A QUARTER CENTURY after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 in the Ukraine, European countries remain deeply divided over the use of nuclear power. Some are embracing nuclear energy, while others are phasing out their old plants.
The Polish government has announced plans to build two nuclear power plants by 2020. Nuclear power is seen as a way of reducing Poland’s reliance on Russian oil and gas, an issue that has grown in importance since Moscow cut off supplies to Ukraine earlier last year. Support for the nuclear option appears to be growing in Poland, and with it comes great fear for some. Experts once argued that the risk of a nuclear accident was almost nonexistent—but that was before Chernobyl.
Twenty-four years after the Chernobyl tragedy, Warsaw-based photographer Maciek Nabrdalik first went to the site to explore the Exclusion Zone and the surrounding villages. He has since returned four times.
Chernobyl remains a forbidding if not a forbidden area—abandoned villages, schools and hospitals are slowly being swallowed up by nature or eaten by decay. Forests are overgrown, and signs everywhere warn of contaminated waste.
But there are signs of life. There are people who live on the border of the zone, in the same houses where they lived before the disaster—too far from the reactor to join the tens of thousands who were designated victims and granted replacement housing and symbolic gestures of disability compensation. Still, they were too close to escape the tragedy.
They cross illegally into the Exclusion Zone through holes in a barbed-wire fence, searching for scrap metal and scavenging the undisturbed forests for mushrooms. Once a year, with government consent, they visit the graves of the deceased. Few actually live in the Exclusion Zone: they total only several dozen people—one or two per village. They should not be there, but remain of their own volition.
On the outskirts of Chernobyl, most women are widows. In their homes hang portraits of lost husbands decorated with artificial flowers. Those worst afflicted by the radiation left this world long ago. The rest die of complications stemming from alcoholism—locals believe home-brewed vodka is the best cure for radiation. Their empty, drunken eyes hide the truth about the victims of Chernobyl.
Young people flee to cities or enlist in the army.
What’s left? Fondly recalling memories of more than 25 years ago before Chernobyl took their loved ones, dreams and the rest of the world.
Last month, Chernobyl-area residents watched TV news reports of the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. They say there are too many similarities to their tragedy and do not believe that Japan is safe.