Kamysh was born in 1988, two years after that disaster, the son of a nuclear physicist who had been transferred to work as a cleanup worker after the meltdown. Liquidators’ families were given welfare benefits and cheaper food – but this association was also a source of radioactive stigma, not to mention poor health. Kamysh’s father died in 2003. A few years later Kamysh dropped out of university in Kyiv to devote himself to literature and the exploration of the exclusion zone around Chornobyl – as well as the effects of the disaster on his own psyche. It’s disturbing to read about Kamysh’s deal with death now that Russian troops are entangled in his poisoned paradise He also began driving other people into the restricted area around the reactor, dodging the police and ducking under wire fences, acting like a real-life version of the drivers taking people into a restricted area in Andrei Tarkovsky’s mystery sci-fi film Stalker. Kamysh undertook these trips for money, but in this account, which he wrote between 2012 and 2014, he also describes the outbreak zone as a place where he can “relax”. He goes there to drink with friends, to celebrate the New Year, to wander alone in the ruins. It brings back descriptions of empty streets, the “jungles” that spread across the landscape, the howling of wolves at night. Kamysh describes himself as “degenerate”. On his travels in the zone he drinks and destroys. He builds fires with old physics books and burns floorboards for heat. He breaks windows. He has a frightening disregard for his own safety. He even jokes about meeting other cancer stalkers in 20 years. It may be brutally funny (credit for that must go partly to translators Hanna Leliv and Reilly Costigan-Humes), but it also demands serious attention. To those who ask if he is afraid of radiation, he says: “No. Only here will my life not escape me, because I live it in the most exotic place on Earth.” By the time we get to that explanation, late in this remarkable book, Kamysh has made us understand why he thinks the zone around Chornobyl is so special, because – because of its desolate serenity and the freedom it provides from the constraints of normal life – maybe even worth dying for. No feat. It’s all the more disturbing to read about this bargain with death now that invading Russian troops are also tangled up in his poisoned paradise. At least Kamysh had a choice, strange as it may seem. Stalking the Atomic City: Life Among the Decadent and Depraved of Chornobyl by Markiyan Kamysh is published by Pushkin Press (£12.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
