Amazing photos from Chernobyl

Kid of Speed is a Ukranian girl with a habit for speed and an unhealthy obsession for Chernobyl. She has explored Chernobyl and the surrounding area on her bike and taken some amazing pictures of it, that you really would rarely see anywhere.

The picture above really struck me to symbolize everything about the disaster. Note the dirty doll, the childs gas mask and the Lenin post cards.

My own personal memories of Chernobyl as a 15 year old living in Bornholm a Danish Island in the Baltic. We were all very scared for a while as early on it looked like the radiation cloud would be heading our way, the winds then took it north where it radiated virtually the entire population of reindeer in lapland.

I was studying Russian in Gymnasium (like High School) and we were obviously discussing this much in class. I remember my mom receiving a frantic call from a communist the night of the accident who was kind of caught between wanting to damage control (as communism can do no wrong) and also slightly doubting his own words.

One thing for sure was that these were very scary days for just about everyone in Europe. I can not imagine what it was like for the people of Ukraine and Belorusia. In retrospect this was probably one of many small nails in the coffins of the Soviet union during the eighties. I am guessing it caused many communists the world over to start on some serious self analysis.