What I gathered from Chernobyl… literally
by Josh Ferrell, Associate Producer
Visiting Chernobyl was a very sad and scary experience. I think I can speak for the whole crew when I say that if we were just visiting Ukraine on vacation, we would not have gone there. For the sake of the show, we decided to check out the power plant and the town down the road, Prypiat. Our guide, Sergey, gave us a long list of do’s and don’ts while filming in the Prypiat area. Most of them were don’ts. Don’t touch anything. Don’t wander off any paved roads. Don’t let any leaves or branches touch you. Don’t walk on or kick any moss that’s on the ground. Don’t eat or drink outside our vehicles. Bottom line: watch what you’re doing.
Not ten minutes after Sergey repeated these instructions, he led us down a dirt path surrounded by bushes and trees with low hanging branches. We tried our best not to touch the branches, but we all ended up touching leaves and shrubs, and a few of us even got smacked with branches. Our guide told us to be sure to wash our clothes a few times before wearing them again. But for peace of mind, once we returned to our hotel, I, like everyone else on the crew, threw away the clothes I was wearing, as well as my shoes.
Recalling the tragedy that was Chernobyl is spooky enough, but actually visiting ground zero and the surrounding areas of the nuclear disaster will leave a lasting impression on anyone who visits. And apparently, a lot of people visit. When we were leaving Prypiat, we noticed more vans coming into the secured area. Those vans turned out to be tour vans, filled with tourists mostly from Russia and Eastern Europe taking pictures of everything around them. I knew they weren’t journalists because most were dressed in Euro-trash-themed clothing and nearly all had disposable and pocket-sized digital cameras. It seems that one way to make money to help build a new sarcophagus over the old sarcophagus that covers Reactor Number 4 is to charge money to explore the grounds of one of the biggest man-made disasters of all time.
After packing up our equipment, we drove beyond the 30-kilometer security perimeter, back to habitable grounds. We pulled over at the first convenience shop we saw to get water and snacks for everyone. It was a dim lit, mostly empty space, with a few bare shelves, but they did have water. However, instead of necessities that you would normally find in your neighborhood store, this place predominately had merchandise. Chernobyl merchandise. T-shirts, coffee mugs, calendars, the list goes on. All of which read “CHERNOBYL 4-26-86” with the universal sign for radioactivity replacing the “O” in Chernobyl. It almost felt like a scene out of Spaceballs. “Chernobyl the lunchbox, Chernobyl the breakfast cereal, Chernobyl the Flame Thrower- the kids love this one.” So I did what any late-twenties American would do. I bought as much stuff as I could carry.
one of the coffee mugs Josh brought back for the office…
I'm glad you did a piece on this. With all the current talk about nuclear being a cheap, clean, fuel then Japan having its tragedy, it is good to remind people that we still do not have the technology to deal with this deadly, dangerous radioactive material this is in no way, shape or form clean.
No Reservations is moving beyond travel entertainment when it puts a spotlight on things like this and Beirut and the African nations you have visited. You just get better every season, long may you run!
And it is always fun to see Zamir
Seems like Tony was in a really crappy mood th whole Ukraine episode, like he was sick or hungover or tired of being around Zamir…
Any explanation?
Dear Tony,
I have been a fan of yours for a long time. I also grew up in New Jersey and worked in restaurants. But your show, No Reservations, is on the Travel Channel, not the Food **. And although the food info is great, to me, the people info is better. Which is why I am so disappointed and disturbed by your program on the Ukraine and Chernobyl. You had a real opportunity to tell the truth to many people who otherwise do their best to avoid it. As a parent yourself, Tony, you have the same responsibility now to the future as everyone else. The world is incredibly treacherous now for your daughter and everyone else's children. And to understand how and why, you should have visited hospitals and orphanages in the Chernobyl area and forced yourself to face the reality of the ongoing horror that it really is.
Walking through a "creepy" deserted city is the Disneyland version of Chernobyl, as you pointed out yourself. Could you not face going down the rabbit hole? I will give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe no one told you that the rabbit hole was there and maybe you just didn't realize it on your own. But our world is hurtling past the Disneyland era. We just can't afford to stop there anymore. "I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. No time to say hello – goodbye I'm late!" We are all late, Tony in coming to the realization of the horrors of the nuclear era. Weapons or energy – it makes absolutely no difference.
Our world has been poisoned and is continuing to be poisoned by both for over 50 years and it is our children who will have to suffer the consequences. Children born in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 10s have suffered massive genetic abnormalities, cancers, leukemias and much more. All of which has been kept very quiet and covered up. Millions of children are in agony due to the effects of Depleted (Deadly) Uranium both through exposure in the countries we have invaded and also here in the US as they are being born to parents who have been exposed in the course of their military duties. There is no safe level of radiation, Tony. Every aspect of nuclear development is deadly – mining, usage and waste. All of it is poisoning our very tiny planet and there is no where to run. Every person who still has a voice capable of reaching other people has a responsibility to try to speak truth and to wake up the sleeping sheeple. Any person who does not accept that responsibility is complicit in the nuclear holocaust.
Go back to Chernobyl, Tony. Visit the hospitals and orphanages. Go back with open eyes and ears. And if you can do that and survive with your sanity intact, come back and tell the Truth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAmY80t-4D4 PART 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_HxjdJSvHg PART 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEDQn0v9vcc
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=…
http://todayspictures.slate.com/inmotion/essay_ch…
A Child Dies
Some say that childhood is golden,
As it well may be
But I have seen the gold well hidden
And racked by infant pain unbidden
Through ghostly terrors in the night
Which only infant eyes could see.
What happens when a world of darkness
Encroaches on the angel’s land
And drives away the sun of morning
Without a signal or a warning
(With only symbols lost to sight)
Destroys the child in its hand?
This world is full of dying children
Who feel the weight of fear
Yet who, with courage uncomplaining
Turn with faces free of blaming
Only asking for the right
To speak to life with infant voices clear,
And whisper to the world a message
Recorded in the stars
That all a lifetime’s broken promise
All the undeveloped eagerness
Will find its way back to a world made bright
When human hate this world no longer mars.
And when at last the torture passes
And peace is found in death
Those whose weakened hearts are breaking
By the child will be brought to waking
When slow and dim their eyes see Heaven’s light
And from the other side they draw a golden breath.
Christine Natale
http://www.examiner.com/exopolitics-in-seattle/le…
http://feww.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/chernobyl-nu…
Would you go eat at a "Mc-Mickey" at the end of a program where you visit Auschwitz?
All of your ranting effectively killed this blog, gee thanks….try not to post this crap in the future, start your own blog will ya!
Josh, did you get the significance of the statement the guy at the visitor center said? – That the radiation levels at the center of the reactor area is about 1,000 Roentgens? That's 1,000 R/hour. That is lethal: If you were to stand in that radiation zone for 1 hour, you'd be dead within 2 weeks. Cooked. Please keep in mind that after 25 years, all that is left is hard-core, long-lived isotopes. Not cesium or iodine or any of that short-lived stuff. Fukushima will turn out to be just like this. No doubt about it.
And now when the crew returns to Japan, another sad episode of don'ts. Do we really need nuclear power to make toast.
Heart-felt and interesting perspective, Josh. I enjoyed reading it! Keep ‘em coming…
Is it my imagination, or do I hear "Soul Finger" by the Bar Kays in some of the music for this episode? I must have watched Spys Like Us too much as a kid
Hi Josh, I am a big fame of No Reservation and Press Officer with Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York. One of my biggest dream is to see
Anthony and the brings Taiwan's food culture to the audience in the US. If you are interested in further discussion, please email me at abby197701@hotmail.com.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Interesting post, especially since Chernobyl is not on my “must see” list; it’s nice to “visit” via your words—point of view.
This by far was one of the most educational pieces you've done to date Anthony. I really loved it. You and Zamir are a winning combination and I wish you had better hosts in many of the other countries you have visited. Zamir and the other guy in Tokyo really understand the landscape and history of the area, unlike your hosts in Hokkaido. By the way, Hokkaido is not known for soba….