The Chernobyl rumour

[LetoAtreides]

Hello, I just discovered this forum and I can't tell you how glad I am that someone has created it. I have really been mesmerized by this film after seeing it two weeks ago and am trying to figure out more about what lays behind it's greatness. I read on imdb that "Stalker" is reportedly based on a Chernobyl incident from the 50's...what do you know about it?

And just out of curiosity...are you the only poster here?

[The Ferret]

Leto,

No. I guess I'm not the only one... since you're the living proof I'm not the only Stalker in the world to begin with.

You're welcomed. I created this forum in order to "pick up" those specific souls which either went "opened up" or "awaken" by the infinite, cosmic beauty of "STALKER".

Anyway yes, it appears to be just a "mere" rumour, partly based on the final scene of the movie featuring a nuclear power plant (it has been often said that "STALKER" is set in a not-so-much-distant-future by the 1979 perspective).

Taken from Internet Movie Database:

"There is a persistent rumor that there was an antecedent, unpublicized Chernobyl-like disaster in the U.S.S.R. during the '50s, and this was what director Tarkovsky was using as his source material for this movie, aside from the short story "The Roadside Picnic". The Chernobyl event took place only a few years after Stalker was filmed, and the aftermath of that accident is the establishment of a "zone" surrounding the former nuclear complex."



Don't vanish if you can... I'm here to stay.

Thanks.

[LetoAtreides]

Me vanish? No way! Now that I have found someone who can help me to get deeper beneath the greatness, there is no chance.

And thinking about the Chernobyl disaster, could it be that Tarkovsky had prophetic abilities? One can never know....

[The Ferret]

LetoAtreides said:

Me vanish? No way! Now that I have found someone who can help me to get deeper beneath the greatness, there is no chance.

And thinking about the Chernobyl disaster, could it be that Tarkovsky had prophetic abilities? One can never know....

Wait a moment, I'm like you, I'm trying to figure it out the best I can.

I think you'll find this as being quite amusing: the scientists investigating on the Chenobyl wasteland used to jokely refer to themselves as "Stalkers"... I suppose the movie was pretty popular in Russia even in terms of box-office effort.

[Pauk]

according to what Tarkovsky himself has said, it was not the meaning with the film to depict a nuclear disaster. the most important was to create the conflict of human made artifacts and nature, the latter being absolutely supreme. this contradiction is parallel to the dispute science vs. feelings.

[The Ferret]

malishas said:

according to what Tarkovsky himself has said, it was not the meaning with the film to depict a nuclear disaster. the most important was to create the conflict of human made artifacts and nature, the latter being absolutely supreme. this contradiction is parallel to the dispute science vs. feelings.

I agree. It should be noted that the Zone is a very fertile environment. It doesn't recall a typical "wasteland" by any means. It doesn't look "wasted" or "barren". It does seem a very naturalistic place where nature took over her place again.
Maybe it was that. Nature claimed her level of existence back.

[nem0]

Interestingly, the Chernobyl accident didn't create a wasteland, at least not in the typical sense. It's uninhabitable by humans, certainly, but now that all the people are gone, the plants and animals seem to be thriving.

Rather interesting that the biggest threat to the environment is the mere presence of humans, even moreso than what's considered one of the world's worst man-made disaster zones, isn't it?

Here's an article on the subject:
www.nsrl.ttu.edu/chernobyl/wildlifepreserve.htm

Incidentally, I'm new here. Hi, all.

[The Ferret]

Nem0,

Welcome aboard! Nice to see that new Stalkers are join' the Zone along the way. It comes as a nice surprises to my senses.

The article you point at is very interesting... great. Many thanks. I always wondered things like that, and the article provided me of a full set of satisfying explanations.


That's sugar for my lips.

[LetoAtreides]

Actually, this was not in Chernobyl, but Chelyabinsk. And it did happen, in 1957. At least according to the imdb.

[sushik3]

malishas said:

according to what Tarkovsky himself has said, it was not the meaning with the film to depict a nuclear disaster. the most important was to create the conflict of human made artifacts and nature, the latter being absolutely supreme. this contradiction is parallel to the dispute science vs. feelings.

So I guess that's why the scientist can't understand it and wants it destroyed...

[adam]

Hi everyone, first post.

I don't know what influenced Tarkovsky or the Production Designers when they were designing the zone, but if you look on the website www.kiddofspeed.com, then a lot of the images of post-chernobyl look spookily like the Zone...stuff like a rusted tank lying derelict, covered in grass and leaves. Very eerie.

[The Ferret]

Nice post, Adam. And welcome aboard.

I'm wondering, how much time it takes the process of turning into a "fertile" but radioactive place.

[Pauk]

It happens pretty quickly: the directly burnt places around the plant are fully covered in a couple of years, and all the other places stay more or less the same as they were. The flora and fauna that survived, however, after the intense radiation, are subject to various mutations of the genotype, resulting in severe changes of the phenotype (the outside), though the latter changes are not always clearly visible.

[saavik256]

malishas said:

It happens pretty quickly: the directly burnt places around the plant are fully covered in a couple of years, and all the other places stay more or less the same as they were. The flora and fauna that survived, however, after the intense radiation, are subject to various mutations of the genotype, resulting in severe changes of the phenotype (the outside), though the latter changes are not always clearly visible.

I wouldn't quite agree with you on that one The Red Forest that was exposed to several thousand roentgens of radiation and had been bulldozed and buried in clay trenches is still quite barren today, 20 years after the accident. It also remains one of the most contaminated areas, next to the reactor assembly, of course. And as far as mutations are considered, radiation *can* and *does* cause mutations of genetic signature, but they are not carried on. There were reports of partly-albino swallows in the exclusion zone in the years following the accident (I know birds are different than the plants, but the idea is the same), but they haven't survived. Why ? Quite simply, being partly-albino, the "normal" birds found them unattractive, and they couldn't breed, so they died out. Mutants are the matter of science fiction.

[The Ferret]

It's my opinion that the creation of the Zone has *NOTHING* to do about a nuclear disaster. It seems to me that the Professor hinted and/or suggested that it was a "natural phenomenon" or something along those line. Rather, I think it was a sort of "discrepancy" in reality, a glitch which produced an inverted environment, where nature and psychological energy began to rule all over the place.