Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The conference room was quiet. The shadow of a grimace passed across Dennis's face.
“This is. Not possible,” he said, without emotion. He was proving witheringly immune to
what I had hoped would be my contagious enthusiasm. But it's at moments like this, when
you're trying to take your vacation in a militarily controlled nuclear disaster zone—for
which, I might add, there is no proper guidebook—that you must be more than normally
willing to expose yourself as a fool in the service of your goals. I laid my cards on the table.
“Look. Let's say I wanted to go for a boat ride with some friends somewhere in the
zone,” I said. “Just theoretically speaking, where would we go? I mean, where are the really
nice
spots?”
A faint crease had developed in the dome of Dennis's head.
I pressed on, telling him that I was trying to approach this not so much as a journalist or
a researcher, but as a tourist. As a
visitor.
Where, for instance, could I find a good picnic
spot in the Exclusion Zone? Where did he himself go on a slow day? And if it wasn't pos-
sible in the zone, what would be the next best thing? I pointed to Strakholissya, just outside
the zone, a town that I had identified while poring over a map the night before. What about
that?
“Yes, this is nice place,” said Dennis. “You can go fishing here.”
I was making progress. Fishing?
“Yes,” said Dennis, gaining speed, “but this place is better.” He pointed to Teremtsi, a
tiny spot nestled among a bunch of river islands deep inside the zone. “This is a good place
for fishing,” he said. “I went once. Mostly I go there to collect mushrooms.”
I stared. Mushrooms, because they collect and concentrate the radionuclides in the soil,
are supposed to be the last thing you should eat in the affected area. And Dennis gathered
them in the heart of the Exclusion Zone.
“You collect mushrooms? And you eat them?” There was awe in my voice.
“Yes, this is clean area, I know. This is no problem.”
I couldn't believe my luck. A total newbie, I was already teamed up with a guy who
used the zone as his own mushroom patch and trout stream. I wanted to abandon our itiner-
ary. Who needs to see a destroyed nuclear reactor when you can go fishing just downriver?
Don't think I didn't beg. But Dennis was far too professional to chuck the official pro-
gram—with all its approved paperwork, stamped and signed in duplicate for each check-
point—just because some half-witted foreigner said pretty please. But this time, there was
a moment's hesitation. “This is, um. Not possible,” he said, getting back on script. But I
saw the hint of a smile on his face as he turned away from the map.
