Via Anne SFTH's recommendation, i checked out this website/photo essay by a Ukrainian chick who toured the ghost town of Chernobyl on her motorcycle.

It takes a few minutes to go through all the photos, but they're fascinating and definitely worth your time. Her prose is cool too, she writes with a charming accent:

Motorcycling is a great hobby of mine. I ride all my life and I owned different bikes and I ended with big kawasaki ninja. This motorbike has matured 147 horse powers, some serious bark, it is that fast like a bullet and comfortable for a long trips. I travel a lot and my favorite destination lead through so called Chernobyl 'dead zone' It is 130kms from my home. Why favourite? because one can ride there for hours and not meet any single car and not to see any single soul. People left and nature is blooming, there are beautiful places, woods, lakes. Roads haven't been built or repaired since 80th but in places where they haven't been ridden by trucks or army technics, they stay in the same condition as 20 years ago. Time do not ruin roads.

Truly amazing, and so sad. Chernobyl is like Pompeii. It's a time capsule, but more than just a capsule of the Eighties, Chernobyl is a snapshot of the Soviet Union. It's all that remains of a society that no longer exists. There's Elena, on a big Kawasaki Ninja, visiting the Soviet factory that once made the dream bike of Soviet teenagers in the 1980's: a top-of-the-line scooter with only 26 horsepower. So much has changed.

Posted by: annika at 07:57 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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1 Annie- this is fan mail-- I just love your blog. You really put yourself out there. You are a smarty-pants with your own personality and quirks. What better description could there be of a good blogger? Plus, you realize our nation is in an actual war with practitioners of a murderous ideology. I have little patience these days with people or bloggers who cannot see that. Anyway, kudos to you and your blog. I have really enjoyed it.

Posted by: gcotharn in Texas at March 30, 2004 09:49 PM (rZmE1)

2 Compelling photos, but clearly one of the more dumb activities you can possibly undertake. This chick has a JFK Jr. sized deathwish. Walking around in radioactive Soviet era buildings with no maintenance for 20 years? As long as you have your portable Geiger counter, everything's peachy!! Look as with each step we take toward this vehicle we get another 100 REMs!! Hey what the fuck, let's drive up to the CHERNOBYL PLANT GATE!!! To paraphrase the guy on the porch in Fletch: "Girl, what in the hell is the matter with you?"

Posted by: Jason O. at March 31, 2004 07:48 AM (QyDeG)

3 gcotharn, thank you so much, i hope you keep coming back! Jason, i wondered myself if i would do what Elena did, given the chance. i don't think i would take the chance. i mean, you take in all that radiation and you don't notice anything until later. Unless you go into the reactor like those guys in K19.

Posted by: annika at March 31, 2004 09:12 AM (zAOEU)

4 K-19...talk about a movie that could have been excellent. It was not bad, I liked the twist that Liam Neeson sides with Harrison Ford in the key point of the mutiny. Reactor scenes were brutal. Of course Das Boot is the best sub movie ever...in particular the scene when they have been through hell and the officers are invited to the party on the Nazi resupply yacht...the look of disdain Jurgen Prochnow gives the assembled partygoers is tremendous. Then: Red October Run Silent Run Deep Grey Lady Down Crimson Tide

Posted by: Jason O. at March 31, 2004 10:11 AM (QyDeG)

5 i'm a big russophile, so i loved K-19. Just like with Enemy at the Gates, it's cool to see things from the other side and how the old enemy could be heroic too. i reviewed K-19 back in sept. i also liked The Enemy Below, with Bob Michum a lot.

Posted by: annika at March 31, 2004 10:52 AM (zAOEU)

6 Did I just read you recommend Mr. Majestyk in that review??? To paraphrase Drexl in True Romance: "Hey Marty, look what we got heah....muthafuckin' Charlene Bronson!!!" Have you seen "Hard Times" with Bronson as the bare knuckle fighter and James Coburn as his handler? Bronson's best movie, IMO.

Posted by: Jason O. at March 31, 2004 11:41 AM (QyDeG)

7 Haven't seen it. But i'll rent it.

Posted by: annika at March 31, 2004 01:15 PM (zAOEU)

8 Chernobyl is Russian for Wormwood, which some believe means that this disaster is foretold in Revelations. "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." "The burning star recalls the explosion and fire, the poisoned rivers and fountains of water in the Bible bring to mind the contaminated rivers and water reservoirs affected by the Chornobyl plant's unleashed radioactivity, the name of the Biblical star Wormwood has the same meaning as the name of the Ukrainian town where the disaster occurred. Do the similarities between the tragedy at Chornobyl and Revelations 8:10-11 imply that this Biblical passage contains a prophecy that has been fulfilled, or are they merely a coincidence? This is a decision that everyone will have to make individually." ...interesting stuff IMHO. P.S. I think the best movie that, as annie puts it, lets you "see things from the other side and how the old enemy could be heroic too" is Iron Cross. Bad ass movie. Though the recent Enemy at the Gates is up there too... http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1996/219619.shtml http://www.endtime.com/past_article.asp?ID=94

Posted by: Scof at March 31, 2004 03:20 PM (XCqS+)

9 Damn, it's Cross of Iron, not Iron Cross. Still James Coburn kicks butt, "I will show you where the Iron Crosses grow!"

Posted by: Scof at March 31, 2004 03:23 PM (XCqS+)

10 Very cool photo journal. And she did the whole 911 km trip in only 9hrs 11 mins (just kidding). Thanks!

Posted by: d-rod at March 31, 2004 03:45 PM (CSRmO)

11 Okay Scof, lets test that. Here's Rev 8:11 in Russian: "Имя сей звезде `полынь'; и третья часть вод сделалась полынью, и многие из людей умерли от вод, потому что они стали горьки" Unfortunately, i can't read cyrillic, but maybe someone can tell me if the word "chernobyl" appears in that passage. Candace?

Posted by: annika at March 31, 2004 04:34 PM (zAOEU)

12 A friend of mine used to inspect cracks in nuclear reactors for a living, so I emailed him about the biker chick's radiation exposure and here is his response. That is amazing... The dose she received is pretty darn high. More than I ever received while working in the nuc-u-lar industry. Not enough to make her hair fall out though, so she *should* be fine. Just thought some here might be interested.

Posted by: d-rod at March 31, 2004 06:08 PM (CSRmO)

13 No Anni, it doesn't contain the word Chernobyl. Let me tell you something even more human. I was a Soviet Studies major in the late 70's. I remember feeling a certain smugness when the piece of shit reactor failed and killed so many and so much, but those were darker days, and the Russkies were the bad guys. Ultimately I fell in love with a Russian gal whose husband died of lung cancer at the age of 26 after probably inhaling fallout from the reactor. Life is strange and cruel, yet beautiful.

Posted by: Casca at March 31, 2004 06:52 PM (BRVtJ)

14 It's actually a "Russian transliteration of the Ukrainian word ‘chornobyl’, which in English means wormwood"

Posted by: Scof at March 31, 2004 10:14 PM (uluG3)

15 I second the recommendation for the movie 'Cross of Iron'.

Posted by: Ted at April 01, 2004 05:38 AM (blNMI)

16 Another excellent "enemy perspective' is Robert Vaughn's Nazi character in "Bridge at Remagen"...At the very end when he is about to be executed by his superiors for not holding or destroying the bridge, he looks up at the Allied planes overhead and realizes he is on the wrong side.

Posted by: Jason O. at April 01, 2004 07:53 AM (QyDeG)

17 I keep going back to that photo essay. It is strangely compelling.

Posted by: Desert Cat at April 02, 2004 09:30 PM (c8BHE)

18 Strangely compelling and scary. How quickly the whole world can change.

Posted by: Bernard at April 04, 2004 05:54 PM (v//Np)

19 Looks to me like the word "wormwood", in Cyrillic, is replaced with a phonetic spelling of "pollen".

Posted by: Tuning Spork at April 05, 2004 10:55 PM (2hOtF)

20 Try this ( but take a hankie) http://www.oneworld.org/index_oc/issue196/babel.html There are a number of charities in the U.S helping the Children of Chernobyl. Google "Children of Chernobyl" and take your pick. That Elena is a brave Ukrainian biker chick - and plainly madasafish. Good luck to her. Roger -- Feel as One Breathe as One Love as One Be as One

Posted by: Roger at April 13, 2004 07:42 AM (9f8j7)

21 well, the girl has passion. and you - you dont have balls event to think about somethinng nt 100% safe..

Posted by: to jason o. at April 16, 2004 04:29 PM (CvpwE)

22 ow .. where has the site gone too? that's one that shouldn't go offline

Posted by: Joan at June 07, 2004 03:11 PM (X5pgO)

23 Yes i just wanted to say she is Ukrainian not Russian. And Chernobil is in the Ukraine not Russia. Ukraine was the first country to split from Russia in 1987. Calling a Ukranian a Russian can be quite offencive.

Posted by: Concerned Uki at September 23, 2005 04:25 PM (Nu6MN)

24 thank you for the correction. i will fix it.

Posted by: annika at September 23, 2005 05:33 PM (AyYha)

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The Smarter Cop poses 20 questions he (and i) would like to hear Kerry answer. Some excerpts:

1. How common was it to get 3 purple hearts in just three months?

. . .

6. Will you essentially let Iran have their way, in return for their endorsement?

7. Exactly how do you relate to the lower- and middle-classes from your $4.9 million dollar Idaho compound, in which is a great room containing a 15th century English barn imported and reconstructed beam-by-beam by a British carpenter?

. . .

9. If Howard Dean himself claimed that you were a 'man of no principle', and he now endorses you, which one of you is without principle now?

. . .

12. When was the last time you were present in the Senate for two votes in a row?

. . .

18. As a professing Catholic, how do you reconcile with your faith that not only do you support a woman's 'right to choose', but you actually suggest that abortion is something we should be 'proud of'?

19. Is Israel's security fence a legitimate act of self defense or a barrier to peace (since you claimed both things at different times)?

20. If mere negotiation caused Libya to give up its weapons of mass destruction, why wasn't it done on Bill Clinton's watch?

[links omitted]

Posted by: annika at 01:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Accidental Verbosity is running a couple of polls. This poll is an easy choice for me. i'd feel comfortable with my choice as president even today. In fact, if my choice were running against Bush, i'd vote democrat.

i bet you can guess who i'm talking about easily, because he's probably your choice too.

The other poll is harder; i don't like any of the losers on the list.

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No time to do the old blog thing, that is. i'd like to bash Dick Clark, but why don't y'all just pop on over to Strange Women and read the post about some of Clark's hare-brainedness, and the one about Jack Straw dissing Clinton obliquely, while dissing the Spanish not so obliquely.

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It is refreshing when a leftie isn't so damn angry that he still retains a sense of humor. OLDCATMAN is one, and his newest blog is quite funny. He's retained the allcaps, but thankfully he's toned down the font size for more pleasant reading. i loved this graphic:

LOL, i'd love to see that kind of ballot in November! Thanks, OLDCATMAN.

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The whole point of announcing my Blog-versary was to get nice comments and posts like this one.

Did i mention my birthday's coming up?

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Today is my one year blog-versary. Gary, the proprietor of Soul Parking, introduced me to blogging back in 2002. i posted a few poems and a couple of journal entries there before i discovered Glogger quite by accident. It was one year ago today that i posted my first Glogger post on a site entitled: annika's journal and poetry. Now here i am, 674 posts later, and what have i got?

• A total of 177,805 words ± a few dozen;


• 62,901 hits and 2719 comments;


• 5086 occurrences of the pronoun "i" in lower case, of course;


• 167 utterances of the word "fuck" in all its glorious varieties;


• 58 "shits", 42 "hells" and 14 "damns;"


• i also overused the word "probably" 97 times;


• The word "love" was used 107 times;


• My favorite verb "was" was overused an embarrassing 1513 times. My Freshman English teacher would be so disappointed.

• The first blog to ever link me, Christopher Johnson's Midwest Conservative Journal;


• The first blog i ever linked to: Anne's;


• My first comment, left by Jim Treacher;


• Blogging from New York City;


• Declaring my allegiance to the Alliance of Free Blogs and its supreme leader, Frank J;


• The instalanche;


• Hitting Large Mammal on the Ecosystem;


• Being voted 3rd sexiest female blogger (i still can't figure that one out.);


• Redesigning my site with a picture i took in New York and column format i borrowed from Maizzy;


• Contributing to Paul's dating tips for men;


• Being selected by Bill Cimino as the first non-Paul blog that sucks;


• My wonderful guest bloggers: Franci, Ginger, James, Lynn, Matt and Coyote;


• My move to Mu.Nu and Movable Type;

Posted by: annika at 12:00 AM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
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1 Awesome. Congratulations on your accomplishment. And I'm so happy that you are sticking around!!

Posted by: ginger at March 09, 2004 05:21 AM (/Ov+I)

2 Congrats. Here's to this year being better for ya than last.

Posted by: Publicola at March 09, 2004 05:27 AM (Aao25)

3 Congrats and Yay!

Posted by: Ted at March 09, 2004 06:16 AM (blNMI)

4 Yay and congrats!!! (I'm not as much of an early bird as Ted).

Posted by: Susie at March 09, 2004 07:17 AM (8giUV)

5 Congratulations. And thanks for not quitting your blogiverse. We'd all miss you.

Posted by: physics geek at March 09, 2004 07:32 AM (Xvrs7)

6 Well, thank goodness you had a change of heart, Annie! You have been a daily read of mine since I went "live" myself in July of last year... and I think it was MCJ that led me to you all those months ago, back in the rage of the Gene Robinson consecration. You are my favorite blogging right-leaning, over-educated Cal grad/Celtic supporting gal in the whole danged universe.

Posted by: Hugo at March 09, 2004 07:56 AM (89maB)

7 Congratulations! I loved the run down of your anniversary highlights.

Posted by: Dawn Summers at March 09, 2004 08:40 AM (HLOeu)

8 Nice to have met you too annika! 1 whole year...how 'bout some tix to the june dodger/yankee series to celebrate? you can send them care of Matt Scofield, Dallas TX...har har Keep pluggin' away, your site is 3 kinds of fun to visit

Posted by: Scof at March 09, 2004 08:45 AM (XCqS+)

9 Congratulations. I won't hit 1 year until August, and that just seems very hard to believe. At this point, I can't imagine quitting and I am very glad you're not.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at March 09, 2004 10:23 AM (UquFN)

10 Nice going, and I'm glad you decided to tough it out!

Posted by: Rich at March 09, 2004 10:59 AM (V43HN)

11 You've got a lot to give and I'm glad you're sharing, annie. Thank you for a great year!

Posted by: d-rod at March 09, 2004 12:00 PM (CSRmO)

12 Congratulations, Annie! And let me add my voice to the chorus of "thank-heavens-you-didn't-go"s. Of course I've been blogging for a year and a half (I'm not leaving OS out; he wasn't with me in the beginning), and have only about 2/3 the hits you've gotten . . . So thanks for making me even more aware of my inadequacies! ;-) Speaking of the TTLB Ecosystem, you forgot to update your URL over there. 'Course, I don't know how one goes about doing that, but there must be a way . . .

Posted by: Matt at March 09, 2004 06:55 PM (of2d1)

13 You're all very sweet, thank you! i've been submiting update requests to NZ Bear for about two months now. No action yet. And according to my Reglogger records, The very first people to leave comments, who still visit here are in order: Shae, Matt Rustler, Zombyboy, Ginger!

Posted by: annika! at March 09, 2004 09:05 PM (r55l+)

14 Happy bloggy birthday!

Posted by: Leah at March 09, 2004 09:31 PM (K4eJ5)

15 Yay for Pixy Misa! Yay for Munuviana! Yay for annika!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 09, 2004 10:34 PM (kOqZ6)

16 Happy blogiversary!

Posted by: Chris at March 09, 2004 10:42 PM (uMU3+)

17 Congrats, and best wishes for many more.

Posted by: Dave J at March 10, 2004 07:21 AM (VThvo)

18 Congrats Annika. Keep it up!

Posted by: javaslinger at March 10, 2004 08:37 AM (3rYmf)

19 Yay! We are so happy to still have you around.

Posted by: candace at March 10, 2004 09:50 AM (diz2c)

20 Congratulations my dear! Please excuse me for being late on this as this date I spent most of it at the VA....I think that's a pretty darn good excuse. I'm very glad you are not going to quit blogging as you are one of my favorites. You have a nice mixture of posts from the very smartly written annikapunditry categories to the posts that let us get to know a little bit about you, the Annika, the person behind the blog. Keep it up hon...you do good.

Posted by: Serenity at March 11, 2004 01:30 AM (4A/WT)

21 Thank you Serenity, you're one of my blog idols! And i'm so glad to hear that you have Veterans benefits! i was praying for you!

Posted by: annika! at March 11, 2004 09:15 AM (zAOEU)

22 Oh, how I wish I was still in SoCal....it's ccccold here. Congrats on the blogoversary (mine was in January). I have 8,000 hits in the last year, 350 in the last week (thanks to a few links). And I don't get the third place finish, either. I think you should have finished higher...

Posted by: greg at March 11, 2004 09:06 PM (2vrMi)

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George W. Bush has not captured Osama bin Laden so that big corporations and white men could kill The United Nations.

Thanks to Susie for the link.

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i did my best to come up with some questions for Stephen Macklin and Tuning Spork to ask each other during their trivia contest tomorrow. They still need more. It's time consuming, but kinda fun. There's only one day left, so if you want to participate, see here for instructions on how to submit questions.

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i need to give a shout out to Sarah, who just transferred her excellent blog from Glogger to Munuviana. i love her writing. Her husband just deployed to Iraq and she's done some wonderful posts on that in her old blog. She's also ambitious enough to be reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, a huge tome which is on my "to be read if i'm ever laid up in the hospital for a few months" list, right below Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Wow.

Also, the elder statesman of Munuviana, Ted of Rocket Jones, posted the latest installment in his series of Air Force memoirs, "Air Force Blue."

Posted by: annika at 03:39 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Elder statesman. Hee hee!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 03, 2004 07:17 PM (kOqZ6)

2 Thanks. Actually Gulag isn't really a hard read, though I will say chapter one and the first half of two were a little dry. But then it gets quite interesting...in a depressing why-didn't-I-learn-any-of-this-in-school sort of way.

Posted by: Sarah at March 04, 2004 03:21 AM (aQeaY)

3 LOL I've never been called a statesman before. And my eyes aren't sharp enough to make out that prior word... Probably a good thing.

Posted by: Ted at March 04, 2004 06:01 AM (blNMI)

4 I've read The Gulag in the past. I have to with you the reader does deserve a link. I also recommend that if you do read it, just scan the fisrt chapter. The interesting reading does pick up later in the second.

Posted by: Rick at March 04, 2004 11:07 AM (2Sccf)

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You all may remember that Serenity recently moved to Houston. Well, she just broke her ankle and is without insurance because she hasn't been at her job long enough for her benefits to accrue. That completely sucks. A lot of bloggers have put out the call for help. i myself want to add my voice to that call, because i've enjoyed Serenity's blog for as long as i've been in the blogosphere. She really is one of the best and i hate to see such bad luck befall her. Your prayers or any kind of assistance would be a nice thing to do for her. There is a Paypal link on her sidebar. Get well soon, Serenity.

More: Lorie is also dealing with a tragic event. Her sister was in a bad car accident and was very seriously injured. Please remember her in your prayers too.

What's going on?

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