Red Corner: Biking Through the Ghost Towns of Chernobyl

If yesterday's post about touring Chernobyl whetted your appetite for nuclear adventure, take a moment to check out the following site.

Kiddofspeed.com chronicles the adventures of Elena, a Ukrainian woman with a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle and a passion for riding it through Chernobyl's Death Zone-a place where "nature is blooming" and "one can ride with no stoplights, no police, no danger to hit some cage or some dog.."

Elena takes the time to educate the reader about the tragedy which occurred at Chernobyl and the dangers of radiation. She then presents a virtual tour of what is left at ground zero and the surrounding areas which were evacuated shortly after the disaster and remain a ghost town today.

It is difficult to describe the power and emotion the site evokes. Each photo is a terrifying snapshot of post-apocalypse that no Hollywood movie has been quite able to capture; the eeriness of empty buildings, villages with no people, the long stretches of lonely roads, schools so quickly evacuated that notes are still posted on the walls, family photographs askew on apartment floors, calendars frozen on the date of the explosion, silence everywhere, and overgrown fields where wild herds of horses gallop freely.

Elena also takes care to describe the various radiation levels she comes across on her journeys and how quickly her Geiger counter can jump by merely stepping a few feet in the wrong direction.

Although this site has been around for a while, and challenged by critics who claim it is fake, Elena's careful documentation leaves no doubt in my mind that her expose of this terrifying nightmare is indeed the real McCoy. Check it out. It will be the most extraordinarily sobering thing you do all day.

Filed under: Biking, History, Ukraine, Red Corner