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Wednesday, April 30, 2008


Chernobyl’s Silent Neighbor, the Steel Yard

Not far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, one can locate two cage-like walls of wires, 150 m high (492 ft) and 800 m long (2,625 ft).

Meet the Duga-3, aka the Steel Yard, the now-defunct over-the-horizon early warning radar system.


The Duga family, part of the Soviet ABM early warning network, caused a nasty "rat-tat-tat" sound on shortwave radio frequencies worldwide from 1976 to 1989, thus earning it the nickname “Russian Woodpecker.”













Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Click here and here for GoogleMaps.

The Duga-3, completed in 1985, was deactivated soon after the Chernobyl disaster. As of today, Ukraine operates two other ABM early warning radars in Sevastopol and Mukachevo.

Sources:
http://nevsedoma.com.ua/index.php?newsid=32134
http://pripyat.com

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Story about people living in the exclusion zone
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle
/2008/04/BAAA6686-BA73-431C-B152-
6A21025953F3.html

Luida

Taras said...

Thank you for the link!

Luckily, RFE/RL did not commit the fallacy of portraying Chernobyl resettlers as living proof of the area's safety for human habitation.

Those are elderly people who miss their homes and have little to lose. They ignore radiation. They don’t read Women’s Health. They don’t have health insurance. They don’t live on Western incomes.

Since April 26, 1986, their lives have been just as messed up as the land on which they grow their crops.

I hope the foreigners who bought the potatoes realized the biological “Russian roulette” those potatoes represented. I hope their Geiger counters didn’t fail them.

The glamor of a one-day trip to Chernobyl should not obscure the grim reality that is there to stay.

Marta Salazar said...

Dear Taras!

Did you take the fotos?

____________

Are you on Facebook?

Taras said...

Of course, I didn’t take them.

I stole them from
http://nevsedoma.com.ua/index.php?newsid=32134
, which in turn stole them from http://pripyat.com, as noted in my sources.

After all this crime, how can I even have a Facebook account:)?

Anonymous said...

"After all this crime, how can I even have a Facebook account:)?"

Easy.

Become an MP in Ukraine or RF. Would love to see the social ad for that "Become a politician, today! Shoot off your mouth, shoot crows or run people down in cars, make lots of money, drive fancy cars, travel with beautiful beauty queens and all on your neighbor's money. Join today!"

Would get more action than the armed forces ads.

Luida

Taras said...

You’ve pretty much outlined the largely "offline" social networking in Ukrainian politics!

Still, it would be fun to have stabilnist lovers open Facebook/Ondoklassniki accounts:)