Drinking Vodka With Elderly Settlers Who Refuse to Leave Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone
Let me introduce you to Ivan Ivanich. He is a proud fascist who would truly like to kill us all, however, approaching 90 he appeared to pose little threat. To substantiate this further, he is one of the friendliest men I have ever met. Ivan will talk your ear off, even if you don’t understand his raspy Ukrainian, as his wife stands by in silence. She listens stoically, likely having endured this prattle for decades. The Ivaniches are settlers living about 13 miles east of Reactor 4, which had an epic catastrophe here in Chernobyl in early 1986.
Heading west out of the town of Chernobyl, we pulled off on a dusty dirt road about a mile before the Belarus border. The people living here are called “self-settlers,” even though there are only five of them and Ivan hates them all. He confides that he would prefer a different group of people and admits that his wife falls into this category at times. Fortunately, there are many abandoned homes nearby where he can go spend the night when domestic tensions escalate.
A quick look at the satellite imagery does reveal an eerie expanse of overgrown neighborhoods (around lat 58.288º, long 30.322º) and abandoned farms, far larger than we had the time or the bushwhacking equipment to explore.
Let me introduce you to Ivan Ivanich. He is a proud fascist who would truly like to kill us all, however, approaching 90 he appeared to pose little threat. To substantiate this further, he is one of the friendliest men I have ever met. Ivan will talk your ear off, even if you don’t understand his raspy Ukrainian, as his wife stands by in silence. She listens stoically, likely having endured this prattle for decades. The Ivaniches are settlers living about 13 miles east of Reactor 4, which had an epic catastrophe here in Chernobyl in early 1986.
Heading west out of the town of Chernobyl, we pulled off on a dusty dirt road about a mile before the Belarus border. The people living here are called “self-settlers,” even though there are only five of them and Ivan hates them all. He confides that he would prefer a different group of people and admits that his wife falls into this category at times. Fortunately, there are many abandoned homes nearby where he can go spend the night when domestic tensions escalate.
A quick look at the satellite imagery does reveal an eerie expanse of overgrown neighborhoods (around lat 58.288º, long 30.322º) and abandoned farms, far larger than we had the time or the bushwhacking equipment to explore.
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