The zone a post atomic journey

Today in Ukraine there is a large community among Ukrainian youngsters that are doing a brand new trendy and risky activity: some of them in fact have recently started to illegally enter the Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion , the most contaminated spot on the planet

Today in Ukraine there is a large community among Ukrainian youngsters that are doing a brand new trendy and risky activity: some of them in fact have recently started to illegally enter the Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion - in the centre of which there is the infamous Reactor 4 that exploded in 1986, making the area one of the most contaminated of the whole world - to play survival games. Those guys represent the latest Chernobyl generation. They are referred to as "Stalkers" a name coming directly from Andrei Tarkovski's film "Stalker", a cult movie dated back in 1979 - and from a survival-horror videogame released in 2007 and set right into the Zone named S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Chernobyl' Stalkers have lately developed a proper veneration for this specific area, which they consider it as a post-atomic private home. They form a large community, today more than 100 people, and it is increasing everyday. They are organized in paramilitary groups with names, symbols and rituals, while enjoying a dangerous trip to reach their final destination: the ghost town of Pripyat. In order to get there they have to walk about 60 kilometers through the woods - mostly by night to avoid the police patrolling - between nuclear radiations and wild animals. During their journey they usually sleep in abandoned villages, eat canned food and drink the water they find along the way, dirty and contaminated. They say they want to experience a different adventure, to test themselves and feel like they are the last survivors on the planet, just as they were in a real videogame; they want to break free from their routines and normal lives, while having fun and being isolated in a limbo with no rules for a while. They are a sort of post-romantic travelers, in love with these places which they consider almost sacred permeated with a tragic story not to be forgotten. They want to bring life again in the ghost and contaminated City of Pripyat, and become the new citizens of Pripyat.