rrrudya

Actually, I am not against NP. If used smart, it is the cheapest and cleanest energy source...

well, that place is quite popular with phootgraphers. The lady is actually me, it is a self-portrait. I wanted a strong metaphor, to round up my project, and I found it in a form of that tree.

really? it was free before... Here is the uneditet text from my computer On April 27th, 1986 I, aged 1 year and 3 months, was evacuated together with my mother from the town of Prypyat, USSR, population 49,400, average age of the inhabitants – 26 years old. Now, 25 years later and being 26 years old myself, I revisited the town of my early childhood. I would lie if I say that being a baby at the time of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, I remember anything of Prypyat. I don’t remember anything, but coming back after all those years to a place, which literally changed my life was not easy. I came back not for the pictures of broken dolls or abandoned schools. I didn’t take photos of Soviet relics, which are so popular with amateur photographers and tourists from all over the world. Nevertheless, when we drove into the jungle, which once was the main street – named after Lenin of course, I was hit by a way of nostalgia – nostalgia for the things, which never happened to me here. Lenin street 17, apartment 24 – number 24 would chase me throughout life. All apartments in Prypyat was burglarised and it is hard to imagine life in these empty walls. Not only valuables, but also waterpipes, powersockets and floorcloth were stolen by crooks, who would then sell radioactive goods on fleamarkets to people, who wouldnt even know what are they buying. My flat was not an exception – only peaces of broken furniture, old wallpaper (horrible flower design, by the way), 2 kopiykas (which my father left for me to pick up one day) and an old picture on the floor. The photo is of me and my mom in this very room 25 years ago. It was a favourite of my father, who was an amateur photographer – he even mentioned it on a roll of the negative, which I found afterwards in Kiev. This was a reason for him to leave it 10 years ago, hanging on the wall of what was once our living room– as a memory of happy times, which these abandoned walls once saw. It might sound cheesy, but for me, this symbolic gesture is very meaningful, since my father, Constantin Rudya, died 5 years ago. He dedicated his life to Chernobyl, working as a scientific director at an International Chernobyl Center. He spent a lot of time in Chernobyl, collaborating with scientists from Germany, France, USA and Japan. He was exposed to the radiation frequently, revisiting the sarcophagus of the 4th block on a regular basis. He died of cancer in Fabruary 2006 at the age of 47 and before that I never thought about Chernobyl as the most influential thing, which happened to my family. I don’t want to say that my life after his death was full of grief and sorrow – on the contrary, loosing him pushed me to do things, which I would never be brave enough to do if he stayed alive. Studying abroad, becoming a photographer, taking any chance to travel – all of that I did with one thought – would he be proud of me and did I do enough to become as great as he was? Sometimes I even regret of not being talented in physics, since I could never follow his steps. My father had a lot of Japanese friends, and I can only imagine, how supportive he would be of them due to the current events in Fukushima. In 1986 he was barely 28 and worked as an operator on the 2d block of the Chernobyl power Plant. He worked there also on the night of the accident and 1,5 years after the catastrophe. I found old films from Prypyat dated 1983-1986 in my fathers archive – he and his co-workers and friends – playing tennis, having fun on the beach of the Prypyat river, celebrating someone’s birthday in the dormitory. Some of these people, including my dad, are no more alive and all is left of them are memories and these old photographs. We also visited Chornobyl once together – my father was consulting the National Geographic channel team from London while they were filming one of the programs on the Chornobyl catastrophe. We visited our flat that time too – when we were leaving, he left a fresh newspaper in the mailbox of the apartment number 24, our apartment. He said, that once we would come here together with my mom. But we never did. I still hope that once my mother will come here with me though. If she does come, she will find an old photograph of me and her, 2 kopecks and a photo of my dad, smiling, pinned to the wall. I left is there as a memory. Exclusion zone is revisited by many tourists and journalists every year. It became a place of attraction, some kind of extreme adventure. I try to imagine how it would be if the accident never happened (even though, according to the construction imperfection of the station itself, the accident was destined to happen sooner or later. This is why many stations of a similar design were stopped for awhile to remove the problem before it caused more trouble, all over the Soviet Union at that times, according to Alexey Breus, who was an operator on the 4th block of the plant and my fathers good friend). So I try to visualize supermarkets and casinos on the streets of Prypyat. Light banners and nightclubs. Agitation posters of political candidates. The city existed no more than 16 years before the accident (it was built specifically for the workers of what supposed to be the biggest Nuclear Power Plant in Europe). Now, being stuck in the 1980s it remains its Soviet self, trapped in the nature, which, unlike people, was not afraid of radiation. We are used to see pictures of Chernobyl and Prypyat, which recall some sort of a horror dream, with the post-apocalyptic hollows of the broken windows and frightening remains of the human presence in a form of left toys, old books and broken beds. But it is not the impression of the exclusion zone, which I have got. Silent and mysterious beauty of the surrounding landscape is overwhelming. Wild forest, full of animals, beautiful sky and a calm river, which flows silently through the territory, which wont change much in the next hundreds of years. And it is not the broken windows and abandoned buildings, which scared me, but the feeling of a great change, which happened in the lives of so many people. At least 49 400 Prypyat inhabitants I am aware of. My life is no soap opera and everything, which happened to me in the past, might not be as spectacular and heartbreaking as a Hollywood film production scenario. It is also hard to speculate about things, which happened in the past and which I can no more influence. But coming to Prypyat after all these years made me review my life again and analyze things from a different perspective. I lived in Kiev since I was 2, went to Germany for the first time at the age of 9 with the Kids of Chornobyl exchange programme and learned the language probably because of that. I graduated from two universities and finally ended up back in Germany, this time following my dream. I wonder what would happen if in 1986 nothing had gone wrong? Would I have gone to a kindergarten and then local school? Would I have kayaked with my dad on the river Uzh and Prypyat? Would I have my graduation ball in the Energetic restaurant and meet the dawn with a view of the Chornobyl Nuclear power plant? Would I have grown up a small town girl, met my first love here, got married and had 2 kids by the age of 26 with their grandfather still alive? I guess, I would never know.

Dedicated to the memory of my father and best friend, Constantine Rudya (25.03.1958-08.02.2006)

It can be, since it formed who I am and where I am right now. Without what happened to us back then, I wont be the person I am now.

I wouldnt speculate on that. he was a scientist and worked in Chernobyl all his life, going inside the sarcophagus and exposing himself to radiation. So it might not only be 1986 but the rest of his life too