| 00:00 | Douglas > Well Gerd, welcome back.
|
| 00:02 | I am glad you are safely home. It seems
like just yesterday we put you on the plane
|
| 00:06 | on your way to Chernobyl and you
have had a lot of experience since that.
|
| 00:11 | So I would like you to
share some of that with us.
|
| 00:13 | What's happened to you out there,
what did you find and discover?
|
| 00:16 | Gerd > It's amazing how much
has happened since we last met.
|
| 00:20 | Chernobyl of course is an
incredibly complex subject.
|
| 00:24 | So when I got there, I found certain
things to be very much the same as they
|
| 00:30 | used to be and real surprises.
|
| 00:34 | What is still the same are the health
consequences. The radiation doesn't go away.
|
| 00:43 | People are still affected by it. Even
the younger generation is effected by it.
|
| 00:48 | A young girl that was born just outside
of the zone, her mother had lived during
|
| 00:56 | the accident very close to the Chernobyl
zone and the girl has spend most of her
|
| 01:03 | young live in the hospital. When she
plays with the other children, she plays
|
| 01:10 | doctor and nurse and in a really
emotional gesture, her mother says, "But we have
|
| 01:20 | to have your angel in here in the picture."
|
| 01:26 | This guy who lives back in the zone
now since more than 20 years is suffering
|
| 01:34 | from loneliness as he admitted since
his wife died about 5 years ago and he
|
| 01:40 | doesn't have much
communication with his neighbors.
|
| 01:42 | Douglas > You bring us really into the
human devastation and that's what's the
|
| 01:46 | richness of your images.
|
| 01:47 | Gerd > Some of that is still the same,
the people returning, the people living out
|
| 01:55 | their lives instead of dying of a
broken heart in an anonymous suburb.
|
| 02:01 | In the beginning they were chased
down by the militia who tried to get
|
| 02:06 | them out, but now they accept that
they return and live out their lives on
|
| 02:12 | their own soil.
|
| 02:14 | What is new is the new construction
over the shelter, so there will be a new
|
| 02:22 | shelter, a new safe confinement
built over the existing one, because the
|
| 02:27 | existing structure is unsound and
leaky and could collapse at anytime.
|
| 02:36 | Douglas > Is that really preventing it
from going further, reaching out further?
|
| 02:41 | What happens actually, what are we seeing here?
|
| 02:44 | Gerd > What you see here, there are huge
25 meter long metal pipes that are going
|
| 02:51 | to be hammered into the ground and
they just spilled a base for a new safe
|
| 02:59 | confinement, which is eventually going
to slide over the whole structure and in
|
| 03:05 | case the old structure and the radiation inside.
|
| 03:11 | Douglas > What was the kind of
money you said it cost to put this up?
|
| 03:14 | Gerd > $2.2 billion.
|
| 03:15 | Douglas > $2.2 billion?
Gerd > $2.2 billion!
|
| 03:19 | Douglas > And you said the
life expectancy of this is what?
|
| 03:23 | Gerd > About 80-100 years and then
they have to find a new solution.
|
| 03:28 | It was meant to be finished already
years ago, but it's been postponed over
|
| 03:37 | and over again.
|
| 03:39 | The work is going on the
contaminated ground in front of the western wall
|
| 03:46 | which has been stabilized as we see
in the back, but the workers are still
|
| 03:53 | wearing protective gear and facemask
because of the hazardous contamination
|
| 03:59 | that still exists there.
|
| 04:03 | I was able to return back inside the
reactor where the work has now come to a stop.
|
| 04:12 | This is an image of the so called
leaning staircase which was built
|
| 04:18 | afterwards to give access to the
workers that were only allowed to work a
|
| 04:27 | single shift of 15 minutes per day.
|
| 04:32 | This is one of the highest
contaminated areas there and I was able to access
|
| 04:40 | that area; however there is
no work going on anymore.
|
| 04:44 | Douglas > Very vulnerable for you I would think.
|
| 04:46 | Your time, you have 15 minutes, not more
yourself. You are in danger yourself if
|
| 04:52 | you are not watching that.
|
| 04:53 | Gerd > I had a guide with me who
was this time constantly monitoring the
|
| 05:00 | radiation and on a decimeter was able
to see accumulative how much radiation
|
| 05:08 | I got during that day and how much
would I be able to still stay in this specific area.
|
| 05:19 | This was very highly contaminated area
here where we could actually only stay
|
| 05:25 | for a few minutes, 2 to 3 minutes.
|
| 05:29 | This situation is very hard to shoot.
|
| 05:32 | You have low light, you have a one
strobe on your camera, and I did not have
|
| 05:39 | an assistant.
|
| 05:40 | I would have wanted to go in there
with two cameras, but that would have been
|
| 05:45 | too bulky because for the first time I
wanted to try to show in a video what
|
| 05:52 | it feels like to be in there.
|
| 05:56 | So ahead of time-- and you saw me
packing for this, I did take this little
|
| 06:03 | camera, the GoPro camera.
|
| 06:06 | Douglas > How did you use this?
|
| 06:07 | Gerd > You can set it ahead of time, and
because time is very valuable and limited,
|
| 06:16 | and I put it on my helmet, strapped
it on to my helmet, and I headed as--
|
| 06:23 | instead of a headlamp
basically, I had this video camera.
|
| 06:28 | Douglas > Your first job is to get
great stills of course because you want stills.
|
| 06:32 | This is a supplement and this is
something you probably would never have
|
| 06:35 | realized 5 years ago. This is the new
Gerd Ludwig, this is new photojournalism.
|
| 06:40 | Gerd > Exactly!
|
| 06:41 | It's the new work of a
photojournalist or a documentary photographer.
|
| 06:46 | What the camera really gave me is that
feeling of darkness. Whereas the images
|
| 06:53 | show fairly clear the situation that I
was in, the camera adds to the feeling
|
| 07:04 | and what you hear in the video
is that sound of Geiger counter.
|
| 07:10 | Douglas > I would like to hear that.
|
| 07:11 | Gerd > So here we have it.
|
| 07:13 | Douglas > Okay.
|
| 07:15 | (Metallic rattling noise)
|
| 07:39 | Gerd > Sawing of the bureaucratic
barriers helped me to venture deeper into the
|
| 07:43 | reactor than any Western still photographer.
|
| 07:45 | After dawning my protective gear, I
followed a group of workers into the
|
| 07:52 | belly of the beast.
|
| 07:53 | They were assigned to drill holes in
the concrete to stabilize the roof and
|
| 07:59 | additionally, there were gas mask
and oxygen tanks. We had to move fast.
|
| 08:07 | The access was limited to a
maximum of 15 minutes per day.
|
| 08:16 | We rushed through dimly lit tunnels
strewing with wires, shredded metal,
|
| 08:20 | and other debris.
|
| 08:22 | While photographing I needed to dodge
the spray of sparks from the drillers and
|
| 08:27 | highly contaminated concrete dust.
And I knew I had only a few minutes to
|
| 08:33 | capture impacting images of an
environment that few have ever seen and that I
|
| 08:39 | might never access again.
|
| 08:40 | After little more than halfway
through the allotted shift, our Geiger counters
|
| 08:47 | and decimeters began beeping errie
concert reminding us that our time was up.
|
| 09:00 | Douglas > Amazing stuff, Gerd.
|
| 09:02 | Gerd > It gives you the feeling of
being on the ground there, something that
|
| 09:09 | with that sound of the Geiger counter,
the still picture really cannot do.
|
| 09:16 | Douglas > What changes have you seen there?
|
| 09:19 | Gerd > One of the biggest changes is
surprisingly tourism to the town of Pripyat.
|
| 09:26 | That the Ukrainian authorities
have opened the zone to tourism.
|
| 09:34 | Now tourists can go in-- of course not
to those areas that I had access to.
|
| 09:40 | They can go in and get a few minutes to
shoot from outside the reactor. They are
|
| 09:48 | told stay on the pavement there, stay
on the ground, don't go on the grass
|
| 09:54 | because on the grass the contamination
is much-much higher. And they are rushed
|
| 10:00 | out after a few minutes and then they
get to see classrooms and the schools and
|
| 10:05 | the kindergartens, the empty buildings.
|
| 10:09 | It's a very surreal situation
where these tourists coming in.
|
| 10:15 | This one guy brought his own gas
mask, not because he wanted to protect
|
| 10:21 | himself or because he was afraid.
He said just for kicks and to be
|
| 10:28 | photographed by his peers.
|
| 10:30 | Douglas > It seems strange to be making
sort of doing something for kicks in the center
|
| 10:34 | of all this devastation, but look
at this. This is hard to imagine.
|
| 10:39 | There is an amusement park
in the background, isn't it?
|
| 10:43 | Gerd > This is a Polish tourist--
It is, the amusement park that never started,
|
| 10:49 | and now tourist are running
around and photographing themselves.
|
| 10:54 | A very strange situation
because this metal here is really still very
|
| 11:00 | highly contaminated.
|
| 11:01 | Douglas > Is that lady in danger sitting there?
|
| 11:03 | Gerd > She can endanger herself for
brief because if she picks up some particles
|
| 11:10 | there specifically because that
areas has not been cleaned very well.
|
| 11:14 | Douglas > It doesn't sound
like the ideal vacation spot.
|
| 11:18 | Gerd > No, it's not.
|
| 11:19 | Douglas > But people are curious.
|
| 11:21 | That's really where it comes down to.
|
| 11:23 | What do we have here?
|
| 11:24 | Gerd > This has become the
standard motif for tourists.
|
| 11:30 | They are trying to simplify the message.
You find doll and you find gas masks,
|
| 11:37 | but this is an image that certainly
looks and certainly has been arranged by a
|
| 11:45 | tourist to simplify the message.
|
| 11:49 | It is in this environment, but if you
look carefully this was not there the way
|
| 11:58 | it is presented, and you find tourists
are changing that environment, specifically
|
| 12:06 | in the city of Prypiat where they have access.
|
| 12:09 | Out in the zone, areas that tourists
don't get to see much, that's where the
|
| 12:18 | returnees live. This women lives there
and now she even has chickens and pigs
|
| 12:26 | that they raise, but in a village of
maybe 3000 people, 5, 10, 15 people live
|
| 12:36 | there now. In between them is total devastation.
|
| 12:40 | Douglas > She just wants to live
her life out as she has known it.
|
| 12:43 | Gerd > Yeah!
|
| 12:44 | What you have here is one
of the so called liquidators.
|
| 12:49 | Eventually, the Soviet Union brought in
600,000-800,000 liquidators that helped
|
| 12:57 | with the cleanup. He now has only a
few months to live and what is interesting
|
| 13:04 | is that he said "Even though I know that
most likely my disease", he has a serious
|
| 13:14 | heart problem, "has been caused by the radiation,
|
| 13:21 | I would not do anything
different if I had to do it again."
|
| 13:26 | "We were educated, we were brought up to
serve our nation, and that's what I did
|
| 13:36 | and I wouldn't do it any different again."
|
| 13:38 | Douglas > So this is extraordinary,
looking at these individuals, because it
|
| 13:42 | becomes a human reality. It's just not
a major new story, but you look at this
|
| 13:47 | individual and the lady before and
all these people, the children at the
|
| 13:51 | beginning, it's amazing
story you are telling, Gerd.
|
| 13:54 | Gerd > After all, it is a story
about humans and human hubris and
|
| 14:03 | human irresponsibility.
|
| 14:08 | Another one of these ladies that
returned back into the zone. She is 93 years old,
|
| 14:15 | she lives all by herself, and
since she has hard time walking and getting
|
| 14:22 | around, she is not getting
to see many people at all.
|
| 14:26 | Her children come and visit
every 6 months or so. Other than that.
|
| 14:32 | Douglas > So basically, she is forgotten.
|
| 14:33 | Gerd > Yeah.
|
| 14:36 | This is actually the only image that I
am showing you that was taken 6 years ago.
|
| 14:41 | A school room and you see that the
dignitaries portraits are still on the wall.
|
| 14:48 | When the accident happened,
Pripyat was evacuated super fast.
|
| 14:54 | But things are changing even in the zone.
A typical school room looks like this
|
| 15:00 | today, because meanwhile scavengers
have come in and have taken out anything
|
| 15:08 | that is off some kind of use,
specifically scrap metal, even a bench or frame
|
| 15:16 | here and there, and this is the
look of the empty school rooms today.
|
| 15:22 | Douglas > That's amazing.
|
| 15:24 | It suggests a desperation on the part
of the people to have these acquisitions.
|
| 15:29 | And I assume they take them and try
to reuse them and not acknowledge that they --
|
| 15:33 | Gerd > Some of them are being reused,
but some stuff is also sold on the markets nearby.
|
| 15:40 | Douglas > On what basis is it
sold on, that it is survived the --?
|
| 15:45 | Gerd > No, no.
|
| 15:47 | Douglas > Just sold as "here is a chair."
|
| 15:49 | Gerd > No, yeah it's a chair and the
people don't know where that chair came from.
|
| 15:56 | So the radiation is spreading
outside of the zone in many different ways.
|
| 16:03 | And this is a former sports complex and
you see how the floors are rotting and
|
| 16:16 | everything in there from the balls
that were left there, everything is gone
|
| 16:24 | and has been taken out.
|
| 16:25 | Douglas > How many times have you
been to Chernobyl now yourself Gerd?
|
| 16:28 | Gerd > Well major trips were 3.
|
| 16:33 | One in the early 90s, one in 2005 and
one just recently, but these major trips
|
| 16:42 | all consisted of repeated entries
into the zone, going in and going out.
|
| 16:49 | Douglas > You are a brave man, really.
|
| 16:50 | Gerd > Because specifically in the early
years I was not allowed to stay longer
|
| 16:56 | than 2 weeks at a time.
|
| 16:58 | So I had to leave the zone for a few
days and then I was able to reenter.
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| Collapse this transcript |
