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Stalking the Atomic City: Life Among the Decadent and the Depraved of Chornobyl
Bottom of the pile
10
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
2/100Critics
17/100Scholars
Author:
Markiyan Kamysh
Publisher:
Astra House
Date:
April 5, 2022
Since the nuclear disaster in April 1986, Chornobyl remains a toxic, forbidden wasteland. As with all dangerous places, it attracts a wild assortment of adventurers who feel called to climb over the barbed wire illegally and witness the aftermath for themselves. Breaking the law here is a pilgrimage: a defiant, sacred experience mingled with punk rock, thrash metal, death, decay, washed down with a swig of high-proof Vodka. Author Markiyan Kamysh grew up with intimate knowledge of the devastation of the nuclear plant's explosionâhis father was an on-site liquidator after the disaster and died of exposure when Markiyan was young. This, too, drives him in searching for meaning in the beauty and chaos of what remains.
What The Reviewers Say
Mr. Kamysh gives an impressionistic account of sneaking into and guiding daring travelers around the Exclusion Zone.
The very premise of Ukrainian writer Markiyan Kamysh’s book [is] stark-staring remarkable.
... haunting prose.
Evocative.
