Elena Filatova
Elena (Lena) Filatova (
Russian: Елена Филатова, born
1974) is a
Ukrainian motorcyclist who gained
Internet fame in
2004 under the
nickname KiddOfSpeed after her web site was mentioned at
Slashdot [
1] and other online news sources.
On her web site, she posted photographs of her alleged motorcycle trips in the area around the
Chernobyl nuclear plant, 18 years after
the nuclear disaster there. She mainly visited the virtually abandoned city of
Pripyat, Ukraine.
The photos are arranged in the form of a story presented as an account of a trip by a biker who somehow got a permit to travel alone in the
radiation zone. The accuracy of that story has since been questioned, not least because motorcycles are specifically forbidden inside the 30km reactor
exclusion zone, which can only be accessed through permanently manned checkpoints. It has been alleged that Filatova visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone only as part of an organized tour [
2]. (Such tours verifiably do take place, with tourists travelling from Kiev for a few hundred US dollars.)
Regardless of the degree of Elena's actual personal involvement or the reliability of her narrative, the photos themselves still hold interest for many viewers. While some of them could have been staged to a degree (it is noticeable that there are no photographs of her motorcycle inside the abandoned town of Pripyat), she probably could not have staged the whole
ghost town. In any case,
all photographs now taken in the region by even the most conscientious photographer are to some extent "set up" because props have been placed by previous photographers around the town. While there are numerous accounts of the consequences of the catastrophe, Elena's account presents it to the world in a novel way.
Among her other projects is a photojournal about the
Serpent's Wall near the city of
Kiev, her home. The journal contains photos of Elena's exploration of an ancient wall and more modern
World War II fortifications built amongst its remains.
*
"Urban Exploration Resource" thread, May 2004 (claiming that Filatova's story is fabricated.)
*
TJERNOBYL Photographs of Chernobyl by Elena Filatova, with forward.
*
Elena's homepage (KiddOfSpeed)
*
Elena's original homepage at AngelFire
*http://www.elenafilatova.com/
*
Polish mirror of Ghost Town*
First Slashdot story*
Second Slashdot story*
New York Times, June 15, 2005, on Chernobyl tour The second page of the article specifically mentions Elena from the mouth of the tour guide, a Mr. Tatarchuk.
*
Elena's documentation of the Serpent's Wall
