Since 2008, photographer Andrej Krementschouk has visited Chernobyl, venturing into the restricted 30km zone of alienation around the reactor. This first part of a two-edition release collects images of its rural landscape alongside moving portraits of those who refused to leave their homes, despite the danger of radiation, fuelled by their commitment to a sense of place, home and responsibility to the surrounding nature and way of life.

Since 1994 Scottish-born Canadian photographer David McMillan (born 1945) has journeyed 21 times to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Inspired by his teenage memories of Nevil Shute's On the Beach (1957), a disturbing vision of the world following nuclear war, McMillan found in Pripyat the embodiment of an irradiated city still standing but void of human life. As one of the first artists to gain access to "The Zone," McMillan initially explored the evacuated areas with few constraints and in solitude, save for an occasional scientist monitoring the effects of radioactivity. Returning year after year enabled him to revisit the sites of earlier photographs--sometimes fortuitously, sometimes by design--bearing witness to the forces of nature as they reclaimed the abandoned communities. Above all, his commitment has been to probe the relentless dichotomy between growth and decay in The Zone.

After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion in Ukraine, scientists believed radiation had created a vast and barren wasteland in which life could never resurface. But the Dead Zone, as the contaminated area is known, doesn't look dead at all. In fact, wildlife seems to be thriving there. The Zone is home to beetles, swallows, catfish, mice, voles, otters, beavers, wild boar, foxes, lynx, deer, moose?even brown bears and wolves. Yet the animals in the Zone are not quite what you'd expect. Every single one of them is radioactive. In Chernobyl's Wild Kingdom, you'll meet the international scientists investigating the Zone's wildlife and trying to answer difficult questions: Have some animals adapted to living with radiation? Or is the radioactive environment harming them in ways we can't see or that will only show up in future generations? Learn more about the fascinating ongoing research?and the debates that surround the findings?in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

In the 11 days following the Chernobyl catastrophe on April 26, 1986, more than 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. Declared unfit for human habitation, the Zones of Exclusion includes the towns of Pripyat (established in the 1970s to house workers) and Chernobyl. In May 2001, Robert Polidori photographed what was left behind in the this dead zone. His richly detailed images move from the burned-out control room of Reactor 4, where technicians staged the experiment that caused the disaster, to the unfinished apartment complexes, ransacked schools and abandoned nurseries that remain as evidence of those who once called Pripyat home. Nearby, trucks and tanks used in the cleanup efforts rest in an auto graveyard, some covered in lead shrouds and others robbed of parts. Houseboats and barges rust in the contaminated waters of the Pripyat River. Foliage grows over the sidewalks and hides the modest homes of Chernobyl. In his large-scale photographs, Polidori captures the faded colors and desolate atmosphere of these two towns, producing haunting documents that present the reader with a rare view of not just a disastrous event, but a place and the people who lived there.

When a titanic explosion ripped through the Number Four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in 1986, spewing flames and chunks of burning, radioactive material into the atmosphere, one of our worst nightmares came true. As the news gradually seeped out of the USSR and the extent of the disaster was realized, it became clear how horribly wrong things had gone. Dozens died - two from the explosion and many more from radiation illness during the following months - while scores of additional victims came down with acute radiation sickness. Hundreds of thousands were evacuated from the most contaminated areas. The prognosis for Chernobyl and its environs - succinctly dubbed the Zone of Alienation - was grim. Today, 20 years after the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, intrepid journalist Mary Mycio dons dosimeter and camouflage protective gear to explore the world's most infamous radioactive wilderness. As she tours the Zone to report on the disaster's long-term effects on its human, faunal, and floral inhabitants, she meets pockets of defiant local residents who have remained behind to survive and make a life in the Zone. And she is shocked to discover that the area surrounding Chernobyl has become Europe's largest wildlife sanctuary, a flourishing - at times unearthly - wilderness teeming with large animals and a variety of birds, many of them members of rare and endangered species. Like the forests, fields, and swamps of their unexpectedly inviting habitat, both the people and the animals are all radioactive. Cesium-137 is packed in their muscles and strontium-90 in their bones. But quite astonishingly, they are also thriving. If fears of the Apocalypse and a lifeless, barren radioactive future have been constant companions of the nuclear age, Chernobyl now shows us a different view of the future. A vivid blend of reportage, popular science, and illuminating encounters that explode the myths of Chernobyl with facts that are at once beautiful and horrible, Wormwood Forest brings a remarkable land - and its people and animals - to life to tell a unique story of science, surprise and suspense.

A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence

Inside Chernobyl - A Day in the Exclusion Zone The Chernobyl nuclear disaster is one of the most severe accidents in human history. The radiation released by this catastrophe caused unbelievable suffering to the population that once resided there and still has serious consequences on the environment today. Nevertheless, the exclusion zone with its ghost towns, dilapidated buildings, wild animals, and invisible radiation still exerts a certain fascination on adventurers. WE TAKE YOU ON A TOUR OF EXPLORATION In this report you will learn what we experienced on our tour in Chernobyl and how we felt. Our personal adventures are always put into historical context, so that experience and history merge together meaningfully. Numerous pictures take you with us to the most exciting places and give you the feeling of having been there yourself. WHO IS THE TRAVEL REPORT ADDRESSED AT? The travelogue is aimed primarily at: Adventurers and explorers who may plan to visit Chernobyl in the future all those who are interested in Chernobyl and who cannot imagine visiting the site themselves, but who would like to learn more about the real events in the "death zone", beyond the myths and horror stories. Friends and family who are looking for a gift for a travel enthusiast who has already visited almost every vacation destination and is now looking for a challenge, or who is often drawn to exotic places anyway. VOICES ABOUT THE BOOK: "I read through the book in one go because I couldn't stop. The travel story is insanely exciting and emotional at the same time. It touched me personally very much and I could put myself directly into the situations you experienced. It was as if I had been there with you myself."