Comments on: Letter From Chernobyl

By: Clark

Clark — Mon, 04 May 2026 04:21:50 +0000

Fascinating that you made it there, Patrick. After spending a lot of time in Soviet closed nuclear cities (Sverdlovsk/Ekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, etc.) in the early 1990s, I had hoped to visit Chernobyl one day, but never made it before the war broke out. I can also recommend the book by Plokhy, an excellent, factual account of Soviet mismanagement and the impact on locals who lived through it. It’s important to remember that this type of graphite reactor was inherently dangerous compared to western (and later Russian) light-water designs, and the operators were running a completely unauthorized experiment when the reactor blew.

Fortunately, as noted below, while Soviet figures are obviously unreliable, decades of studies by the WHO and other respected scientific agencies (namely UNSCEAR) have demonstrated that the long-term health effects of even such a significant radiation release were far lower than originally expected, and far lower that what was promulgated by antinuclear activists who had an agenda and no idea what they were talking about from a scientific perspective. Most of the <100 deaths were from the poor firefighters battling the blaze in the immediate aftermath. (From the Plokhy book – some 25 of the most severely burned firefighters were flown to Moscow for treatment, and they had to bury the bus that carried them to town from the airport because it was so contaminated.)

I still hope to visit someday if this damn war ever ends!

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 03 May 2026 22:48:12 +0000

Geiger counters are cheap on Amazon. The hottest thing in my house is the mantle in a camping lantern (thorium). Next are the smoke alarms (americium).

By: wilson

wilson — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 23:00:44 +0000

Did the airport at Gomel serve Chernobyl at the time? Was it nearest major airport? Gomel Airport still operates and is some distance from the site. Patrick makes no mention of all this. Not sure what’s up with that…

By: Michael Spencer

Michael Spencer — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:44:44 +0000

Captions. Any caption would be banal.

Thanks, Patrick.

By: jessie

jessie — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:22:16 +0000

There is a Chernobil radioactive online map https://pelora.org/s/1V8jS823
The tradegy is incredible!

By: Glenn

Glenn — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:16:52 +0000

Read P.J. O’Rourke’s “Holidays in Hell” for a good laugh and thoughtful tourism.

By: Eddue

Eddue — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 05:01:59 +0000

Drop the report card image into ChatGPT and ask it to translate.

By: Nicholas Kuqali

Nicholas Kuqali — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 04:45:45 +0000

I also have visited all the places you’ve mentioned. Disaster tourism I guess is fitting. So is the word macabre. Toured Chernobyl in 2019 and deeply thankful I was able to do so.

By: June

June — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 06:01:53 +0000

I have a few years worth of documents like the red folded one you have, dating as early as 1969, honestly not sure what it is or where it came from but I’m SO invested in this right now

By: Alan

Alan — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 18:43:57 +0000

I visited Ukraine in 1997 when Kiev was much more Soviet than it is now. I didn’t even spend the night since my destination was in the south of the country eventually ending up in Crimea. I’ve seen pictures of Kiev and Ukraine now and it’s like an entirely different world than it was when Ukraine was just a 5 year old country. If it weren’t for the war the photos would encourage me to visit again but I think now it will be a decade or more before it would be safe to return and I imagine I’ve seen my last views of Crimea sadly.