Ukrainian photographer and former Kyiv Post staff writer Alina Rudya has successfully raised the money she needs -- more than €11,500 -- for an ambitious project that will capture the lives of people forced to flee her hometown of Prypyat after the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear power plant explosion.
The closest city to the power plant, Prypyat’s abandoned state serves as a compelling memorial to the biggest nuclear disaster in history. When she was just one-year-old, Rudya was among the 50,000 residents who were evacuated from Prypyat following the disaster.
Her first journey back to the abandoned town in 2011 inspired Part 1 of the Prypyat Mon Amour project, a photo exhibition of ethereal self-portraits set against the remarkable backdrop. For Part 2, she will return to the Chornobyl exclusion zone with fellow evacuees and photograph them among the remnants of their former homes.
Since launching her project, Rudya has received numerous messages expressing concern that the Chornobyl exclusion zone is not safe to enter. Rudya will need permission to work as a photojournalist inside the restricted area that includes Prypyat, but she is confident that the site today poses no danger to the health of participants.
In campaign update, she explained inside the zone “you are always escorted by a stalker with a Geiger counter who knows where you are allowed to go and where not.”
She added that “Prypyat is not as radioactive as people think. Most of the buildings were decontaminated in the weeks following the explosion… A six-hour trip to Prypyat will have a total dose of approximately four micro-sieverts. It is less radiation exposure than what you will get at a 2-hour connecting flight (say Berlin-Kiev), which will be approximately 6 micro-sieverts.”
Altogether, 182 people pledged a total of €11,515 to help Rudya exceed her target of €10,000. The money raised will cover costs including travelling to the restricted zone with the project participants. Rudya aims to publish 150 high-quality photo books with 80 pages of images.
Rudya has set spring 2016 as the publication date for the finished photo books, timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the disaster.
