Chernobyl - April 1986 (Easter)

[Sequoia]

In Ukrainian language (where we don't like to say "the") Chernobyl is the name of a grass, wormwood (absinth). This word scares the holy bejesus out of people here. Maybe part of the reason for that among religious people is because the Bible mentions Wormwood in the book of the revelatons - which fortells the end of the world....

REV 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

REV 8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

<snip>

I picked up this novel in the library, "The Sky Unwashed", by Irene Zabytko which is a story about a family in a village when this happened.

[Turbineguy]

1. When politics

overtakes physics.

[Warpy]

2. A photo tour was put online a couple of years ago

taken by a very brave motorcyclist named Elena. The incredibly eerie photos and commentary in English can be found at http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ . It's well worth taking the tour, even on dialup (just make sure you've got something else to occupy your time as each page l-o-a-d-s.

Amazingly, the most radioactive parts of town (beside the dead reactor, itself) are inside apartments where windows facing the plant were opened on a lovely spring day. The wall opposite the window is hot, hot, hot. The kindergarten photos near the end are especially haunting.

[NNadir]

3. I love Elena, and the number of times that her site has been discredited.

I hear from her every two months or so.

Unfortunately the entire site is a fraud, which is also reported here. She didn't go. One can find this out by googling three words "Elena Chernobyl fraud."

Nevertheless I am in love with Elena. She is a real babe and a good biker too.

In spite of google, no one actually knows much about Elena. This is because everyone in the Ukraine was killed by the Chernobyl reactor explosion, the Ukraine now being uninhabited.

Here, by the way, is a real photograph from Chernobyl:



More pictures can be found here: http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/pg_frame.htm

[Sequoia]

9. Tell her to join us.

Good piece of work anyway.

[Massacure]

4. I've heard that Chernobyl has become a nature refuge.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. A side note on Chernobyl=Wormwood:

Civilisations around the Mediterranean were well aware of absinthe (I'm pretty sure John the Divine of Patmos was, anyway :D), made from the plant we've now labled Artemisia absinthium. The Greek is Apsinthos, FWIW. It is silver green, and grows in dry, rocky places around the Med. and into Asia. Here's a Pic:


Chernobyl (Or Chernobol) literally translates into "black grass". If you look at the pic and think "Black Grass", you may notice something odd.

You may also want to look at this pic:

And think "Dry, rocky places".

There are lots of Artemisia: The Ukrainians called one Chernobyl, the Greeks called another Apsinthos. The rest, rather dully, is mistranslation.

Edit: BTW, Try flicking through a Ukranian bible, and see how many times "Chernobyl" turns up. (Clue: I'm thinking of a very round number :))

[Sequoia]

8. Okay, I'm clueless here.

What should I be looking for?

[Dead_Parrot]

12. Sorry, I'm being cryptic:

The point is that the biblical wormwood and chernobyl (the plant) are totally differnent: More the the point, No native Ukranian speaker would ever make a connection between them.

The biblical Apsinthos is translated as 'polyn' in Ukrainian, a general word for Artemisia. In English, it is translated as Wormwood, a general word for Artemisia (they could have used mugwort just as easily: Doesn't sound as mystic, though).

Chernobyl is not a general Artemisia, it's a specific native plant, evocotive of the western steppes and used in herbal remedies (Likewise, Tarragon is a very specific Western European Artemisia used in cooking)

Only a native English speaker working through a dictionary could get it wrong in precisly this way. For Irene Zabytko to do it is unsurprising, since she was born and raised in Chicago and now lives in Florida.

Why Elena Filatova - a native Ukrainian - makes the same mistake is... curious.

[Sequoia]

13. Well, thank you.

The mistake makes for a very intersting view though. The truth dashes the mystery (heh, heh..as always).

I just finished the book. Pretty good and not very long.

[phantom power]

6. Elena's site is fiction, but at least it's well-written fiction.

"It represents LIFE breaking through the hard shell of the unknown. I am not sure if this symbolism is encouraging or not."

I love that. And she's pretty hot. At least, if those are her real photos.

[Sequoia]

7. How is it fiction?

Did she really not go there? Who took the photos? I guess no one would really be allowed there like she claimed. Dang, I'm upset now.

[phantom power]

10. More about this in post #3 (link below)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=38466&mesg_id=38471

[Sequoia]

11. Thanks.

Whatever, it's still powerful and the pix are true even if they're from some other publication. This even made it in the LA Times back in 2004. At least, it got people's attention and that's important. We must never forget.

[hankthecrank]

14. Some more info

http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/welcome.html

here is the report in pdf format 996kb
http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/reports/2003/nea3508-chernobyl.pdf

also some pictures
http://www.spaceman.ca/gallery/slideshow.php?set_albumName=chernobyl

Also some work going on with the children
http://www.chernobyl.info/

Here a page with some more links
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~meshkati/chernobyl.html

Here some info from Belarus
http://www.belarusguide.com/chernobyl1/chfacts.htm