This story is excerpted and adapted from Darmon Richter’s new book, Chernobyl: A Stalkers’ Guide. The Chernobyl disaster technically took place in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, but radioactive contamination hardly respects geopolitical borders—especially the border with Belarus, a scant six miles from the site of the meltdown. Roughly two-thirds of the territory of Belarus suffered significant contamination, and within two years of the disaster, the Belarusian government had designated the most toxic area, along the Ukrainian border and closest to the plant, the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve. This…
