I’m fascinated by a scenario where future generations come across the Exclusion Zone, without knowing the nature of what it is or was. (This, of course, assumes some kind of cataclysm that destroys much of our historical record.) What would they make of the what was left behind? Of the vehicles and structures, perhaps still … Continue reading Goodnight, Pripyat
Westerners are puzzled by the recurrent nostalgia for communism that is found throughout the former Eastern Bloc. Apart from the fact that every generation looks back on the years of its youth with rose tinted glasses, there is a longing for the trappings of the old, failed economic system that can be hard to understand … Continue reading On the Merits of Authoritarianism
There are certain landmarks which, whatever their original purpose may have been, now serve primarily as totems of identity and placehood. The Eiffel tower is Paris, just as the Statue of Liberty is New York, and a trip to either of these cities would be incomplete without seeing them. The Pripyat ferris wheel falls, for … Continue reading Our Eiffel Tower
Within the Exclusion Zone, at the end of a long, rough road through dense forest, lies a curious relic of the cold war. Tucked away in this bit of wilderness, the Duga radar installation would have been a military secret, but for one thing: the staccato clicking noises it produced on shortwave radio frequencies. Shortwave … Continue reading The Russian Woodpecker
The Exclusion Zone has an eeriness to it which is heightened by the giant power plant looming at its center. An already massive building housing four reactors was made even more so once the Sarcophagus was slid into place over it late in 2016. This gleaming new dome, at over three hundred feet tall, is … Continue reading The Chernobyl Reactors
Continuing the theme of the previous post, these are more photos from the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl featuring stunning overgrowth of the last three decades. This last rooftop shot really shows that “drowned’ quality of many of the buildings. Our guide had told us that winter can be a better time to visit, as … Continue reading Back Under
Abandoned places get overgrown; the town of Pripyat is no exception. But there is simply more here, a case where a quantitative difference leads to a qualitative one. When hundreds of square miles are left untended, the result is that these once-inhabited areas don’t just feel overgrown, they feel submerged. The place where I felt … Continue reading Submergence
I have, as of this writing, been doing urban exploration for a decade. I have traveled across the American rust belt and beyond specifically to photograph the old, the decayed, and the abandoned. I have also felt, in recent years, that I have been pursuing diminishing returns; after a while, each ruined building begins to … Continue reading Where Words Fail
For many Americans, any and all former Soviet republics get lumped into a nebulous mass of geographical uncertainty, authoritarianism, and Borat-type culture. Ukraine is a bracing tonic against these stereotypes; a nation whose rich culture belies its relatively brief geopolitical history. The region of what today is called Ukraine has been at a political and … Continue reading The Crossroads of Ukraine
T A B U L A R A S A photography 