Chernobyl Dome

Still waiting for Godzilla and Mothra to rise up out of the ocean and destroy Tokyo....


These movies scared the bejabbers out of me as a kid.....and the English translations were pretty funny.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Which apparently is not adequate if they are going to this extent to make a new one.
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The original 'sacrophagus' was slapped together by people who could only work 1hr /day due to the high radiation at the time. It didn't age well as it wasn't protected against water intrusion.
 
Any ghost towns I find interesting, especially Chernobyl. I'd like to visit someday.
 
flyingron said:
Make sure you wear your lead BVDs
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No doubt, appropriate protections would be required.

Like I said, ghost towns in general are interesting to me. I used to live near Centralia, PA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

The town is on top of a coal mine that caught fire and is still burning today. You can drive or ride around (we would ride our motorcycles) and there are holes where smoke is still coming out of the coal mine. There are no special protections or the like required for going there, though. You're free to travel through, it's just that few people do.

Chernobyl strikes me as the ultimate ghost town.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
The town is on top of a coal mine that caught fire and is still burning today.
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Well, all I know is in '17 after they shipped me off to fight, some New York financier rolled in here one day and hog-glowsered and tub-wankled my grandfather into mining out the whole town in exchange for shares in something called the United Coke Company. Do you know what those stock certificates are worth today? JUST ABOUT THE FINEST OUTHOUSE WALLPAPER YOU'VE EVER SEEN! We were forced to become what you drove through today; a burnt out coal field and the biggest icebox graveyard this side of the Ohio foundry belt! And that's why I *never* let a banker go!
 
flyingron said:
Well, all I know is in '17 after they shipped me off to fight, some New York financier rolled in here one day and hog-glowsered and tub-wankled my grandfather into mining out the whole town in exchange for shares in something called the United Coke Company. Do you know what those stock certificates are worth today? JUST ABOUT THE FINEST OUTHOUSE WALLPAPER YOU'VE EVER SEEN! We were forced to become what you drove through today; a burnt out coal field and the biggest icebox graveyard this side of the Ohio foundry belt! And that's why I *never* let a banker go!
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Bankers, eh?

nobutrobl91hd_02-e1407957571716-1024x476.jpg
 
Chernobyl brings back a bunch of memories. I was working in Germany on completing and starting up a power plant when it happened. I was in the middle of a presentation to a committee of the German Reactor Safety Commission when their leader was paged out to be notified about the event. Atmospheric radiation levels in the plant would have forced our shutdown if we had been in operation. Local farmers, who couldn't sell their contaminated crops sprayed down our parking lot with their honey wagons. At least they were nice enough to tell us their plans do we could relocate our cars.
 
denverpilot said:
There are some ways to visit Pripyat today that I was reading about not too long ago. It would be interesting.
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That might be on an "eventual" list. Most of the places that I'm most interested in seeing are middle of nowhere. Antarctica is also on my list.

Acrodustertoo said:
You will love this site then. One of my favorites. Most Ghost towns in America are abandoned mining towns but ND is full of towns that just ran out of people.

http://www.ghostsofnorthdakota.com/
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Very cool, and a lot closer than Chernobyl!
 
Ted DuPuis said:
That might be on an "eventual" list. Most of the places that I'm most interested in seeing are middle of nowhere. Antarctica is also on my list.



Very cool, and a lot closer than Chernobyl!
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You are very welcome. They are some fascinating places. i have been to a few in my travels through ND. Very interesting to see.
Montana has some great ghost towns with some even better history. Bannack, Mt is one of the best and home to the great story of Sheriff Henry Plummer and his band of road agents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Plummer

Also there is Granite, MT and Garnet, MT both close to interstate 90. In Garnet you can actually rent a cabin and stay there!
 
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Acrodustertoo said:
You are very welcome. They are some fascinating places. i have been to a few in my travels through ND. Very interesting to see.
Montana has some great ghost towns with some even better history. Bannack, Mt is one of the best and home to the great story of Sheriff Henry Plummer and his band of road agents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Plummer

Also there is Granite, MT and Garnet, MT both close to interstate 90. In Garnet you can actually rent a cabin and stay there!
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Our house has something of a "ghost barn." It's 100 years old (so they claimed when we bought the property). It's a really neat structure. Aside from being a great photo backdrop (my wife's a photographer), it also is just a cool building. It has a bit of the "ghost town" feel inside it. There are items that were just left abandoned in there - some hay bales, some chicken coup supplies, mason jars. Pretty neat.
 
I keep meaning to get to one of the few open to the public missile silos as a couple day trip from here (ND or AZ). Not exactly "ghostly" but fascinating.
 
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A friend travels that part of the world. He tells if slipping a guard an American $20 and the guard let him pass through the gates. The pictures were spooky. He said it was a cool trip. He says the most noticeable thing in the region is how bad people's teeth are. Apparently mildly radioactive water is really bad for dental health. Yikes!
 
Stewartb said:
A friend travels that part of the world. He tells if slipping a guard an American $20 and the guard let him pass through the gates. The pictures were spooky. He said it was a cool trip. He says the most noticeable thing in the region is how bad people's teeth are. Apparently mildly radioactive water is really bad for dental health. Yikes!
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Of course, no telling what they looked like before 1986.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Any ghost towns I find interesting, especially Chernobyl. I'd like to visit someday.
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Ted, there used to be a wesbite you'd really enjoy. This is ten to fifteen years ago, and might be gone, but it was a full-on website (not blog, not social media) written by an ardent motorcycle tourer in the area. I believe the author was female? They used to sneak into the area since it was a great place to zoom around on fast motorcycles without risk of people or animals. Great pictures and narrative, including pics of the Geiger counter. I remember reading "we had to stay in the center of the road since the radiation was too high on the sides."

It might be gone, but it's worth looking for if you want some excellent armchair tourism!
 
When I was stationed in Germany in the early 70s our base was built over the Siegfried Line. Underground bunkers all over the place barb wired off. We climbed over and go explore. Pretty impressive construction. Some of them appeared to go down 3-4 stories. Pretty stupid to be exploring them too as unexploded ordnance could have been in them. But when you're young, fat (we weren't fat though), drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, whatya gonna do.
 
flyingron said:
Make sure you wear your lead BVDs
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Pripyat has some very interesting radiation patterns. Documentary I watch showed a guy walking without any protection as the radiation was background level. However, the host showed that if you moved 5' in the wrong direction it gets to dangerous levels. His explanation was because the winds that day distributed the particles unevenly.
 
G-Man said:
Ted, there used to be a wesbite you'd really enjoy. This is ten to fifteen years ago, and might be gone, but it was a full-on website (not blog, not social media) written by an ardent motorcycle tourer in the area. I believe the author was female? They used to sneak into the area since it was a great place to zoom around on fast motorcycles without risk of people or animals. Great pictures and narrative, including pics of the Geiger counter. I remember reading "we had to stay in the center of the road since the radiation was too high on the sides."

It might be gone, but it's worth looking for if you want some excellent armchair tourism!
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I remember seeing that website and being inspired by it. The author/motorcyclist was definitely a woman. I guess I'm another one who would be interested in seeing the area. I recently read an article about some older women who refused to be evacuated at the time and still live there.

Edit: What I read must have been a review of this movie.

http://thebabushkasofchernobyl.com

Another Edit: Apparently the story the woman wrote was somewhat false. She visited Chernobyl, but not on a motorcycle. There are numerous sites debunking her claim.

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jul/06/world/fg-chernobyl6
 
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G-Man said:
Ted, there used to be a wesbite you'd really enjoy. This is ten to fifteen years ago, and might be gone, but it was a full-on website (not blog, not social media) written by an ardent motorcycle tourer in the area. I believe the author was female? They used to sneak into the area since it was a great place to zoom around on fast motorcycles without risk of people or animals. Great pictures and narrative, including pics of the Geiger counter. I remember reading "we had to stay in the center of the road since the radiation was too high on the sides."

It might be gone, but it's worth looking for if you want some excellent armchair tourism!
Click to expand...

Everskyward said:
I remember seeing that website and being inspired by it. The author/motorcyclist was definitely a woman. I guess I'm another one who would be interested in seeing the area. I recently read an article about some older women who refused to be evacuated at the time and still live there.

Edit: What I read must have been a review of this movie.

http://thebabushkasofchernobyl.com

Another Edit: Apparently the story the woman wrote was somewhat false. She visited Chernobyl, but not on a motorcycle. There are numerous sites debunking her claim.

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jul/06/world/fg-chernobyl6
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Mari beat me to it. The motorcycle thing was someone trying to become famous and wasn't based (completely) in reality. It did make for a fun story while it lasted though.
 
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