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.

I would say you had a positive effect then.

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

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

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

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”…

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

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.