Fieldwork - some pictures

Murial

Central piece in a memorial to abandoned villages.

Also: in memory of Vassily Ignatenko, one of the first firefighters at the scene in Chernobyl, and he died May 13th 1986 as one of the first victims. link - first story. His wife was pregnant, but lost the child. Unknown if the radiation or the stress was the cause. No matter what - the result was the same. He was from Bragin.

Lunch in the Exclusion zone. Consisted of white bread, tasty tomatoes, cucumbers and sausages. And tea - "chai". Gammarate for this site was on average 7,2 microSievert/h, but with frequent peaks over 10 microSievert/h. The true danger of such places are ingesting hot particles, not being showered in activity by external sources. Therefore we had to wash our hands carefully before eating.

Samplingsite 6.

Regrowth. This opening in the forest might have been someone's home once. Now it was no sign of houses - just a clearing between the pines. And apricot-trees all over.

Future Chernobyl strawberries. Even though a few once in a while should theoretically be ok... I woun't eat one...

This van really was an ATV... It looks kind of old and fragile, but damn... roads, ditches, fields, forest... mud, swamp and dunes... this van managed it all. And at site it was a perfect power source.

I have no idea what this sign reads, but I guess it may make ordanary people turn back or sum'thin'

 One more warning sign. These riddled the forest - not only around the Exclution zone and Polessie state reserve, but also in practically all forests we drove past between Bragin and Minsk.

Too bad the reflection ruined the readability of the AutoMess, but it says 9,84 microSievert/h i think. 9 something at least. 98 times average Norwegian backgroundration, which is twice the european mean. So - almost 200 times the activity than normal European backgroundlevels. Some of our team became slightly nervous. The average at this site was as mentioned above 7,2 so we didn't accumulate that much. Besides - this level was at the ground and all important organs in the human body are 1 m above ground, so this also reduced the dose accumulated at this site.

What to bring

Ok. So you are going to Chernobyl. What to bring? That depends on what you're going to do. Personally I'm going to work with soil and plants. I'm going to bring ordanary trekking gear.

Basically it's this. From the left: my soft shell trekking suit. Expensive as hell, but with real quality. My gore-tex mountain shoes, which have proven themselves in very hostile environment for years. Then a bag of personal clothes - from woolen socks to hoodies. Also seen: instant coffee, memory card for my camera, old fashioned videocam w/ cords. My large suitcase, an adapter for some equipment I don't know much about, novel, light backpack. Not pictured: my plain clothes for dinners and going through customs, laptop, camera, dosiometer, ecotox and plant books and important papers.

However, here's my personal dosiometer. What I've taken of work-related radiation this year, this little thingy also has taken. It even has an alarm for acute high doses, although it's never gone off when I've had it. Behind it is my important papers: passport, visa, plane tickets... putting all my eggs in one basket.