World of Brinch

Just went out the other day to shoot at two spots. One is very know in here and the other one is a pretty new spot.

Check out my pictures on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbcdk/sets/72157625835394831/

This time I catched the deadly "man cold", because our trip to the Danish island Fyn was cold and freezing. But anyway, we went to three different locations and it was fun as always.

First place was an abandoned amusement park that was closed a few years ago. Unfortunately, there was a duck-hunting going on when we were there. It's giving an extra thrill, to walk around in the bushes, knowing that there could be a hunter around the corner.... 

This is a picture from the amusement park. The roof of the bumper-car place

With the hunters in mind, we left the place af an hour and drove to the next place. First of all, we wanted to go and see an old sugar factory, but it didn't look abandoned at all. But next to the factory, we bumped into another place, that used to be som kind of enginge-warehouse / steel inventory. This was a nice place! 

These stairs were high, old and rusty. I didn't reach the top, but the other two guys did

The las place we visited was an abandoned hospital. Very very interesting place and we had to search a few minutes, before find a place to get in. Remeber that we never ruin anything, but use existing holes, open doors, windows, etc. to get in. Most interior had been removed, but it was a spooky and untouched place. 

This was an old lamp from the hospital 

Some of the empty hallways inside the hospital 

A view from one of the rooms

An old colleague wanted to go to Germany and shoot some abandoned places and of course I wanted to go too :-) We left Aalborg friday afternoon and reached the hotel many hours later in Germany. Checking in, dropping the luggage and then out to find the place... Our pre-googling was not the best and we had to ask a local guy.

Our German language was not that good and his English skills was not existing. But we did find the place when the dark started to reach the place.

The place is an old hotel that closed down some years ago. Very trashed place and dangerous to walk around on upper floors.

Next day we drowe apx. 100 kilometers to find our other destination. This was an easy place to find and we parked the car to find a place to get in. It was a huge building with 4 or 5 floors and thousands of square-meters to investigate.

I think we've been walking around for 5 minutes and of course the place had two security guys walking around. Damn they scared the hell out of us and we had to get out in the heavy rain again.

We walked around outside to check the place out and later we decided to get in again to shoot some pictures before heading back to Denmark.

This time we could hear someone walking on some glass and we were prepared to meet "somebody" in there. And we did! There was a strange man, almost having a heart attack, when we entered the same room where he was in the middle of stealing copper from the electric installations. No wonder why they have security in there. We agreed with him to be quiet and we took some pictures before getting out again. The damn camera shutter is incredible loud when you are in so big empty buildings and want to be invisible. I have to admit that i wasn't too proud of the situation.

But here is one of the pictures that I shot, before running out again :-)

Two other guys and my self, went out to shoot some photos last night in some abandoned places we have in the area. I did this self-portrait, down in a 20 meters deep basement we found in one of the buildings

My camera in front of me on a tripod and a Nikon SB-600 on the ground, to my left.

The beginning

I do sneak around on the web to find inspiration for another abandoned place to travel to. Just like I did when I planned a trip to the abandoned hospital in Germany back in 2009. This time, it was stunning pictures from a Danish urbex / abandoned homepage which trigged me to go.

If you didn't guess it yet, I wanted to go to Chernobyl in Ukraine. The place that caused incredible contamination in eastern and western Europe, when reactor 4 at the nuclear power plant exploded on 26th of april, 1986.

My picture of reactor 4. The horror place, back in 1986.

May be not the most healty place on earth to visit. But 24 years has passed since the accident and I was more scared to share the plans with my wife, than actually go to Chernobyl....

All these dreams and speculations started one year before the trip took place. That's not an easy task I have to admit, because when I decide to go somewhere I want to leave right away. This is not reality and possible, because my boss thinks that I need to work sometimes too.

I started digging almost every page on the internet that had the word Chernobyl mentioned. This is a huge project I must admit, but I learned a lot by reading and I started to respect the place, like you respect a graveyard. So many died in that area and I learned that if thousands of humans didn't risk their own life back in 1986, the disaster would be bigger than anyone can imagine.

At this point, I convinced my wife that it wasn't dangerous to go there and promising a trip to Paris, helped me convinsing her  Other family members and friends had their own opinions about my trip, but I really didn't care.

With no problems anymore at home and after using hours to study about my target place, I was ready to ask people to join me on this trip. As always when I have these stupid plans, I share them on www.fotostart.dk - the place where I normally discuss photos and other topics about photographing. Reactions was incredible and so many people were interested to hear more. Most questions was about economy and danger. Very normal questions and exactly what I asked my self one month before.

How do you plan a trip like this?

At this point, we are writing november 2009. Still 8 months before departure. Peoples interest to join is huge, but is kind of a "why plan so long time ahead? interest". Today i'm happy that I started to plan it so early - I felt more prepared than ever to visit a new place. One other user was ready to attend the trip and I contacted one of several tour companies in Ukraine, who arrange these Chernobyl visits.

I knew that others from Denmark attended a tour from the company http://tourkiev.com/ (Solo East Company) just months before my planning started. They were satisfied with their trip and I contacted Solo East Travel by e-mail. I say minutes, and I had the first answer from the company. My speculations about lazy eastern european and vodka drunken former russians was gone. This was the beginning of a truely nice "relationship" with the girls at Solo East Company, by mail of course  I think they were tired of all my e-mails with questions about everything from power-connectors to weather forecasts. Sometimes I had to ask the same question again before getting an answer, but they always replied instantly. Thanks from me for the customer friendly service. Others in Ukraine could learn from you.

Booked and ready to go

One other user from fotostart.dk was ready to go with me and we booked the 3rd of july 2010 as the Chernobyl trip day. Just two seats were booked in the beginning, because I had no idea how many we would end up with 6 month later. After paying a small fee to Solo East Company, we were ready to find a hotel and airplane tickets. The USD currency was low at this time and we booked the airplane and hotel from an US homepage. My airplane ticket from Aalborg to Kiev and 3 nights at Rus Hotel was apx. $500 which is a very reasonable price if you ask me. Still the $160 for the Chernobyl tour had to be paid, but anyway it was ok.

And now it "exploded" - not the reactor, but the number of people who joined the trip. With-in 5 months, we were 12 people for this trip. Think about it, 12 people going from small Denmark to one of the most contaminated places on earth. I just couldn't belive it, but the tour company was happy and I even asked the price down to $150 per person. All 12 people going with the same airplane from Copenhagen and staying at the same hotel in Kiev. It couldn't be better.

Read much more in part #2

Take off

It's more than one year ago, since the first thoughts ran through my head about this trip. And now i was standing here, waiting for the airplane to Copenhagen. Strange to go so far away to meet people you know so well, but have never seen in real life. It's not quite true, because we are three guys who is leaving from Aalborg and we've met before.

We didn't have much time in Copenhagen to get to the other terminal where we planned to meet the other 9 photo-geeks from fotostart.dk. Actually it's was lucky that the plane from Aalborg was 5 minutes ahead schedule, because we really needed these minutes to reach the Kiev plane.

I'm young and healthy  but one of us had knee problems and we discussed to have these small cars that they use in airports, to bring us all to the other terminal. We reached it in time, but all plans we had about meeting the other ones before the gate wasn't possible. So still 9 people that we didn't know by face. But we called everybodys cell-phone to be sure that they were there.

Landing in Kiev

After a few hours in the air, we landed in Kiev and finally we could meet all the others. I was a bit worried about entering Ukraine, because of all these stories from the big big internet about how hard it is to visit Ukraine. It wasn't that bad I must admit, but be sure to have all papers ready. But passport-control and immigration people are not fast people, that's a fact.

We're in and ready to find the Rus Hotel. I have arranged transportation some weeks before and the driver is waiting for us in the arrival hall, nothing to complain about at this time. I can prepare everybody that will visit Kiev, that they do drive like HELL in there. The trip from the airport to the hotel was not fun, but we arrived alive...

Rus hotel

Time to get rid of all the luggage and get a quick shower. It was warm in Kiev - very warm! But all rooms had air-conditioning and that was a plus. My view from the room wasn't that beautiful. I could see the construction site of the 2012 European football championships stadium and it was noisy because they worked from early morning to late evening - even in the weekends.

My view from the hotel-room

After unpacking all our stuff, we did all go to down town Kiev to find a restaurant. I've read about all the Ukrainian food, borshch and stuff like that, and I just don't like it. I've been to eastern European contries before and know that in Russian speaking countries, they are doing pelmeni which basically is pastry with some kind of meat balls inside and boiled in hot water. Fortunately they had this and it tasted ok.

It was late now, and some of us went back to the hotel to get our cameras, because we wanted to shoot some night pictures in Kiev. It was a short trip out in the city and we went back to the hotel for a beer or two, because the trip that we've all been waiting for, was starting early saturday morning.

 Read the last part of the story in part #3

Finally - today is the day

It's six o'clock and they already started to make noise at the construction site, close to the hotel. I can't sleep anyway because of the expectations running through my mind. Will it be dangerous today and is the tour guide as good as I hope?

No need to stay in the bed and I go through my photo-bag for I guess, 20th time in the last 24 hours. Just to be sure that I don't forget anything. It could be stupid to travel thousands of kilometers and then forget the battery that I will need in the middle of the ghost town of Pripyat.

We are all going to the breakfast-restaurant at the hotel. I'm not hungry but guess that I will not eat before late evening again and push some bread and cheese into my mouth. No complains about the hotel breakfast, there was a wide selection of food to choose from. Just to bad for me that I wasn't hungry.

Take off again

All 12 of us plus two other guys from Norway and Holland if I remember correct were picked up in front of the hotel. Everybody needed to show the passport to a guide - to be sure that we are not spys or secret nuclear experts from USA I guess...

The Mercedes sprinter was packed with people and equipment, no room for fun in there. And then there was the driver! Maybe it's just me, but putting a non english speaking driver together with 14 foreigners is a total misunderstanding. No points to Solo East Travel for that one. We were told that if we want to stop somewhere on the 2 hours ride to the forbidden zone, we just say STOP. 

Why did I call this part for "take off again"? Because it felt like a plane take off, when our driver started the van and headed for the road out of Kiev. Damn, I will never feel good with these death drivers. I was really worried if we would reach our destination. I can already now tell, that I was more worried on the way back. But you will read that later...

While driving, the DVD player showed us a documentary about Chernobyl and the accident in 1986. I've seen it before I remember but I know that some of the other people didn't, so that was nice I guess.

Arrival to the zone

We are there now - the forbidden zone. The place i've been reading about for one year now. The forbidden zone is a 30 kilometer zone around the nuclear plant and we have to be checked again here. Our passports are compared with a list. We're not allowed to take pictures here, but who cares? 

From the checkpoint where they check our passports again

We are now inside the zone but have another checkpoint before the real deal. Before that, we drive to the information place in Chernobyl city. In here we have to sign a piece of paper where we accept to enter the inner zone at our own risk. We don't see any high radiation on the dosimeter and we just sign the paper to move on.

This is where we meet our guide, Yuri. I guess he lives in Chernobyl city most of the time and he tells us about what we will see and not see. A good guide if you ask me.

A normal trip to the zone is different than ours. We changed it already before coming to Ukraine and the guide tells us that we will hurry through the boring stuff and go straight to Pripyat - the ghost city. That's what we want to hear, no more talk for now and we head for the last checkpoint where they check everybody for the last time.

A sign, giving an overview of the area

The power plant

After driving a bit, we are getting closer to the power plant. The dosimeter starts to show more radiation, but still not dangerous i believe. You've already seen my picture in front of the reactor 4 (in part #1), so i will show you this instead.

The power plant from the other side. Still a place where people are working!

Standing in front of the reactor 4 is strange, only 150 meters to the place where people died back in 1986. Actually people died where we are standing right now! Creepy feeling, even now when i'm writing about it. We can't stay here for a long time, because of the radiation. Remember that this power plant actually was seen as one of the safest, by the Soviet Union. 

Dosimeter showing 4,75. The normal here in my home is 0,10

We are leaving again and is heading for the ghost town Pripyat.

Pripyat the ghost town

Pripyat was a middle large city, compared to cities in Denmark. Prior to the disaster, the population was almost 50.000 and they all stayed there the next 36 hours, before the evacuation started and 1200 buses was sent in to rescue them. 3 hours to evacuate all people - why the hell didn't they begin much earlier? A question that will never be answered I think.

A sign will show that we are there now.

The city sign of Pripyat

The city is not like I thought. There are more trees than expected and if we didn't had a guide, I think it could be difficult to find the way around. We know that we have about 4 to 5 hours in here, and we've all agreed to visit the hospital as the first place.

The hospital was hidden between the trees but unexpected, the radiation was not that bad in there.

The entrance to the Pripyat hospital

Inside the hospital it was trashed and messed up. But it was possible to find old bottles with liquids, manuals, operation rooms and much much more. Very interesting place. I managed to find a ladder to the roof and climbed up to see the view. But radiation raised a lot on the roof and I hurried down again.

One of my pictures from the hospital

Next place in Pripyat was one of the schools. It was so shocking to find old school books, dolls and other things that was left behind when the city was evacuated. Trashed like the hospital, but also a spooky place to visit.

A newspaper found at the school. It's dated 1st of january, 1986. Same year as the accident happend. Things like this touched me a lot emotionally! Believe me, I didn't stand there and cried, but it was tough.

Another picture from the school. This is from one of the class rooms. Poets still hanging there.

Time is running fast now and we are heading for the next place. We decide to visit the amusement park, where the well known ferris wheel and bumper cars are placed. This was the most contaminated of all the places that we visited in Pripyat. The dosimeter showed as much as 17 here.

The famous ferris wheel. Used in some computer games and still standing there

Bumper cars at the amusement park

There were so many places and I can't tell about all of them. But to show how trees are growing and how destroyed it is, take a look at this picture.

Trees are growing through the concrete. Crazy stuff.

Last place I want to write about is the public swimming pool that was one of three places with indoor swimming in Pripyat. The building was huge and it was weird to walk around in this place. No water in the pool but stuffed with dust and dirt.

I climbed the 5 meter diving board to get THE picture. Hope you like it as much as I do

The swimmingpool from the other end of the building

We did visit some other places too. One place was the old radio company called Jupiter. At this time I was stuffed with impressions and trashed buildings. It wasn't a boring place, but I just had enough now.

Returning to Kiev

We all had enough now I think and wanted to go back to Kiev and the hotel. Before leaving the zone, we all had to go through some machines that could measure our radiation level. I'm still not convinced that they are working for real and is only a "tourist" thing. Nobody watched us when we went through these things that showed red if you needed a chemical wash or green if everything was ok. All people was having green light. 

A tourist thing or the real deal? I'm not sure.

We dropped the guide off the car again, when we returned to Chernobyl city. Thanks to Yuri for a very good day! Now we could just lean back and relax the next 2 hours... But no, I forgot how our death driver was handling a mini van.

Of course it's always nice to get home in a hurry, but not like he did. He put on a movie in his DVD player and was watching this all the way back to Kiev. This is not it, because some times his two cell phones was ringing and he managed to drive the van, watch a movie, speak in the cell phone and write down something on a piece of paper. Damn it was crazy with a speed of 120 kilometers / hour on bad roads. I would rather run naked through the reactor 4, than drive with that guy one more time.

But we survived and returned to the hotel in Kiev (we had a break half the way to Kiev, but the food was so strange that I can't write about that).

The end

We stayed to 2 days more in Kiev and it was nice to see the city and think about different things than death, contamination, ghost towns, etc. But believe me, when I returned to my PC at home to watch my pictures, everything went back in my head.

It was the most scary and mind-blowing thing I ever did in my life. I would do it again I believe, but I think I could do a two day trip next time, with one night at Chernobyl hotel.

If you reached the end here, I hope you liked the story. If you have any questions, feel free to comment this.

And at last, thanks to all my friends from this trip to Ukraine. I would go again with you guys and girls!

The planning

For some time, I had this dream to combine my interests for photos, abandoned places and traveling. I did visit a lot of abandoned places in my home town Aalborg, but wanted more now - much more. I started to google for abandoned places in near Europe (Germany, Belgium, Holland, etc) and there are so many places to visit. Most interesting was the abandoned hospital close to Berlin, in a small city called Beelitz Heilstätten. And this was the place that I decided to visit.

The picture from Google Maps, shows the area from a far distance. It's huge, but not all buildings are accessible anymore.

I didn't want to travel alone and asked for some travel mates on www.fotostart.dk, some months before the actual trip took place. So many people were interested, but we ended up with my self and 3 others. All of us with one goal - taking a lot of pictures.

The trip begins

We decided to start from Aalborg a late friday afternoon and my GPS estimated the trip to take about 10 hours. My Peugeot was packed with photo equipment and 4 people, but even with some stops on the way and some heavy traffic before the German border, we succeded to reach the "Land Hotel Gustav" in Beelitz 23.00. The hotel that we pre-booked on the internet, was nice and cheap. Some of us took the last cigarette outside, before jumping to bed. We hoped that we could drink a beer before sleep, but the hotel staff waited for us and closed the front door, after we checked in. By the way, I was checked in by the name Mr. Brain. How did they know? Or did they really just switch two letters around by a mistake?

At this time, we didn't have a clue about how close we were to the abandoned buildings. If we could know, I guess we would go and take some late pictures.

The day we've been waiting for 

I think we all woke up very early saturday morning, ready to find the spooky places in the city. But first we had to eat some breakfast, because at this time we didn't know when we had a chance for some lunch.

As mentioned before, we didn't know the city, because we arrived in the dark. We started the car and drove about 400 meters before the famous entrance to the hospital showed up. No other cars at this time and the warm weather already made us sweat this early. We hoped that all other people, would go to the beach (stupid to think, if you see where in Germany we were) and all the hospital area was ours all alone.

Stupid us! One hour later, the place was crowded with models, photografers, people recording music videos, young people just drinking, etc. But before that, we managed to visit a few buildings in the area and damn it was spooky to enter these dark buildings alone and without any light. Stupid me, forgot to bring a flashlight and had to use my camera flash when I needed some light.

The first 100+ pictures were taken already at this time of the day. Here's a few:

This building was like all the others - old, trashed and smashed by stupid people.

From one of the other buildings in the area

Some of the buildings were in so bad condition that we had to take care, when walking around.

In this building, the first floor was very bad. One of our tripods just went through the rotten floor and we could imagine how 80 kg + could do if a person stepped on to that!

We managed to have lunch around 12 o'clock. We needed food and a lot to drink, because of the warm weather and the dusty places in the buildings. We continued to take pictures for another 4 hours and decided to head back to Denmark. One guy wanted to go to Berlin for a few days and we drove him to the train station in Beelitz (again, only 500 meters from the hospital area).

It made room in the car for the 3 others and we started to go back. We made a stop in a border shop, to buy some cheap beers and other alcohol. This is a must, when you are a Dane and visit Germany :-)

Conclusion

I don't need to conclude anything. The trip was a huge succes but we could easily use another day in Beelitz. All four agreed about this, but we didn't know how large the area was, but now we know. From this point, I wanted even more and I woke up sunday morning ready to plan another trip.