Just when I feel ready to abandon GD for good a post like this pops up.

Posts of this caliber were far more common ten years ago and were what made AR15.com such an amazing place.  

OP, thank you so much for these incredible pics.  I was 13 when Chernobyl went down and I can remember being horribly fascinated with it.  When HBO came out with the Chernobyl mini series I was once again fascinated and have watched it at least 6 times.

Your pics are incredible, I am jealous in that you got to see it first hand, but at the same time I have interest in going there, strange I know.

You win GD for the 2021 calendar year!

Very cool stuff!

@JustinHEMI04

You posted this pic and this description.... "The grid control room is still manned with the same tech from 1986 and earlier. We had to wear those clothes as well on the tour."

So does that mean the place is still functional? And hes been on the job since the 80s? Thank you

Awesome, thanks for posting and answering questions. Had interest in Chernobyl since I took a nuclear class and learned about it in depth.

Definitely would have been cool to venture into the NSC, but probably need a special key or something. My understanding is that much of the lifting equipment to start dismantling the sarcophagus (and eventually #4 itself) was built into NSC. But I'd assume they need a ton of manual labor and equipment/gear to do the actual work?

My understanding is there is still some disagreement in sequence of events; nuclear vs steam explosion, which came first, etc. At the end of the day, guess it doesn't really matter but would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

I think if more people understood Chernobyl and other nuclear accidents they would be more accepting of nuclear power in the West. It is ridiculously safe. It is shameful that it was politicized and public opinion has been pushed so far towards fear that the industry can never accomplish what it could. I guess that isn't unique to nuclear power but I digress.

Yes, I meant control rods.  I didn’t realize they wouldn’t be radioactive.  23’ of water is incredible, but I’m surprised they dive in it at all but I’m guessing it is for pool inspection and repairs.

Yes the switchyard at Chernobyl is a major piece of the Ukraine grid so while Chernobyl may not supply it, many other plants do.

Being Ukraine, they don't have the resources to go remote control I suppose, so 2 guys sit here 24/7.

Core damage (melting) began before the explosion, but the steam caused the explosion. They weren't enriched enough or in a configuration to have a nuclear explosion. Had they not exploded the core, it would still have melted.

They are radioactive, the part that is, is in the pool. The part in my photo isn't radioactive.

Thank you for sharing OP!

very cool!! thanks for sharing.

OP you sound like you would know, why are there random caps in the reactor lid that are painted different colors (red, yellow etc)?

J-

Control rod locations. I don't know what the colors mean, but similar to the USA, they probably used control rods of different lengths and even poison rods for flux shaping and such. I'd wager the colors correspond to the type of rod in that location.

Just found this. Looks like I surmised correctly.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RBMK_Reaktor_ChNPP-4.svg#mw-jump-to-license

Awesome thanks

J-

OP, would they have let you bring your own instrumentation along? If I went I'd love to survey my way around the site using what I'm used to.

I don't see why not, I think some people do.

How about some more info on Ukrainian food?   And babes.   Not necessarily in that order.

Wicked pics! Thanks for sharing!

Wow.  Great thread

This thread is epic! OP you are winning at life.

I've always been fascinated specifically with the SCALA and plant automation systems that the Soviets had. As I understand it had very limited control over the reactor and was mainly providing analysis and event logging, but have never been able to get a solid answer on that.. Thanks for getting detailed photos of that gear

I wonder if they are using 1970s switching systems with those old ass phones in the grid control room

I saw nothing in that room that appeared to be modern or updated.

From the Stalker POV

Fascinating pictures, OP!  Thanks for sharing them and answering questions.

Epic thread!

Very cool OP.  Thanks for sharing.

Good video on what happened at Chernobyl by Dr. David Ruzic:

As noted somewhere in the thread, I am an beginning photographer trying to learn the ins and outs of my camera and the various software programs I have, which include Aurora HDR, Capture One 22, and Luminar AI. On this trip, I took bracketed photos of everything with 3 shots of each photo at -2.0/0/+2.0 exposures. I also took an additional single shot of most things ensuring proper exposure or sometimes "expose to the right." All in an effort to practice with post processing and such. Having so many RAW photos ensured that I captured my memories forever, but gave me a big catalog from which to experiment.

The initial postings of these photos were done "quickly" by importing the selected photos into Aurora HDR and letting it bulk process them to what you see in the OP. I agree with later feedback that some of them seem fake as a result, because it does tend to over saturate the colors. However, in an effort to get them posted soon after the trip, I didn't mind and kind of like the "fake" look of some of them in contrast to nuclear wasteland. The boldness of the colors against the backdrop of a dead zone was interesting to me. That being said, today I spent a little time reprocessing a few photos using minimal inputs, adjusting only for exposure, highlights, shadows, and clarity. No additional saturation was employed. I don't intend on posting every reworked photo, this is just to show what I meant in the paragraph above, I have a catalog to work and learn from. After these minimally processed photos, I'm going to play with every tool, button, slider, etc to see what's what and learn the power of these programs. I've already learned that allowing Aurora HDR do it's thing automatically can over process them, but that bracketing can be useful in some situations as long as you're not over doing it. I also see how over saturation can make things just not real, because that isn't how we see the world (unless you're going for that affect).

I agree that some of these look better than the "HDR" photos, and look forward to what they could look like when I learn more.


They are posted with the reworked image followed by the originally posted HDR image.

JEC01160 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01160 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr

(This one was cropped for posting but I didn't crop it for reediting because I forgot :))
JEC01166 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01166 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01193 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01193 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01202 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01202 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01223 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01223 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01229 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01229 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01253 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01253 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01282 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01282 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01286 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01286 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01364 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01364 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01472 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01472 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01529 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01529 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01604 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01604 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01691 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01691 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01694 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01694 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01757 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01757 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01892 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01892 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01930 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr


JEC01928 by JustinC's Photos, on Flickr

13:05 he said what I said.

Excellent thread

Thank you OP.  Always enjoy reading your input in threads, but this knocked my fracking socks off.

So say we all. Thank you.

Great video @Merlin.

Absolutely brilliant thread OP!

That memorial to Valery Khodemchuk looks absolutely fucking metal. Like the guy got smushed into a wall and there's still stuff oozing out.

An interesting note about that, his "hands" are prints of his wife's.

What was so special about the fried eggs? Did they share the recipe with you?

Haha no. I just chose that as an example because eggs are supposed to be easy, but most restaurants ruin simple fried eggs with over done yokes and rubbery whites. Hers were perfect yokes with crispy edged whites. They were just done well compared to what I've received to date.

Dare I say…most impressive thread ever.

This thread is awesome. Thank you for sharing.

Watched the entire thing.  OMG, climbing the ferris wheel and then Duga.  Yeow.   Not sure whats worse, climbing those or drinking the rainwater in that building.  Also, only occasionally checking the dosimeter.  Guess they are not called Geiger counters anymore.  

Most meters these days use scintillation vice geiger-muller tubes. Someone tried to sell one they were making for Kickstarter on GD today. They were quickly locked but I was @'ed before the thread disappeared. I checked out their offering, and for 100 bucks, I'm grabbing one for funsies.

Wow. Thanks for both versions of pics.

Russia in winter is very bleak, but they seem to love bright/bold colors.

It was very surprising to me.

Fucking epic!!!!

Never hire a Ukrainian to be your interior designer.

Amazing posts, photos, and information, OP! Thanks for sharing. This sent me down the rabbit hole both on YouTube and over to HBO to watch their outstanding mini series.

Ironically the day after finishing the series while bringing my kids to school, we ran into one of the teaching assistants with a strong accent. I asked where she was from and she replied Ukraine. When I brought up my interest in Chernobyl, she mentioned she was in 6th grade in Ukraine and the gov kept the disaster a secret from her area for over 5 days. Then a bunch of officials descended on the school and began instructing all the children to rub iodine "lotion" on their forearms before bed every night for days and days. She said she'd wake up in the morning and you couldn't tell where it had been rubbed as it was absorbed that quickly, and that "we were given 5% when 2% was the normal strength. Also we had our thyroids checked for years after."

I found this incredibly fascinating, and all-together jarring with how "local" this disaster could feel all these decades later and literally half a world away. It put things into perspective of how truly terrifying it must have been living as a citizen anywhere near there.

Was living in Germany at the time of Chernobyl, remember how the advised not to eat certain vegetables, lettuce, cabbage, etc because of the fallout blowing over Europe.

Appreciate the post OP. Great pictures.

Thanks for the great photos OP.  

Just re-watched the HBO miniseries.  

What happened to the people in the other 3 reactors?  1-3.  I suppose they were people in there monitoring their reactors when #4 blew.  I imagine they stayed in there until it was known that #4 had an open core but at that point did they shutdown their reactors and then gtfo or did they keep them up to provide electricity?   Just curious as I've never heard or seen anything about them.

Also, while everyone says Chernobyl, the plant is right next door to Prypiat while the town of Chernobyl is much farther south.   Wonder why its called Chernobyl?   Maybe Chernobyl was there first and then Prypiat was built some time after for the workers so they didn't have to travel as far?