For many, the 1,000-square-mile Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is a symbol of total disaster: a reminder of the day thousands of lives were shattered, now a toxic no-man’s-land. For Markiyan Kamysh, it is a place to relax. He and dozens like him call themselves ‘stalkers’: wild adventurers who sneak past border patrols and police to spend days exploring the desolate corners of abandoned villages and settlements. In this book Kamysh, invites us into this alien world. In electric prose that captures the spectral beauty of the Zone and the reckless spirit of the stalkers, Kamysh tells of hallucinatory days alone in the rusted ruins, of panicked brushes with police and moments of ecstatic celebration in the wasteland. A breathless account of danger and freedom, this is a captivating insider look at a unique subculture.

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