Posted by: Dizzy
14 May 2004
Given the evidently sincere outpouring of emotion from all of you who have seen Elena's website, I am sorry to report that much of what she wrote is not true.
I don't know if she has a motorcycle but I do know with 100% accuracy that she did not ride her motorcycle in the exclusion zone or in the "ghost town" of Pripyat. Riding in any open vehicles -- be it bicycles or motorcycles -- is banned.
She went to Chernobyl by car with her husband and a friend. They took a standard tour of the zone -- these are becoming quite common now that radiation levels have fallen. Their vehicle was a car provided by the Administration of the Exclusion Zone. Most of the photographs were not taken by her. She was not invited by a nuclear research facility. There are no chemical showers anymore.
To point out all of the inaccuracies and untruths in her website would take up as much space as the website itself. The story of Chernobyl is a very important one and Elena is to be commended for reminding the world about it. It is unfortunate that she had to cloak the story in so much fiction.
For any of you bikers who would like to ride a motorcycle in the Chernobyl zone, forget about it. It won't happen.
I am not a troll. I have travelled to Chernobyl many times (by car) -- most recently last week. I know the people that Elena (she also calls herself Lena) and her husband encountered. They are furious about this biker fiction.
Lena, if you are reading this, sorry to "out" you but this fiction has gone too far. People have been hurt by it, jobs have been threatened, and it continues to cause trouble in the zone.
I know exactly where you took your photos of you on the bike (by the Chernobyl raion sign, for example, which is outside the zone). In other words, I know all about this little charade of yours. Your intentions may have been good and I'm sure you were surprised by all the attention your website got. But before you decide to write books, you better think about the embarassment you will suffer when the truth gets out into wider circles. If you sign any contracts and receive money, you may even be liable for fraud.
Please don't take that as a threat because it isn't. Just some advice.
So -- the specific claims that are interesting are the fact that you can't get a motorcycle into the dead zone, because it's an open vehicle.
There's a lot of information on tours that I could find, but my google-fu didn't turn up anything about restrictions on motorcycles.
