4 My feet touched the ground and I felt a bit like an astronaut on a different planet, donning heavy rubber boots, latex gloves and a respirator. We were in the vicinity of the ground zero and our Geiger counter indicated a higher level of background radiation. ‘Try not to pick up anything without your gloves’ said Dmitriy, as three of us approached the tower. The structure was well advanced into the process of decay. Its chipped concrete revealed steel armature underneath. Each floor featured a wide window looking into the distance. The steel frame of the window originally held a perforated metal panel that protected the measuring equipment during the explosion. Most of the steel elements were gone, taken by the scavengers, including the metal stairs leading to the next floor, metal hardware for the doors, sometimes entire doors themselves. Standing in one of the rooms, the tower was perfectly aligned with the next tower about a kilometre away. ‘Radionuclides are all over the grassland here, about 10-15 centimetres deep into the soil, that’s why no one knows how to manage such a vast territory of contamination’, said Dmitriy looking out the window. Outside I took my time examining the tower’s walls. Time and time again this structure had experienced total destruction, and yet it withstood it all. Cracks, bullet holes, fractures, shrapnel, gouges, every violent imprint imaginable, it was all in the walls. Dmitry waved me back to the car to head further. The next tower was similar to the first one, battered concrete construction with grasses growing taller around it as if the landscape was slowly swallowing it. The next tower was different. Gone were the rooms with wide windows and doors, this time it was much more slender and longer with a massive wedge back support disappearing into the earth. It was also black with cracks running along the surface stretching all the way back and around. ‘You might want to close the window right about now, the dust is radioactive’, said Dmitriy, as I was trying to get the perfect shot. We drove a bit further when Dmitriy abruptly said to Vladimir, ‘Stop the car, we’re going to have to walk from here.’
above: View towards the centre of the Field left: Dmitry examining the inside of one of the concrete bunkers below: Various concrete ruins scattered around the Field site
Andrey Chernykh
On Site review 35 : the material culture of architecture
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