Stalking Chernobyl: Exploration After Apocalypse (2020) Movie Script

Oh, my town - a firing ground.

Where did they bury you, my town?

The grain spills on the grass

with the morning dew.

Oh, where, where is my peace?

Oh, my heart aches so,

My town turned grey

and it's still there like an orphan.

It's difficult to talk about it.

I only know that

our town was very beautiful.

Roses, chestnut trees...

Blooming chestnut trees

and scarlet mountain ashes.

We were drunk with the smell of roses.

Pripyat was originally meant

for 80,000 people.

This is how it was built.

And this is the original design.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

was 2.5 km away from Pripyat city limits.

I used to live there.

My son was born there.

My daughter grew up there.

This was my home, my city.

We built it.

And everything collapsed

in a single moment.

What emotions does this bring up for me?

Pripyat was also a city of roses.

And according to statistics,

for every 49,000 people,

there were 30,000 rose bushes. 30,000.

Just imagine how many roses that is.

It was a piece of heaven.

In the morning I came out.

It was so silent. Absolute silence.

Everyone was sleeping.

No one suspected

what a disaster had occurred.

On April 26, what had once been

our pride became our grief.

After the Chernobyl tragedy,

many citizens within a 30 km range of Pripyat

were evacuated and housed in apartments,

in kindergartens and schools.

The city was evacuated in 2 hours.

The situation was indeed unclear.

They didn't even say for how long

the population had to be evacuated.

They said to take food for 3 days.

That was it.

Attention, attention!

In connection with an accident that has

occurred on the Chernobyl NPP in Pripyat,

an unfavorable radiation

environment is forming.

Aiming to ensure

the safety of the population,

and children first of all,

it is necessary to conduct a temporary

evacuation of the population

to the neighboring cities in the Kiev region.

It is recommended to take your documents,

Essential things,

and also some food to start with.

That's why people were leaving

in house clothes.

Some people left pets at home,

having provided them food for a short time.

A lot of people left their money,

jewellery and passports.

They were even leaving in flip-flops.

But they didn't know

that the evacuation would be for life.

Before the accident,

Chernobyl documentaries and films

were constructed in this paradise.

People can live next to nature,

not harming it.

It was a utopian space, where science,

human progress, and nature

meet each other and live peacefully.

Just exactly after the accident,

People were focused on

just making newsreels and chronicles,

so it was some kind of a duty of film directors

to record it on tape,

and save it for future generations.

It was like a more positivistic approach,

and they were used more

for heroic narratives.

They were made in this heroic framework.

Chernobyl

Chronicle of Difficult Weeks

After the fire in the reactor

had been extinguished,

and the burned and radiated victims

evacuated to Kiev hospital, or to Moscow,

the struggle had only begun.

We have many collections of DVDs -

15 films about Chernobyl

which were made in Ukraine

starting from 1974 until 1994,

when Ukraine became independent.

The cover is quite a conceptual one,

even unrecognizable

from the first glimpse,

but it's a picture of Vladimir Shevchenko,

who was a film director,

the first one who went to Chernobyl Zone

and made the first footage on the spot.

And he didn't survive to participate

in the premiere of his film.

And he is the major first victim of Chernobyl trauma.

Typically, we hear about

the negative consequences of Chernobyl,

but Chernobyl also catalyzed

the disintegration of Soviet Union.

It stopped uncontrolled proliferation

of the so-called peaceful nuclear energy.

It showed that, in fact,

this energy is quite dangerous.

I think nuclear energy

will be used by mankind,

but not as broadly

as it was thought it would be in the '70s,

because it's associated with many problems.

People think that nuclear energy

is better for the environment

than burning fossil fuels.

But the main problem with nuclear energy

is that it creates a lot of nuclear waste,

and people don't know

what to do with this waste.

On the 1st floor,

you can see the grocery store,

the whole shopping mall: Rainbow.

Today, Chernobyl Zone is probably the most

popular tourist destination in Ukraine.

Everybody who comes to Ukraine,

they want to see Chernobyl.

During the 3 last years, the number

of tourists visiting the Chernobyl Zone

doubled each year.

And last year we had nearly 40.000 visitors

from all over the world.

Sometimes it happens that we have like

300 people in the Chernobyl Zone per day.

Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Sometimes it happens that they are

up to 1,000 people in Chernobyl at one day.

Today, when you visit the Exclusion Zone,

it looks like a city center, like in New York,

in Moscow, in Kiev, or everywhere.

Now it looks like Disneyland.

A lot of tourists, photos, photos,

photos, photos everywhere.

This spirit of a fully abandoned place - no!

People have different reasons.

For everybody, it's different,

but the main reason is to go to see Chernobyl.

People like to see the Urbex-ers.

A lot of people come because of that.

Urbex in Europe means the exploring

of abandoned buildings, abandoned places.

It includes rooftopping, climbing on the roofs,

also industrial tourism.

It's the visiting of abandoned buildings,

abandoned plants, factories, facilities.

The trips to Exclusion zone,

it's like only part of the total Urbex.

This special climbing technique is very good

to build relationships between people.

They like it and they enjoy it so much.

Hallelujah!

A lot of guys come here

because they played a video game

based on the Chernobyl Zone.

Because they see something in the game,

they come here and see it in reality.

Because it's one to one.

There is a movie, Stalker by Tarkovsky,

and the movie was based on the book

Picnic by the Road

and the author of the game

took the Chernobyl accident

and put it inside it, so it's the Chernobyl Zone,

with all the things

from the movie and the book.

And they started to get fascinated.

'Ok, I would like to see that:

what I read, what I saw, and what I played'.

People who are going to Pripyat,

they are staging rooms.

and then they are taking pictures there.

Destroying something

that should be untouched.

Thank you very much.

Seven times I go into the same rooms -

each time I go in, it's different.

A lot of things have been put into scene,

like people bring in dolls,

to put on a bed, but you can see that

the bed is like 31 years old and damaged,

and the doll is like brand new.

It gives huge money for the business

and to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone administration,

because it's money

they can use to pay the salaries

of the workers of The Exclusion Zone,

from the tourism.

In 2014, in Ukraine,

it was a really hard time,

and the Exclusion Zone workers

stayed stable, and they got salaries,

because tourism gave this money.

Many people treat the Zone

This includes deforestation,

metal collecting, and tourism.

The Zone suffers a great deal from these.

People collect tons of scrap metal,

which is part of the historical heritage

of Chernobyl NPP.

It is very important to show the Zone exactly as it is.

And to show it constantly,

as it is changing and getting ruined.

Over the past 11 years,

the Zone has changed drastically.

We hope to preserve

at least several buildings.

The Zone is a memorial place for us.

We are probably the only ones who spend

our own money on cameras and drones.

We devote our funds to travel to the site

to take pictures, while it still exists.

Our task is to at least visually document it,

so we can show it to the world.

Do something meaningful.

In my opinion, the greatest experience is

to night-shoot in Pripyat.

There is absolutely nobody around.

The whole Zone is quiet and calm.

The moon and the stars are out.

There is a sign in the Pripyat cafe.

The Milky Way starts right from that sign.

Nobody has ever photographed this and

these pictures are really valuable.

Post-radiation-accident tourism is

principally a new phenomenon

for our civilization,

because we visit not, you know, some capital

with an ordinary and usual environment.

But we live in a rather risky environment.

When I say risky, I mean,

not only in terms of radiation,

but, for example,

the Chernobyl Zone combines

the risks of a wild forest,

where tourists can easily encounter

a pack of wolves, for example,

or wild boars, you know,

and moose, quite big animals,

like extremely rare Przewalski's horses.

Nowadays, in the Chernobyl Zone, the wildlife

is more dangerous for tourists

than the radiation.

So, the amount of animals has increased as much

as the ecological capacity allows.

We documented about 400 species

of vertebrates in the Zone.

Rare species also inhabit the Zone.

They have restored their quantity.

Now it is, indeed, a huge reserve

of European forest and fauna,

but not an exotic 'Radiated Safari Park',

as many think.

In the Zone, you feel something

that words can't describe.

Nature managed to overcome radiation

and the consequences

of the Chernobyl disaster

that men ran away from

and that they can't live in.

Nature recovered everything

and it's even better now.

What is the strongest impression

I had during my first trip?

The sun is about to go up, and I hear

the wolves howling from the Red Forest.

You're afraid of the animals,

afraid of the guards,

afraid of radiation...

Radiation -

it has no odor, nor color.

But it has a voice. Here it is...

Everybody knows

how the radiation sign looks like.

Everybody knows that it's danger,

but nobody actually knows what it means.

So this is an isotope, an atom which is decaying -

so there is the core,

And the three rays,

they represent the three types of radiation.

This is alpha, beta, and gamma.

Alpha radiation -

it's quite heavy radioactive particles.

Luckily, you do not get to meet them a lot

in the Chernobyl Zone these days,

Because, as they are quite heavy,

they tend to travel into the soil.

Gamma radiation is basically the radiation

that we get exposed to the most of all

in the Chernobyl Zone.

It's not that dangerous, luckily,

because your body can dispose of it.

And Beta - Beta is a little more dangerous

because it can never

be disposed by the human body.

Some plants collect

radioactive pollution differently.

Pine - different. Apple - different.

You can eat apples,

but you need to clean them from the skin

and from the center of the apple.

One of the most dangerous is mushrooms.

The most dangerous water in Pripyat

is near the hospital

where it was the river port of Pripyat.

After the explosion. the first priority

was to extinguish tires

at the Chernobyl power plant.

So the firefighters,

they were the first on the scene,

they went there and,

as they were doing their job,

they got exposed a lot.

And all their clothes, the shoes,

they were like soaked

through with radiation.

So after they were taken to the hospital,

the nurses first of all

took away their shoes, their clothes,

and they put them in the basement.

So it's still in the basement,

and it's still highly radioactive,

because, you can imagine,

all the particles that were there

at the moment of the explosion

of the power plant,

they are now there.

Right now,

we're in the basement of the hospital.

Your riding shoe is infected.

They called us urgently

at the time of the incident.

That was when the tragedy

with the power plant happened.

And we admitted all those people with burns

who worked at the power plant.

They all came with nausea. vomiting. dizziness.

We gave them stomach wash

and treated their burns as usual.

Those were the people

who were exposed to radiation.

Everyone who was injured

at the atomic power plant,

we worked with all of them.

So many people were badly injured.

In the hospital, there's a piece of metric

that used to be an the helmet of a fireman.

So, we measured this piece.

around 25-26 micro sieverts per hour.

If you're there alone,

and if you open the wrong doors,

and be in the wrong place

for more than you should.

It can be dangerous.

At the moment, the radiation levels

in the area which tourists visit

are 1000 times smaller

as compared to the ones

which I measured

in person 30 years ago.

Each group has at least one

Geiger counter with the guide.

To show the tourists

the accumulated dose

which is as big as the dose,

for example,

in the city of Kiev

for 3 days, or for 2 days-.

Or which is as big as the dose

for a couple of hours

of flight on the airplane.

Our tourists receive more radiation

on the way to the Chernobyl Zone

than in the Chernobyl Zone.

People usually can speculate a lot

about how dangerous it is or how safe it is,

but what we know for sure is

that it's unstable, actually.

There are different nuclear parts,

which can have different masses,

and can move with different speeds,

depending on the wind and the sun.

Situations change constantly

in the Chernobyl Zone.

Unfortunately, it's true.

Inside the Zone, there are

a lot of really dangerous places.

The most famous one is the 4th reactor.

This is an entombment, which was covered

with the New Safe Confinement.

And the second most dangerous place

is the Red Forest,

which contains an

enormous amount of radionuclides.

I had the chance to walk around

the famous Red Forest,

where there were horrendous amounts

of radiation 30 years ago.

I went there 6 years ago.

I can't say that it somehow

affected my state of health.

Last year and the year before that

were the worst,

when the Red Forest was on fire.

It was right next to Pripyat. where

the most radioactive place is.

Radiation and radioactivity exist just as

sunrise and sunset do.

You can't fight it.

You can only try to cooperate with it.

You can live with radiation,

but you first need to understand it.

Shelter

Footage from onside the 4th reactor

by Alexandr Kupnyi

I came here in May 1988.

And I stayed here for 21 years.

10 of those years. I was in

the Chernobyl NPP Shelter Object

on the Photo, Video

and Radiological detection team.

And when I started to work

on the 3rd power unit,

I wanted to see and understand

on my own what has happened.

Almost all visits were illegal.

And all visits

were connected with over-radiation.

The doses were not recorded, of course.

There was this silent agreement.

Because it was not even a violation,

but almost a crime

in the eyes of the management team.

'Elephant's foot'

Hall 217, paw-like flows

of fuel containing masses.

No one can know what happened

with you, after 20-30 years.

Different bodies,

different influences to your health.

But a lot of stalkers,

maybe 80% of all stalkers,

don't worry about radiation.

A 'stalker' is a person

who enters the restricted Zone

on his own danger, against all regulation,

and comes back.

Radiation kills only those

who are afraid of it.

Stalkers have a saying:

'Without a Geiger, you'll go further.'

Not all territories of the Exclusion Zone

are really highly polluted.

A lot of stalkers eat fruits,

but from the 30 km zone.

In the 10 km zone,

I think it's really crazy.

Water can be contaminated,

but the rivers inside the Exclusion Zone

because the particles were washed

by this river after these 30 years.

Stalkers know the places

where you can collect and filter this water,

and, in Pripyat, there are places

which collect a lot of water.

It's groundwater,

and it's water fully clear.

At this point, we need water,

so we're gonna go get some water

from the basement

of a Chernobyl building.

So, this is where we get

our drinking water supply.

And the water looks like it is clean. Yeah.

So, it's not radioactive,

so it's a good sign.

All we're gonna do now is filter it,

because this plant is a little bit rusty.

These legal tourists. guides, operators

are interested in reducing

the number of stalkers.

Because that is their business.

They frighten people,

so people use their services.

They try to prove they are necessary.

When I went to the Zone for the first time,

I was told that without the guide,

I wouldn't be here, and that I'm a nobody.

That I would be torn into pieces by wolves.

or the military would shoot me down,

or I would die from overexposure.

As for the legal guides,

our relationships are strained

because their leaders

treat stalkers negatively.

They think that we litter the Zone.

They treat us as a threat.

I just see them. They are passing by.

We just say 'hello'. maybe talk for a while,

then they go one way. I go another way,

and that's it.

So I don't call anybody,

and I do not report.

Even though I would need to,

maybe, but I don't do it.

Yes, legal companies do not like stalkers.

But some stalkers now work

as guides in these companies.

So when they see stalkers,

they remember what it was like.

And they might give you some water,

humanly.

By the way, it's really nice

that you came here in the winter

because there's no vegetation,

so you can see almost everything.

I realize that, at some point,

I will quit the job

and I will be coming to Chernobyl,

but not as a guide.

Maybe just as a tourist.

Maybe as a stalker, why not?

This was the beginning of 2000.

This was when I first heard that

those who visit the Zone illegally

are called 'stalkers'.

I didn't like this,

and was really opposed to this.

A 'stalker', according to the Strugatsky brothers,

is a criminal, a thief,

who visited the Zone

to fill his own pockets.

It has a totally different meaning now.

The problem for the stalker is

how to enter the restricted area

and avoid all the elements of security,

all the patrols, checkpoints, towers

and everything else -

without anyone noticing you.

The illegal hiking trip

to the Exclusion Zone

is about 35-50 km.

That's one way,

but it depends on the route.

They differ in difficulty,

in the amount of trees,

cities where you can spend the night,

also in the amount of policemen

that can be met along the way.

The nuclear power plant is secured by

the army, special forces.

And if you're caught by the police,

if you're in a group of people,

it can be criminal. You can go to jail.

Eight years ago, it was hard

to get inside the Exclusion Zone.

After 5-6 years now,

we can meet groups

with like 15, 16, 20 persons in one illegal

group in the Exclusion Zone.

For some of them, like the younger part,

it is to show off that you are a strong guy,

and you can pass the barbed wire.

You can hide against the police

and take a cool photo on the rooftop.

Some stalkers are really interested

in Soviet history,

in nuclear history, in everything.

'Physical geography', USSR, 1982.

Why is it all so well preserved?

Now there are a lot of stalkers from Poland,

from Germany, from France,

but they look more like tourists.

The first stalkers.

who really explored the Zone,

were from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

In Russia, there are some phrases, like:

'You can be with them everywhere you want'.

It's a good crew for the trip,

and you know that

going back will always be simple,

because your friends are with you.

If you are going to the Chernobyl Zone,

and you are staying in Pripyat,

you establish your own apartment,

especially if you go there often.

You leave some food there

that you don't need during this hike.

There are sometimes stalker clans.

People who travel as a company

might conflict with another clan.

If you go to someone’s apartment in Pripyat,

and you find products of the people

who 'established' that apartment,

and you take them,

the person who supplied these products,

who brought them there,

is not going to be happy

about not finding them.

So that's a conflict situation.

These photos, it's from New Year

in the Exclusion Zone.

It's 2015-2016.

It's my photos on my film camera,

an old fashion Soviet camera.

In one village. photos of walking.

It's Pripyat city center.

It was really cold in that winter,

-20C, -24C. In one night, it was -28C,

and when we returned to the village,

one village,

it was like our special stop for the night,

we didn't find our house.

And we had a night like in the open air.

Being a stalker myself, I met others like me

who broke the rules of radiation safety.

For instance, they used local wood

to make fires.

They measured the wood

with a Geiger counter

before they made a fire.

It showed acceptable levels of radiation,

so they threw the wood in the fire

without even suspecting that

the radiation increased 20 times.

Of course. the forest is

a huge deposit of radionuclides.

Because when the isotopes enter that system,

they lock themselves tn it.

When radioactive caesium or strontium

enter a tree, they don't exit it.

When the tree dies. decomposes,

then they enter the soul.

Interesting, in the winter,

you're really alone.

Because 90% of all stalkers,

they are really scared

and they are not prepared.

And, a lot of stalkers drink a lot.

It's like deactivation

to take some vodka,

and it looks like 1 liter of vodka

per 10 km of the trip.

I'm not a supporter of these things.

So, if you're a stalker,

what does 'stalker' actually mean?

A 'stalker' is a person

who has illegally entered the Zone.

Illegally. How do you expect me

to approve of this?

This is direct non-compliance with the law.

And in 10 years he has cancer.

God forbid, of course!

But anything can happen.

This Zone can be very dangerous.

Radiation can't be felt. seen or smelled.

Only a dosimeter can Identify it.

If at is turned on.

It's really a very interesting

personal experience.

Of course, it's quite hard to travel

for more than 30 km.

To cross a river, to hide from the guards

and in the end

to arrive in the town of Pripyat,

and to feel a hero.

So, I can understand.

But, I am to tell you that

the stalkers have dosimeters.

They are not stupid,

not more stupid than average people.

Just, they have a bit of a broader view

of the risks of radiation

than ordinary people.

What we are doing now is not to,

let's say, suppress

this desire and thus movement -

it's already a movement, and a subculture.

Our first meeting was in February.

It was winter and a lot of people came.

We decided to do this in the open air,

where everybody could hear everything.

My last trip ended

on the second of August, 2017.

This was my 50th trip,

the anniversary one.

It was my first time in the Exclusion Zone.

I came back a few days ago.

I have been dreaming of this trip

for several years.

Now my dream has come true.

My parents were against this

because they know there is radiation.

They left that place 20 years ago,

and now their son wants to return there.

For us, the Zone is alive.

Most stalkers treat the Zone this way -

as if it were a living organism

which would punish us

if we treated it badly.

It's a sacred place,

and we treat it as a temple.

Every time I come back from there,

I want to go again and see what's new.

It's a very special place.

And you want to come back every time.

When I started to go to the Zone,

there were not many women who were stalkers.

At least, I hadn't met any.

But in 2017. there were already

quite a lot of women who were stalkers.

So now, I don't have a problem finding

a female travel companion.

I haven't gotten a chance to go there yet,

but I'm planning to visit there next Spring.

For me, it is extremely interesting,

and it draws me so much.

First of all, I am interested, naturally.

to see the reactor, the abandoned town,

the 'Duga' radar. You can go up there.

Maybe one of the best places

in the Zone is Duga.

A unique system. Only 3 radars like this

were tn the Soviet Union,

and only one is staying

in the Exclusion Zone. It's a receiver.

Chernobyl catastrophe saved

this system for us.

The Zone is a romantic place

that has brought us together.

We often go together to enjoy

the whole atmosphere.

We walk around, rest, visit

abandoned cities and villages.

You get a certain dose of adrenalin

when you experience and learn firsthand

and feel the atmosphere

of Pripyat at night -

when you get on

the 16th floor of a building

at night, in a ghost town,

where there are no window lights,

and you look at the horizon,

where the Chernobyl NPP is,

which is lit up, like a huge spaceship.

Stalking Chernobyl: Exploration After Apocalypse (2020) - full transcript