By Darmon Richter. Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell.
Drawing on unprecedented access to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—including insights gained while working as a tour guide and during an illegal “stalker” hike—Darmon Richter creates an entirely new portrait of Chernobyl’s forgotten ghost towns, monuments and more
Since the first atomic bomb was dropped, humankind has been haunted by the idea of nuclear apocalypse. That nightmare almost became reality in 1986, when an accident at the USSR’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant triggered the world’s worst radiological crisis. The events of that night are well documented—but history didn’t stop there. Chernobyl, as a place, remains very much alive today. More than a quarter of a million tourists visited the Zone over the last few years, while millions more watched the acclaimed 2019 HBO mini-series Chernobyl.
In Chernobyl: A Stalkers’ Guide, researcher Darmon Richter journeys into the contemporary Exclusion Zone, venturing deeper than any previously published account. While thousands of foreign visitors congregate around a handful of curated sites, beyond the tourist hotspots lies a wild and mysterious land the size of a small country. In the forests of Chernobyl, historic village settlements and Soviet-era utopianism have lain abandoned since the time of the disaster—overshadowed by vast, unearthly megastructures designed to win the Cold War.
Richter combines photographs of discoveries made during his numerous visits to the Zone with the voices of those who witnessed history—engineers, scientists, police and evacuees. He explores evacuated regions in both Ukraine and Belarus, finding forgotten ghost towns and Soviet monuments lost deep in irradiated forests, gains exclusive access inside the most secure areas of the power plant itself, and joins the “stalkers” of Chernobyl as he sets out on a high-stakes illegal hike to the heart of the Exclusion Zone.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Chernobyl: A Stalkers’ Guide.'
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In Chernobyl: A Stalkers’ Guide, Richter shares glimpses of the incredible access he had to a site that continues to send chills down the spine of people around the world.
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Featured images are reproduced from Chernobyl: A Stalkers’ Guide, the newest addition to FUEL Publishing's series of books on the profound aesthetic and cultural mysteries of the Soviet world. In this case, researcher Darmon Richter goes beyond typical disaster tourist hotspots to photograph previously undocumented regions of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where he once worked as a tour guide while making illegal "stalker" forays on the sly. In his Prologue, Richter writes, "Chernobyl today is a place of greenery and life, of branches sagging under overripe fruit, and of wild animals that in the decades of our absence have begun to lose their distrust of humans. Wild foxes will eat bread from the palm of your hand, while all around, symbols of the former regime crumble beneath the burden of flowers, berries and ants. It is a place where the humble might find infinite beauty, where the curious may glimpse nature’s future order in a posthuman world…" continue to blog
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FORMAT: Hbk, 8 x 6.5 in. / 248 pgs / 190 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $34.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $48.95 ISBN: 9781916218420 PUBLISHER: FUEL Publishing AVAILABLE: 10/20/2020 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Drawing on unprecedented access to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—including insights gained while working as a tour guide and during an illegal “stalker” hike—Darmon Richter creates an entirely new portrait of Chernobyl’s forgotten ghost towns, monuments and more
Published by FUEL Publishing. By Darmon Richter. Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell.
Since the first atomic bomb was dropped, humankind has been haunted by the idea of nuclear apocalypse. That nightmare almost became reality in 1986, when an accident at the USSR’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant triggered the world’s worst radiological crisis. The events of that night are well documented—but history didn’t stop there. Chernobyl, as a place, remains very much alive today. More than a quarter of a million tourists visited the Zone over the last few years, while millions more watched the acclaimed 2019 HBO mini-series Chernobyl.
In Chernobyl: A Stalkers’ Guide, researcher Darmon Richter journeys into the contemporary Exclusion Zone, venturing deeper than any previously published account. While thousands of foreign visitors congregate around a handful of curated sites, beyond the tourist hotspots lies a wild and mysterious land the size of a small country. In the forests of Chernobyl, historic village settlements and Soviet-era utopianism have lain abandoned since the time of the disaster—overshadowed by vast, unearthly megastructures designed to win the Cold War.
Richter combines photographs of discoveries made during his numerous visits to the Zone with the voices of those who witnessed history—engineers, scientists, police and evacuees. He explores evacuated regions in both Ukraine and Belarus, finding forgotten ghost towns and Soviet monuments lost deep in irradiated forests, gains exclusive access inside the most secure areas of the power plant itself, and joins the “stalkers” of Chernobyl as he sets out on a high-stakes illegal hike to the heart of the Exclusion Zone.
