Cruising Around

Roads that lead to places where no one lives are blocked. These roads are blocked for cars, but not for motorcycles. Good girls go to heaven. Bad ones go to hell. Girls on fast bikes go anywhere they want.

This is what's left of a fertile village which once had a population of 4,500. It lies 50 km south of ground zero, the reactor.

   

This old man lives in the Chernobyl area. He is one of 3,500 people who either refused to leave or returned to their villages after the meltdown in 1986. I admire those people because each of them is a philosopher in their own way. When you ask if they are afraid, they say that they would rather die at home from radiation, than die from homesickness in an unfamiliar place. They eat food from their own gardens, drink the milk of their cows and claim that they are healthy...but the old man is one of only 400 that have survived this long. He may soon join his 3,100 neighbors that rest eternally in the earth of their beloved homes. It appears that the people with the most courage were the first to die here. Maybe that is true everywhere.