| Photo Information |
Copyright: Igor Dudchenko (Voltri)
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 194 W: 58 N: 244]](http://i1.trekearth.com/misc/g-g-g.gif) (1643) |
| Genre: Places |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2008-03-02 |
| Categories: Nature |
| Exposure: f/5.3, 1/640 seconds |
| More Photo Info: [view] |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Travelogue: The Zone |
| Date Submitted: 2008-03-10 8:13 |
| Viewed: 418 |
| Points: 0 |
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Photo N6
In 1988 the Zone was declared as experimental radio-natural preserved area. Numerous scientists entered contaminated territory to observe how animals and plants coped with radiation. To overall suprised, nature survived and even more - fluorished, as people ceased their destructive activity.
Wild pigs, wolves, foxes, and even lynxes began to replicated themsevlves in big quantities. Then, Soviet scientists made an unheard experiment: from Molgolia, wild Equus przewalskii (Przewalski horse) were transported to the Zone.
You can see the successful outcome of that brave experiment. The animals not only surpvived, but made the Zone their second home.
During my last minutes in the zone, several km outside Chernobyl, I saw a horde of horses just hundred meters from the road. They were eating grass on a field where radiaion would be harmful for me. I took the photo against the sun using polarizer filter to save some clouds.
What makes that photo so rare is not only horses (which are rare objects to be spotted, one may spend months in the Zone before seing them), but also the object at the left - that is military radar station Chernobyl-2.
It was built to protect eastern border of USSR from rocket threat (kind of that USA wants Polish to build now). However, because of the disaster, the military town and the radar station became heavily contaminated and were abandoned. |
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