Amaury Dreher - Opalescence - The Secret of Pripyat

I couldn’t find my apartment. I had been walking around for several hours now without any real purpose. I was hungry and exhausted by the cold. I chose to leave Pripyat and turn back towards the city of Chernobyl, which took me a good hour. I had an idea to find something to eat. I decided to go to the cafeteria where the workers of the Zone and some tourists ate lunch. Inside, I pretended to be a journalist who had just arrived in search of testimonies to feed my report. At first, no one really paid attention to me, everyone was focusing on food. This one was basic, but tasty. There was no health risk, because it came from outside the Zone, at least that’s what they said. Potatoes, onions, cabbage… No doubt about it, I was in the Slavic country. The workers were happily seated and chatting loudly. All these little people were eating without restraint. Once the belly was well filled, everyone would return to their various occupations and face the becquerels.

The discussions were lively, there was an atmosphere of open comradeship that stood in contrast to the harshness of the outside world. I was trying to communicate with my neighbours. They were engineers, welders and backhoe loader operators. Their main concern was the containment arch that had been erected only few years earlier. They described various aspects of their work to me, including the construction of the beast that lasted for years. Then it had to be moved over a hundred metres by means of rails specially designed to support such a structure. The challenge had been brilliantly met. The arch was a marvel of engineering and represented the hope of cleaning up the exclusion zone.

The workers worked in rotation. Every fortnight, they left the Zone and enjoyed forced leave. It was essential to limit exposure to radiation and save the world. The project was supported by the highest international bodies. There was no way the liquidators’ scandal was going to happen again. Everything had been carefully thought out, planned and executed. Of course, they missed the families. Some had crossed the entire continent to come here. Still others came from Asia or Africa. Overall, they were not afraid and were rather satisfied with their working conditions, which were well above the Ukrainian average. However, as the discussion unfolded, I gained their trust and discordant voices rose. One of them confessed to me halfway that he was not convinced that their safety was fully assured.

—It’s a taboo subject here. There are a lot of radioactive leaks. The authorities do not relay them all. Besides, I doubt you’ve heard of it, but we had a threat of an attack once. Chechens according to rumours. They wanted to sabotage the arch. We had a massive army deployment for several days to protect us while we were working. The guys were pretty tense. It also seems that Greenpeace is considering actions, symbolic or violent, it would depend. Big mouths, those. We’ve never seen them do anything. Apparently they infiltrated some of the units working in the Zone. Confidential photos and descriptions are circulating on the Internet. Reports of radiation leaks, breaches of personal safety, maintenance defects, that sort of thing. The chief was mad as hell. We’re very careful now, trying to detect intruders. Our work is too sensitive.

I nodded, looking innocent. The man took up again:

—At night, things happen that are not clear. There is no doubt that people are venturing into the Zone and doing all kinds of things. Some of them, crazy people, are trying to penetrate the ark.

—You have no plans to protect the complex?

—Yes, of course. I can’t talk about it too much, but there is a compound, dogs and many other things.

He stopped suddenly.

—My name won’t be mentioned in your article, will it?

—Don’t worry, I’ll use a fake one, I replied with a big smile.

—One last thing: There are places where it is forbidden to walk, the Red Forest is one of them. The trees are cursed, some pines have been burned by radiation, others have kept an unnatural ruby colour. I suggest you give it up, the forest will take over…

After these final words, the worker remained silent and turned his attention to the food. I choose to do the same.

Filled, I left the canteen and went outside to continue my exploration. I had approached the most famous of the ghost towns, I was now intrigued by the villages that revolved around them.

Multitudes of small hamlets were scattered throughout the exclusion zone. Often inhabited by farmers, they had also been abandoned. Thus, like an archaeologist, I spent the day exploring the plains and undergrowth of the Zone, in search of traces of deserted human lives.

In the late afternoon, I arrived in a rather small clearing where unnatural shapes adorned the ground. Pieces of wood, cloth and metal rubble were piling up in a certain disorder, decomposing in an uncontrolled way. It was probably the remains of a camp of former Stalkers, or even smugglers. The Ukrainian army had probably been reluctant to destroy it, contenting itself with looting what was left of it. Apart from old blankets and dead bottles, there was not much left. No one had come to sleep there for a long time. It was no longer a strategic point, but simply a passage area like any other. However, I managed to find a few old walkie-talkies that were in a half-buried box. I took the device in hand. It was unlikely that this equipment would have remained in this condition for nearly 30 years. It was an American model, unthinkable in the Soviet Union. The object had to be brought in and left behind many years after the disaster. Some individuals may have finally slept well there recently…

The camp was messy, but intact. It seemed to have been abandoned in a hurry as if its occupants had had to flee. What could the Stalkers have been afraid of? Lonely in nature, they were not always peaceful when they crossed paths and brawls could break out.

In recent years, the Zone had become a hide and seek ground between the Stalkers and the Ukrainian army. The latter had very few resources, with funds being allocated primarily to the bloody conflict in the east of the country. More than the health of these clandestine explorers, it was the risk of fire that really worried the authorities. The smoke that would be released would release new radioactive particles into the atmosphere that the wind would then disperse throughout Europe. All containment efforts over the past 30 years would be annihilated and in vain in a single moment. Travelling around the Zone was much more risky in the past than it is today. The dangerousness of radiation was then misunderstood by the local population and the lure of gain too high.

In the months following the evacuation of Pripyat and the surrounding villages, thousands of greedy and unscrupulous individuals returned to commit looting in defiance of morality. Silver, copper, furniture, radios, fabrics… Everything that was transportable became appropriable. All you had to do was help yourself, be the first to get hold of the debris of lives abandoned by tens of thousands of people.

Of course, this windfall aroused jealousy and violence. The looters were often armed and aggressive. Confrontations could break out. Some people took their last breath, killed by another or eaten away by radiation. At that time, the Zone was a lawless territory where individuals were fighting against each other who were destined to be forgotten. A certain death must have been waiting for them. This prospect was only vaguely dissuasive, as there were so many Stalkers entering illegally. Moreover, they were not all alone. According to reports, some Belarusian and Ukrainian looters were operating in organised groups. They entered the Zone in order to strip everything in their path and sell their catches in the countryside where the populations were the most deprived. They sometimes had a right of way with the army, which closed its eyes. There are many legends about these looters. Simple inhabitants or real organised mafia it was difficult to characterise them. Some were particularly methodical, meticulously visiting each apartment in selected buildings and taking their belongings. A Russian group was famous in the region. A myth gave them the discovery of an incredible amount of wealth. It was even said that not all of them had managed to extract their trophies from the Zone, hiding them so that they could recover them later discreetly and avoid Ukrainian army patrols. A loot would be somewhere, buried in the Zone. No one had ever confirmed or denied these legends to me. Everyone was unaware of the very nature of the treasure. Oleksandr seemed so disinterested in the Zone that I hadn’t dared to discuss the subject with him.