An early start today, had to meet the driver at 0715. No (clean) hot water as the hotel had done some maintenance overnight and it was coming out brown. Ick.
Breakfast was supposed to be at 0700, by 0705 everyone bum-rushed the door and started eating what was there in the dark.
Driver was nice and took us to the plcae.
No leg room ugh
Dytyatky checkpoint - hurry up and wait, bought some souvenirs
the village of Zalissya with abandoned houses and barns, a shop and the house of the only self-settler Rozaliya Ivanivna;
almost fully buried village of Kopachi with a remaining kindergarten - our first “hot spot” and some creepy dolls. someone was shooting up the walls.
the secret soviet object Chernobyl-2 (radar “DUGA-1”). Giant radar antenna “DUGA-1”, secret town of Chernobyl-2 which provided the efficiency of antennas and horizon tracking of the launching of ballistic missiles.
- Chernobyl NPP: saw cooling tower and construction of #5, cooling tower of #6
lunch was weird.
weird dove art thing - the artist didn’t get paid
prometheus - or the guy with the towel
the Sarcophagus and the New Safe Confinement (“Arch”) – an observation point at a 300 m distance;
amazingly huge
- memorial “Life for Life” in front of the administrative building
Pripyat
so abandoned, nature’s reclaimed it so well
river port and the most prestigious Pripyat café at the embankment;
own hall – the first headquarters for mitigation of the accident consequences; Polissya hotel, a correction point for helicopters dropping lead bags over the 4th reactor ruins; Energetic Palace of culture, the main recreational site for the Prypyat youth;
boxing club and library, pool and cinema, it's where you go to get your marriage license?
Ferris wheel in the amusement park which was never open;
really high reading
Prypyat stadium; - never used - was supposed to be opened the next month - guys landed in a helicopter during training and said “well, you’re never going to play here”
pripyat evacuated in two and a half hours, 12km of buses - drove through red forest with the windows open
we were able to get a super high reading off this
an open-air exhibition of transport vehicles and robots used in 1986-clean up activities;
the town of Chernobyl:
the world’s best memorial “To Those who Saved the World’;
loooooong day
dinner at Momenty (TripAdvisor)
entree - salmon tartar and avocado, was delicious - like a ceviche.
main - after some confusing discussion with the waitstaff robyn got a “Pan with salmon, shrimp and mussels in creamy wine sauce” which was kind of like a soup but without the soupy bit. broccoli, which pleased her no end :) mine was chicken and mushrooms with cream on potato pancakes, basically as described - looks like leftovers with cream poured over. weird.
had a heineken - I asked for a wheat beer and the waitstaff was an idiot. gave up, ordered beer.
crawled up the hill, did some internetting and went to bed. thankfully there was clear hot water for a shower!
