would say you had a positive effect then.
Comment by veronika
3 April 2004 @ 5:28 am
i’ve actually been getting emails from different people, asking me questions, all of them sincerely interested. there’s a gentleman, a photographer, who will be going to chernobyl in a month, and who is determined to find out for himself what it’s like…
it’s interesting tracking the changes she’s made. she removed akimov’s name. she clarified that she can’t bring her bike through some of the checkpoints (like i alleged). and after i posted a comment asking her how she got the permission to go in with her vehicle at all, and asked if she worked there, she added to her statement about having a permit from the nuclear research center “thank you, daddy!”. she doesn’t work there.
and she removed that stupid statement about radiation “evaporating”. -v
p.s. there are plenty of books written on the matter. books that have been EDITED for ACCURACY. there are also resources such as the nuclear regulatory commission (u.s.) and the international atomic energy agency.
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