The Chernobyl exclusion zone and the Fukushima exclusion zone are two very different places. I went to Chernobyl many times illegally, so I have something to compare them with. These two zones of radioactive contamination differ in literally everything. In Japan, the safety inside the buildings is perfect; in Chernobyl, finding anything beautiful amid the things that are turning sour and crumbling to dust is a rare delight. Chernobyl is open to tourists — it has become a radioactive Disneyland with its own internal microcosm. Fukushima, by contrast, is a truly forbidden zone that you can enter only as a journalist or, as in our case, by slipping past the roadblocks.
But the most striking difference between Fukushima and Chernobyl is that, as far as I can tell, the consequences of the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant will be completely eliminated. Every day, teams of people in white overalls make the exclusion zone a few centimeters smaller. They scrub houses, asphalt and concrete with hand brushes, remove layers of contaminated soil and pack it into bags. Later, this soil is sifted through special machines. Japan plans to completely eliminate the consequences of the accident and repopulate the exclusion zone within the next 30 years. No one cares about Chernobyl in the same way, and there the radiation seeped deep into the ground, making a ten-kilometer zone forever unfit for living.
The territory of compulsory resettlement is now divided into three zones: the red zone, where you can’t be at all; the orange zone, which you can enter only with special permission and only in the daytime; and the green zone, which is considered cleared of radiation and can be entered day or night.
Just before our visit, the Government of Japan lifted the ban on entering Namye, which until recently had been a red zone. Only 12% of the population have returned, and most of the houses stand empty. Here we spent the last day after two trip nights in the red zone.
There are almost no people in Namye. Formally, the city is already a green zone and considered clean, but few people want to come back, fearing the radiation.
Someone parked his moped here seven years ago.
Many of the houses are in total chaos. This is a restaurant; wild pigs broke in and turned everything upside down.
Solar-powered electronic displays show the level of background radiation all around the city. The background is slightly elevated, but generally normal — 46 microroentgen per hour.
Underground Tunnels and Cold War bunker tour in Kyiv is the best gift for your friends!
The courtyard of an abandoned temple, with a statue.
Inside the temple, everything remained untouched — the mentality of the Japanese does not allow looting.
In one of the rooms lay an old samurai weapon. I can imagine how the faces of the looters who destroyed Pripyat would twist and their hands would shake if they saw this post, because there, too, there were many valuable things.
For me, the most poignant sight was the abandoned machinery overgrown with ivy.
A statue at the entrance to the school.
These are the moments that move me the most. The pupils folded their uniforms into plastic bags and left, probably forever. It is unlikely that this school will ever open again. Despite all the cleaning measures, the raised background radiation in Namiya will do nothing for the development of growing organisms.
The schoolgirls are flutists. But at first glance it seemed to me that they were sitting with katanas.
This is a computer lab, and some of the computers are overturned.
The school gym doesn’t look abandoned; only the dried flowers in the pots recall the tragedy that happened here seven years ago.
A Jaguar is a pretty cool car. An abandoned rental car park.
Driving nearby, we found one more abandoned school on the coast. This is the school of Futaba town, about which one I wrote in the last post. It is one of the few buildings that survived the devastating tsunami caused by the earthquake in 2011.
The names of the days of the week in English are posted on the steps. Like it or not, you’ll learn them — it’s ingenious.
The floor in the gym has started to collapse.
Overall, the building is in poor condition. It looks like a classic urbex location.
One of the passions of the Japanese is the pachinko slot machine. Inside, every such parlor is an infernally noisy sight.
Like any form of gambling, pachinko can become addictive. There are cases where players have lost their jobs and families because of their addiction to it. The game is very popular in Japan, and its popularity is constantly growing.
These gambling machines are a cross between a coin-operated gaming machine and a vertical pinball table. Since casinos are not allowed in Japan and betting is permitted only on horse, bicycle and boat races, pachinko is very popular.
The player buys a certain number of small metal balls (usually hundreds or even thousands), loads them into the top of the machine, and can then adjust the speed at which the balls are shot onto the playing field. The stream of balls pours down through a labyrinth of pins, channels and flaps and falls into particular holes. You can have great fun sliding around on the balls scattered across the floor).
Just as we did three years ago in Pripyat, in Fukushima we met a wild fox and named her Semyonovna. Like Semyon, the Pripyat fox, she begged for food, and we happily fed her.
If you guys are into urban exploration, we can help you organize a tour to the Fukushima exclusion zone — just contact us by e-mail at info @ another. kiev.ua. And if you’re looking for adventure, we can arrange a 4-days stalker trip to Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for you or show you the hidden part of Kyiv on our Kiev Urbex Tour.