Stalking the Atomic City: Life Among the Decadent and the Depraved of Chornobyl

by Markiyan Kamysh, Hanna Leliv (Translator), Reilly Costigan-Humes (Translator)

Originally published in the Ukrainian language as A Stroll in the Zone, Nora-Druk Publishers �2015.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Ukraine, Memoir, Travel, Biography, Russia

148 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

See also Маркіян Камиш

Markiyan Kamysh (1988) is representing the Chernobyl underground in literature. Since 2010, he has been illegally investigating the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. He has made a lot of expeditions behind the barbed wire and illegally lived in the Zone.

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting enough topic: people who voluntarily, for thrills or tourist money, go into the Chernobyl exclusion zone. However the motives of the narrator never come into focus and the deadly zone doesn’t develop much
They can’t see me, but I am there, I exist, almost like ionized radiation.

In a blend of non-fiction and loosely told travel experiences, we are drawn into an uninhabited part of Ukraine, as large as the whole of Luxembourg. The zone forms an outlet for people who want to escape from regular society and its structure and expectations. The main character tells us of police surveillance, tourists who try to get a few Instagram pictures and nice stories, and the decay of the past. The New Safe Containment replaces the remains of the power plant, but for the rest not much changes. This liminal aspect is mirrored in the narrative, which except for some reflections on the dangers or radioactivity on long term health, doesn’t go anywhere very distinct.

The author being a son to an engineer who helped contain the disaster is interesting enough, and the writing is smooth, so I am rounding my 2.5 stars up.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Smelly and sweaty, you arrive at the cold concrete high-rises in Prypyat, you break into an apartment, pick up the chairs lying around, drop down onto a couch, toss your backpack on the floor, and stare into space as your candle flickers orange. You make hot chocolate, go out onto the balcony, and light up a Camel, looking down onto the courtyard that turned into the impenetrable Amazon rainforest."

This is one of those books that I can't be sure what the point of it all is.

Markiyan Kamysh, the author, is the son of one of the original liquidators at the Chernobyl (aka Chornobyl) disaster, and has spent a lot of time in the 'exclusion zone', the closed off area around Pripyat and the sarcophagus, sometimes on his own, sometimes to act as a guide to disaster tourists.

"In abandoned towns, you have to rub your feet sore, drink tainted water, curse dead batteries, and save rice that seems to run out so quickly. It’s much cooler, though, if you do this not because I told you tobut just because you’re a degenerate. Normal people have no business in a radioactive dump. Remember this."

Kamysh writes about his travels in a worldweary tone, that to me came across as being rather forced, trying very hard, making me wonder who he is trying to impress.

The zone he describes doesn't sound very enticing, only occasionally beautiful, and it made me think: who is this for?

"They’ll ask me, “You come here so often . Aren’t you afraid of radiation?” And I’ll tell them, “No. It’s only here that life won’t slip by me, for I’m living it in the most exotic place on Earth.”

Only towards the end, when Kamysh describes his role as a guide, I could connect more to the text.

2.5 stars

(Thanks to Astra House for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)

[Ends of the Word · Rating 4 out of 5]

Markiyan Kamysh, the author of this unusual book, is the son of a nuclear physicist and design engineer who worked as one of the “liquidators” after the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl – or, to use the alternative name favoured by Kamysh – “Chornobyl”. Perhaps because of this personal connection, Kamysh is obsessed with the Exclusion Zone that is still in place, spanning a radius of several kilometres around the remains of the Power Plant. Since 2010, he has ventured into this out-of-bounds area on numerous occasions, whether on his own, with friends, or with curious foreigners who appoint him as a “stalker” or guide to the Zone. Stalking the Atomic City is a curious blend of memoir and travelogue, peopled by dubious characters including reckless (and hapless) adventurers, looters, scrap-dealers, vandals, drug-addicts and alcoholics in search of a high. Throughout the book, there is a palpable sense of danger. The author’s own photographs highlight a desolate landscape, a toxic wasteland where wild animals (and police patrols) roam.

The text, rendered from the Ukrainian by Hanna Leliv and Reilly Costigan-Humes, has an idiosyncratic style which needs some getting used to. It veers from poetic (substance-induced?) ecstasy to expletive-strewn passages worthy of a hard-boiled thriller. The results are often original, but at other times maddeningly overwritten and overwrought, with hit-and-miss attempts at humour. Sometimes, awkward switches of tenses (past, present, future) and changes of POV create some confusion, although this strangely fits the discombobulating atmosphere of the Zone. Some examples will give a taste of what I mean:

"We threw our backpacks on the ground and started to climb in silence. At the height of a sixteen-story building, wind blew into our faces and our hands were frozen to the bone, as a frigid thaw stretched its wetness onto the antennas’ rusty skeletons, and my gloves got soaked through. My friend captured the panorama of the expanse of snow on his old phone. You can’t cram a hundred million impressions into two million pixels. Under the vault of those incredible constructions, myriads of drops crashed against the cold metal. Every moment brimmed with new sounds. You can’t stuff myriads of falling drops into millions of bytes of voice messages. Even if Erik Satie played on all the pianos in Prypyat at the same time, he wouldn’t have impressed me as much as those drops, wouldn’t have beaten my hungover memory as hard with a sledgehammer of bright impressions.

…

As a matter of fact, I don’t like taking new people along. Or some of the old ones, either. I have to take them where we agreed to go. To Prypyat, that is. But what if on the way to Prypyat, somewhere after Chornobyl-2, it occurs to me that I haven’t been to the Emerald summer camp for a hundred years and that its little cottages will soon crumble – what then? In short, when you bring someone along for a trip, it’s like you’ve thrown a manhole cover from the ninth floor onto your own head – a manhole cover of obligations and rules.

…

So, I return from the Zone and think to myself: “Here I am, back home, drinking my orange Hike, devouring brand-name chocolate bars, washing them down with Pepsi, and enjoying the spice of life. “ And then I realize that I have a few words to say to the folks criticizing consumer goods of modern civilization. To everyone who hates that you can buy ten kinds of frozen veggies and twenty kinds of cigarettes at the supermarket. You’re fuckers. Just taste a chocolate bar after a two-week trip to the Chornobyl dump; just feel the hazelnuts crunching on your long-unbrushed teeth; just take a swig of soda and only then can you curse having access to a large variety of foreign goods. Fuckers."

Style apart, I guess that whether you love this book or not will depend on whether you’ll fall for its atmosphere. In that regard, I must say that Stalking the Atomic City appealed to my neo-Gothic sensibilities, the huge antennas and moody ruins replacing the decrepit castles and abbeys of old, the swamps and beasts standing in for the awe-inspiring Romantic sublime, the frisson of danger adding a hint of horror. And although the book is not strictly speaking a work of psychogeography, there are echoes of the genre in its descriptions of abandoned urban spaces, as in Lubyanka, “the oasis of the old Zone” where:

The ghosts of dead grandmas still floated around…; clocks were in the cupboards, no longer ticking; jugs stood intact; and boots were lined up in the hallways… It still looks like the Zone of the nineties, those turbulent times when you went inside a house and you knew – someone had been living there just yesterday.

Stalking the Atomic City is more than a book, it is an experience. Whether it is to your liking is another matter, but the only way to know is to try it.

3.5*

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...

[Come Musica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Com'è Černobyl’ dopo Černobyl'?
Cosa c'è al di là del filo spinato, nella zona inaccessibile dopo il disastro del 1986?

"Per alcuni è il terribile ricordo di un'infanzia semidimenticata, di una felice giovinezza sovietica, in cui nel giro di pochi giorni la tua esistenza va a rotoli e tu e tutti i tuoi vicini dovete lasciare le vostre cose e rifarmi una vita."

Inizia così il viaggio del protagonista, tra memoir e reportage, nella Zona, spinto dal destino, dalla vita e dal desiderio. Un viaggio lungo duecento giorni, in cui il protagonista fa i conti con il senso del limite, del proibito, immerso nella desolazione e nella natura completamente contaminata dal disastro radioattivo. E accetta questa contaminazione con una naturalezza spiazzante, perché, nella sua visione del mondo, la morte fa parte della vita.

Cosa ha imparato da questa lunga peregrinazione tra sentieri impervi, abbandonati, malsani e avvelenati? La felicità si aggirerà nella Zona? "Le traiettorie della felicità sono più intricate degli imprevedibili risvolti di una partita a palla prigioniera in una calda giornata estiva?"

Qual è il senso di questo lungo peregrinare? Forse la rivalutazione di ciò che si ha ogni giorno, che è più salubre di quello confinato nella Zona.

Esplorare la Zona, percorrerla in lungo e in largo, non è forse la spasmodica ricerca di percorrere i sentieri che sono dentro di sé? E quando il viaggio si è concluso, non si può che dire "Addio, Zona. Sei il tempo che si è fermato e in cui d'ora in poi vedrò sempre me stesso."

Ma questo è davvero un addio, o è solo un arrivederci?

Tra 3 e 4 stelle.

Un'intervista all'autore.
https://www.blascodamompracem.it/una-...

[Anneliese · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the idea of this book, however it really wasn’t what I was expecting. It was more of a ranting essay with a lot of repetition. I wasn’t engrossed and I didn’t like the authors style of writing. I appreciate the author has spent a lot of time in the Chernobyl area, however I didn’t really get any insight into any sense of adventure besides his canned meat, cigarettes, sleeping bag and occasional encounter with the police.

If you’re wanting a book about Chernobyl and adventures within, this is not your book. This book is solely the perils of the author during his visits to the atomic city, nothing more than his description of what he does in a very non-descriptive and fragmented way.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stalking the Atomic City is Ukrainian writer, Markiyan Kamysh's, nihilistic reflection on life at the edge of the world and at the edge of reason.

Kamysh is what is known as an "illegal tourist" or a "stalker," but not in any ordinary meaning of those words. The places Kamysh stalks are all within the borders of the Chornobyl exclusionary zone - an area off limits to most all human life because of the dangerous levels of radiation that exist there, a consequence of the aftermath of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant meltdown. Instead of avoiding these dangers, Kamysh embraces them - spending days and weeks on end camping out in the empty military bunkers and cities and towns that once populated this region of Ukraine. And during his adventures he meets looters, interacts with the police in a game of cat and mouse, and lies awake in empty bomb shelters next to ad hoc wood-burning stoves drinking water laced with radiation.

On one hand Stalking the Atomic City is a book about nothing other than Kamysh strange, (perhaps) unwise, and meaningless adventures; on the other hand it is a book about shirking human rationality and living in a way that is completely unmoored from rationality. This short little book will make you think about your own life and the ways in which you bind yourself to "rational thinking" as a means of avoiding danger and in doing so avoid liberation, as well.

[HK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Мій друг, ходун-в-зону-початківець, запрошуючи приєднатись до свого хобі, дав почитати цю книгу як відповідь на питання «чому». Згодом додавши: «хоча мабуть вона може й відбити бажання туди йти». За підсумками читання можу сказати, що бажання не відбила, але і не додала, залишившись виключно літературним досвідом.

Автор уривчасто описує свої походи «в зону», накладаючи на якусь основну історію спогади про інші рази, створюючи картину «вічного повернення», і одночасно у текс��і рефлексуючи над цим своїм вічним поверненням, зацикленністю на відвідинах чорнобильської зони відчуження. І це мені найбільше сподобалось у книзі — оця циклічність і зацикленість.

Він зверхньо ставиться до тих, хто ходить туди за «індустріальним», пост-апокаліптичним або псевдо-мілітаристським пафосом. Але пафос — це така річ, що його можна розгледіти будь-де і звинуватити будь кого. Ось взяти, до прикладу, автора. Він пишається тим, який він деградант, спить на трупах вовків, відморожує собі нирки та яйця, п'є воду з брудних калюж і за кількадесят років неминуче зляже з онкологією. Теж свого роду пафос. І як на мене, набагато безглуздіший за інші варіанти. Так, пригадую, в школі однокласники любили хвалитись, хто більше випив горілки, хто як «начудив» і за яких обставин блював.

З іншого боку, історії з життя деградантів — це майже безпрограшний варіант в літературі. Люди таке хавають, достатньо лише трохи приправити письменницьким талантом, що Маркіяну, на мій смак, вдалося.

[christty · Rating 1 out of 5]

Двi сотнi днiв у Зонi — непогана назва для дешевого хорору. Двiстi рокiв, тридцять шiсть тисяч днiв, пару мiльйонiв хвилин серед холодного бетону i гарячих болiт. Всi цi висотки навколо давно впали пiд землю, обвалилися i поцiлувалися з магмою, зависли у її палких обiймах. Але я не можу вибратися звiдси.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

STALKER cos-play with a touch of TRAINSPOTTING. Sounds Like Cacophony (Society)...

[Pavlo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Чудовий подорожній твір, написаний живою мовою, по суті моїм однолітком. Шикарнючі описи природи, що перемежовуються контрастами сучасного пиздеця, жорсткими філософськими роздумами про дивний потяг Зони.

Якщо хочете дізнатися про справжній Чорнобиль, чим він живе та дихає, якими цінностями керується та яким він є поза хроніками та фоточками в Instagram, тоді вам в Оформляндію до Маркіяна.

[Halina Hetman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you need for your first trip? Nothing. Really - nothing at all. Take a flashlight, a knife, a few cans of food, a sleeping bag, a bag of rice, and a pack of lollipops. That's it. Of course, you can spend months researching the proper content of a first aid kit and packing sleeping mats, flasks, multifunction tools, tents, and other tourist shit, but this keeps you from focusing on the most important thing. In abandoned towns, you have to rub your feet sore, drink tainted water, curse dead batteries, and save rice that seems to run out so quickly. It's much cooler, though, if you do this not because I told you to but just because you're a degenerate.

Жива, смішна, мила в своїй нонконформності, заражена радіацією та романтичним нігілізмом книжка спогадів (справжнього) сталкера-нелегала про його улюблену дестинацію. В американський бібліотеці була популярна перед і після виходу "Сталкера-2".

Я в автора читала свою першу фантастику в жанрі альтернативної історії Київ-86, тож вже була знайома зі стилем та характерними для нього, повторюваними мотивами. Камиш знову змусив мене декілька разів загиготіти вголос, що для а) мене, б) нон-фікшену, c) нон-фікшену про Чорнобиль, нехарактерно, тому ставлю найвищу оцінку.

[Shrike58 · Rating 3 out of 5]

My particular interest in this book was peaked, early in the Russian invasion, by the report of the Russian infantry company that seriously hurt itself trying to dig field fortifications in the Chornobyl exclusion zone, which made one wonder about how lethal the zone was in general. This brings us to this short, sharp, memoir, and a man staging his own reenactment of the Strugatsky Brothers' "Roadside Picnic." I'm sure that Kamysh believes his own reasons for making Chornobyl his real homeland are totally valid, and he's cool-headed enough not to deny the long-term damage he's doing to himself. But, at a certain point, you have to ask the rhetorical question: Isn't there a better way of getting a life? I did take the time to see if Kamysh is still with us, and while he has joined the Ukrainian military, he is not yet merely a death notice; my thought is that he is well-primed to write a really valid novel or memoir of the war should he survive.

Actual Rating: 3.5

[Kiril Tzvetkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not exactly as one might expect upon picking it up initially. When I saw it and read the back, I expected some more profound thoughts on the nature of the Chernobyl disaster, especially considering that the author is the son of a liquidator.
Rather it reads like a travelogue of the Exclusion Zone, which swings between very calming and beautiful to very obscene and unafraid to show the ugliness of the Zone, ugliness that doesn't even touch on the radiation and it's dangers, but rather the marauders, metal harvesters, etc.

The way in which the scenery is described and talked about has a certain effect of transporting you to the inhospitable wilderness of the zone. From the well known Pripyat, to the lonely villages littering the border, to the abandoned church, all is given a sense of being a living and thriving place, despite how destitute it actually is.

Overall it's a good and short read, despite not being what I originally assumed it was.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent. Highly recommend if you are interested in what it would be like to explore and camp etc. in Chornobyl. I read this in a day.

Highly enjoyable. 5 stars and best reads pile.

[Inna · Rating 4 out of 5]

«З жалем і співчуттям всю важку і заметену дорогу назад допитують мене Адріан і Самуель: чому зник відстійник? А я все колупаю мізки Сані, аби він правильно доніс до громадян європейців ідіоми «порізали к хуям», «чорняк» і «зачотна мародьорочка».

Читання затягує через довіру до інсайдера, що має весь цей багаторічний досвід повернень до Зони і дослідження найвіддаленіших її куточків.
Спосіб мислення – не мій. Стиль життя – не мій. Але ж як написано(!): часом надзвичайно поетично - «волога падає чорнотою на артефакти минулого», «сонні гіганти на товстих, іржавих ногах», аж раптом - «село під пахвами держкордону», «радіаційний фетишизм як урочистий обряд ініціації в касту дебілів» чи «яйцемерзлий січень».
Кожен робить зі своїм життям що хоче і автор явно користується цим дозволом на повну. Есей за есеєм, спогад за спогадом, і перед нами не сповідь, але бачення світу, яке після кожної даної собі обіцянки ніколи не повертатися до Чорнобилю, все одно тягне тебе назад.

[Василь · Rating 4 out of 5]

Правдива, життєва і цікава книга сталкера, котрий розказує як воно ходити в Чорнобильську зону на одинці, пити воду з річок, бухати, ховатися від міліції і радіти життю!!!

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of this book but had a couple of drinks and went into kramers (fka kramerbooks) in dupont circle to get the second book in the locked tomb trilogy. which I did, but then I found two other books, including this one.

the author is a ukrainian "stalker", someone who guides others into the chernobyl exclusion zone. he goes there - well, it's hard to tell. probably once a month? since 2010?

there is a lot this book doesn't say. what it does say isn't chronological, really. there is a lot of repetition, especially about waist deep snow and fever and burning furniture. it's sort of a screed by someone who doesn't really understand quite why he does what he does, who swears off it again and again but can't stay away. his father was a nuclear physicist and chernobyl liquidator who died in 2003 but he doesn't address what impact that has on his actions. he's a hard drinker. he hikes long distances with big packs or hardly any supplies at all, wearing jeans in the snow, with cheap sleeping bag or no sleeping bag, sometimes seeming to just fall asleep on the ground when he gets tired enough. he doesn't seem to bring water, proud of drinking radioactive water out of muddy puddles and surviving on canned meat, cigarettes, soda and candy.

the book is full of contradictions. the exclusion zone is inhabited. it is visited by tourists and stalkers and looters. some of these people are dangerous, but even as he tells you with one breath about the danger of the police and the looters and the snow and the wet and the cold and the wolves and the wild boars, he is telling you with the next that it isn't dangerous at all. that it is where he feels peaceful, where he sleeps the best.

what he says is limited. it's jumbled. it's repetitive. it mostly sounds miserable. (really both in and outside the exclusion zone). it's up to the reader to think about what's going on as he describes an area being emptied of all scrap metal and saleable goods and souvenirs, as the furniture and fences are burned night after night for warmth, as what the tourists came to see has already been destroyed. is he visiting the past or the (apocalyptic) future? is he acclimating to a desolate world or is he escaping from the modern world into a more peaceful one?

mostly it's humbling to think that there are people who hike again and again into a radioactive wilderness/dead villages/city, who find peace and beauty facing off against bitter cold and decay, who drink and take drugs (even lsd! imagine tripping on lsd in the chernobyl exclusion zone!) in this leading edge fragment of the apocalypse.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but not as much as I thought I would before I started it. It's a great look into the life of a Chernobyl "stalker", but it lacks depth. What compels these people to do this? It feels more like a spiked travel blog. I wish there was some reflection by the author, a bigger picture.

Maybe the author hasn't experienced that, that is possible. But I don't really think so. I suspect the focus was more on entertainment and feeding the curious audience with a stalker-like experience without the people having to go there themselves.

[m. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Цікаво.
Така собі романтизація бунту та деструкції.

На початку книги ледь захоплюєшся діями автора, ближче до кінця книги це все видається якимось трішки огидненьким.
Та все ж, чи можна засуджувати його за такий спосіб життя? (загалом можна, бо суто технічно – це порушення правил відвідин Зони). Це було цікаво почитати не лише як «погляд на Зону з иншої сторони», а й на погляд людини із зовсім інакшим способом життя.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. It's an interesting life Kamysh describes but the book is far too fragmentary and has no direction. Every story leads to asides that are less interesting.

[Jake Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not that good in a book sense, but some interesting stories and it's an easy read

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so eager to get my hands on a copy of this book, but once I finally did and began reading, I felt that it fell short of my expectations for the story. It had some great photographs and desciption about places in the zone, but photo captions would have been nice. It was essentially a journal of the author's illegal time spent in the zone, and while it had some interesting features, I was really looking for more about the actual area.

[Gianni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Che cosa attrae irresistibilmente Markijan all’interno della Zona, la vasta area a ridosso della centrale nucleare di Chernobyl? È un’area profondamente contaminata e inquinata, con villaggi e città fantasma evacuati da decenni e dalle infrastrutture ormai fatiscenti; l’accesso è proibito da confini recintati e controllato da polizia e posti di blocco. È una terra di nessuno percorsa da bracconieri, cacciatori di metallo, tossici e “turisti” che si fanno guidare alla ricerca di una scarica di adrenalina.
“Fra un centinaio d’anni i simulatori insceneranno il giorno prima dell’incidente, gli ultimi attimi di gloria della Polissja in tutto il suo splendore. Si metteranno dei vestiti senza pretese della Donbass e in una Prypiat’ minuziosamente ricostruita organizzeranno una festa della portata del Truman Show. Sarà un tuffo nella storia, accessibile a tutti. Il turismo di massa nel passato è il futuro delle agenzie di viaggi. Welcome.” (e questo turismo di massa nel passato fa pensare a Furland, di Tullio Avoledo).
Markijan ha attraversato più volte il filo spinato, con amici, accompagnando visitatori o sempre più spesso da solo, perché “anch’io mi trasformo: da uno che va nella Zona di Čornobyl’ in compagnia mi trasformo in uno che ci va da solo”, e non tanto alla ricerca di emozioni forti, quanto perché la vita non offre altro, disperatamente senza paura e senza prospettive valide: “quando mi chiedono della salute non so bene cosa dire. Sì, fa molto male. Non è una buona idea bere l’acqua di laghi contaminati, condotti di scarico, paludi e pozzanghere piene di ferro e metalli vari. ma è così, a volte abbiamo a che fare con la vita, altre volte con la morte. A volte con la salute, a volte con cose che sane esattamente non sono […] Sorrideremo alla vita, che ti sfida e ti dice dove divertirti, dove vivere, dove respirare. Perché alla fine siamo figli del nostro tempo. Dove altro potremmo andare, se no?”
Ogni viaggio è un viaggio in un passato in rapido dissolvimento che la storia, l’inclemenza del clima, lo smantellamento operato dagli sciacalli e la riconquista degli spazi ad opera della natura, stanno preparando per l’oblio.
Il ritorno nella zona contaminata di Markjian è un po’ un tentativo di riconquista interiore, forse un po’ disperato, per affrontare le paure rappresentate qui anche da lupi e linci, stordendosi di fatica, freddo, vodka, fino a farsi vincere dal sonno; l’approccio è diverso, dal punto di vista della finzione letteraria, da quello di Baba Dunja, dal libro di Alina Bronski, che decide per prima di ritornare a Cernovo per tornare a vivere in attesa della morte “purché sia gentile”, che affronta il ritorno come la protagonista de La parete, di Marlen Haushofer, “quando sono tornata, potevo scegliere qualsiasi casa a Černovo. Io mi sono ripresa la mia vecchia casa. la porta era aperta, la bombola del gas era appena semivuota, il pozzo era raggiungibile a piedi in pochi minuti e l’orto era ancora riconoscibile. Ho estirpato le ortiche e sfrondato i rovi, per settimane non ho fatto altro. Per me era chiaro: ho bisogno di questo orto […] tre volte al giorno devo pur mangiare”.
Mi sembra una buona lettura.

[Helen Marquis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Markiyan Kamysh takes you on a fascinating journey into the Exclusion Zone - the toxic wasteland surrounding Chornobyl nuclear power station. He works as a "stalker" - a tour guide for illegal tourism, guiding the daring into illegal territories to visit a world largely devoid of humans, but still with some random inhabitants and fellow dodgy trespassers.
This is an excellent read as you learn what this off-cited wasteland is really like from a bonafide expert. When he's not running his sketchy tours, Kamysh often ventures into the Zone on his own, inexplicably drawn to this poisonous world, with seemingly little concern for his own long term health and wellbeing. His father was an on-site liquidator, so maybe it's some strange familial compulsion.
Kamysh takes you way beyond the familiarity of Pripyat and its oft-photographed abandoned Ferris Wheel and dodgems, and into rural villages where lights still burn in windows where people illegally returned to their ancestral homes, scaling the power plant pylons to survey the scene, and the irradiated mechanical graveyard filled with helicopters, fire engines, cars, etc, all of which have steadily been looted and stripped down with the passing of time, until almost nothing remains, apart from some disappointed tourists.
Along the way, he dodges the police, patrols and criminals who fractiously co-exist in the area, occasionally having unpleasant individual encounters with all of them.
What with one thing and another, I doubt I'll ever see the places he visits with my own eyes, so living vicariously through him is a truly great experience. Highly recommended.

[Alfonso D'agostino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il 2019 ha evidenziato – principalmente grazie a una serie Tv davvero ben costruita – il ritorno di Chernobyl (o Černobyl’, a scriver si voglia) nell’immaginario e nella cultura popolare collettiva. L’editoria non è naturalmente rimasta neppure un passo indietro: sono usciti o sono stati riediti resoconti storici (ottimo, a mio parere, Mezzanotte a Cernobyl’ di Adam Higginbotham per Mondadori, che ho divorano in meno di tre giorni), raccolte di saggi, persino trattati scientifici (alcuni dei quali di difficile approccio).

Keller, nella sua linea editoriale e grafica pulita e affascinante che mi conquista ogni giorno di più, si è affidata a Markijan Kamyš (e alla traduzione di Alessandro Achilli) nel suo Una passeggiata nella zona per guidarci nella Chernobyl di oggi con un punto di vista totalmente inedito: Kamyš è uno dei cosiddetti “esploratori illegali”, persone – direi personaggi – che trascorrono del tempo nella zona di esclusione non attraverso le visite guidate (fatevi un giro su Instagram selezionando Chernobyl nella ricerca luoghi e vi si aprirà un mondo), ma in maniera totalmente non accompagnata e altrettanto non autorizzata.

E’ un racconto straordinario, molto oltre il reportage. Direi a metà fra Kerouac e Bukowski, fra il romanzo di formazione di chi ha vissuto Chernobyl come riflesso della sua esistenza e il racconto di una ricerca forse alienata ed alienante, probabilmente incomprensibile a noi che viviamo (anche felicemente!) la nostra normalità, ma di certo affascinante.

http://capitolo23.com/2020/01/18/una-...

[Coepi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found Stalking the Atomic City both difficult and unpleasant to read. The writing style was confusing - I think intentionally so - and the author didn’t explain what was going on, as well as jumping between tenses and anecdotes constantly. I do see how the writing style was intentionally challenging but frankly I don’t think that justifies it.

Kamysh’s narration refuses to acknowledge any positive aspects of the Chernobyl exclusion zone or why people would be drawn to it (e.g. the recovery of nature, the freedom from conventional it offers, etc). Instead he glories in cynicism, despair, and just plain muck; for example, constantly referring to himself as a “bum” in a self-berating, slightly pathetic way. Again - while I know it was the intended effect, a book that manages to be such a gruelling reading experience despite only being about 150 pages long is going to get a low rating from me.

[Keen Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are many fine books on the subject of Chornobyl/Chernobyl (let’s call the whole thing off etc). This is not one of them. This is another one of those journeys, where the belief seems to be that you don’t have to say anything interesting, come up with any meaningful insights or even write particularly well, you just have to turn up and wander.

You know when you read those redacted transcripts released by governments and corporations which hide every single important or remotely interesting detail, well this reads like someone has gone through this and done exactly the same.

It’s incredible you can moodily stoat around some cold, bleak depravity, soaking up and basking in the sheer all round misery of it all, drinking cheap booze, in between smashing fizzy drinks and junk food and a certain strand of critics will always eat it up. The best thing about this is the photos, which really capture the feel of the aftermath in a way the prose doesn’t.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was kind of weird. It's not so much a narrative as a collection of out-of-order anecdotes, the way someone who was drunk the whole time right remember the anecdotes. It feels like the original sentiment of the author comes through well though, and I suspect the translator did a really excellent job here. (Except the part where nothing is metric, because it feels really weird for a Ukrainian to talk about how many feet high something is, but it does say "American edition" and not English edition, so my bad for expecting to understand how cold it is and how far he walked I guess.)

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many extra words without flow. Where one word would have sufficed, 17 were used instead. It rambled on with no logic/timeline. I was expecting an insider look from someone who has been deep inside Chernobyl instead this was a nonsensical "story" (fueled mostly by alcohol) that repeated itself many times over. The author denigrates the "tourists" for taking things and destroying things but he was doing all those things too. Very hypocritical.

[Peg - The History Shelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review at Shelf Awareness here: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/reade...