Tuesday, January 19, 2010

chernobyl



Forgive me if you find this a downer, but googling takes me on some wild rides sometimes. Case in point: Once, in a pretty interior decorating picture book, I saw an image of an artist's garden. The garden was more like a living installation with sculpture and green growing things and all sorts of evocative fog surrounding it. In the distance there was a nuclear power plant. I hope I have most of the facts straight. My memory tends to fade and/or embellish.
In any event, I googled to see if perhaps I could stumble on the image. Instead, I ended up looking through some pretty sad pictures of Chernobyl. These here fascinate me. The top image is of a waste storage facility. But I think it's kind of beautiful. Which, honestly, makes me feel like an asshole. The other two are of homes and a garden in the shadow of the nuclear power plant.
*images found here, here, and here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the last two photos (not so much the first one but that doesn't make you an hasshole ;), they make me quite nostalgic actually... remind me of my grandma. I don't see them as sad at all, a hard life for sure but hardship doesn't mean unhappiness. My grandparents had a similar lifestyle but had very happy lives!

alexkeller said...

chernobyl is a very important event in my life, as my family is Ukrainian. i'm the first generation in the US, and have yet to go back to Ukraine to visit. one day, i'd like to take my son, so he can see where his Baba and Dido are from. when i first started blogging, i searched for Ukrainian on Etsy & came across an Etsy photographer... http://www.etsy.com/shop/glittergirlgalleries
She was there with the Peace Corps in the 90s and traveled all over Ukraine. She has a wonderful flickr set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/veggiepoet/sets/72157600280682036/
it's a such rich culture - makes me realize i need to teach my son about it more

Liane said...

alexkeller- thanks for the links! I hope you and your son get to Ukraine soon.