Joanna Macy

Concerned about contradictory governmental reports on radiation levels at Chernobyl, a team from Viola went to conduct measurements themselves. Access is permitted by buying tickets from the Ukrainian tourist agency which organizes trips to the disaster site. Igor Prokofief, Executive Director of Viola, and a group of young Viola volunteers visited the fated nuclear station and the adjoining, now deserted city of Pripyat. With their own radiation monitors, they sought to assess changing patterns of contamination and new threats of its spreading through rain and wind to their home territory in nearby Bryansk.

They also harvested the pctures below. They write: "These photos show the future that will be ours if humanity continues its games with atomic energy. In the empty houses and schools, the abandoned toys, the silhouettes on walls painted by visitors, we see the horror of their consequences. We see vegetation absorbing the city of Pripyat, soon to look like the ruins of an ancient people lost to history. We hope these photos do not show the future of our planet."

This is the entrance to the Chernobyl area and the 13-kilometer zone around the nuclear station with the highest level of radiation. The high tower is Block 4 of the nuclear station in which there was a terrible accident. The sarcophagus with numerous cracks is located under the tower. The monument to victims is in front of sarcophagus. The radiation monitor indicates the high levels of radiation still present in the zone. This was the Hotel Polesye. Nobody has stayed here in over 21 years. Trees and a bush have taken it over. Pictures about a happy soviet life were illustrated on walls of the Culture Palace. Very soon the colors will fade to gray, along with the surroundings. Visitors who come here suspend dolls in the former Pioneer's Palace in memory of lost children. The great ferris wheel is abandoned and rusting in the former park. This was one of the classrooms at School No. 2 in Pripyat. A former children's ward in the maternity hospital of Pripyat. Where are those children who were born and laid in these beds on April, 26th and 27? What is their fate? These pictures show silhouettes representing the people whose lives were broken by the accident. These pictures show silhouettes representing the people whose lives were broken by the accident. These pictures show silhouettes representing the people whose lives were broken by the accident. One of the typical big apartment houses in Pripyat. People left these apartments and expected to be away for three days, but they never returned. Their beloved domestic animals died here. This photo shows how the forest takes over the city and absorbs it. Eventually all will be in forest again, inhabited by mutant animals and plants.