Happy Anniversary, Chernobyl

"Ghost Town," Filatove Elena Vladimirovna:

"The sarcophagus will remain radioactive for at least 100.000 years. The age for the pyramids of Egypt is 5,000 to 6,000 years. Each cultural epoch left something to humanity, something immortal, like Judaic epoch left us [the] Bible, Greek culture- philosophy, Romans contributed law and we are leaving Sarcophagus, the construction that [is] going to outlive all other signs of our epoch and may last longer then pyramids."

Time permitting, check out the Ghost Town photo essay of Filatova Elena Vladimirovna a.k.a. “Gamma Girl.” Armed with only a motorcycle and a geiger counter, she travels through the time-locked destruction that is Chernobyl. Her essay documents “the dead zone,” a place rarely seen by anyone outside of the government.

In OKC, I had a Ukrainian acquaintance who lived near Chernobyl during the time of the meltdown. He looked fine -- no mutant appendages or super powers. One evening, he offered me a shot glass of Vodka Kurant, a liquor made of crushed black currant. He explained that the liquor is thought to have medicinal properties to counteract the effects of radiation and cancer. Needless to say, it tasted horrible. But if the currant doesn’t work on the radiation, maybe the alcohol helps with the not thinking about your body as a living time bomb at such a young age.