Villages in the zone.

Besides the larger-known towns, there are many rural villages in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. It is estimated that combining Pripyat's 49,000 residents with that of Chernobyl city and surrounding villages brought the total evacuee estimate to approximately 116,000 people. Some villages were razed and buried, while others were left to decay. In the days and months after the accident, there were many residents of the outlying villages who slipped passed border patrols and illegally moved back into their homes. These people are known locally as samosely, which means self-settlers or squatters.

We visited the village of Illintsi, once host to roughly 4,000 people and today home to only approximately forty people. This part of the trip had us truly looking back in time as the original settlers had known the area many years before Pripyat and the CNPP ever existed. In fact, the CNPP was originally proposed to be only 25km from the Ukraine capital of Kiev. Experts, however, suggested this was too close to the heavily-populated capital and  suggested the Chernobyl region. Of course, this later proved to be a wise decision.

While in Illintsi, we visited an elderly samosely named Maria Shaparenko. Maria is now 82 years old, but crept back into the zone shortly after the ordered evacuations -- avoiding guards and patrols -- to live in the only place she ever knew as home.

Shortly before our visit, Maria had just finished repainting her house inside and out; no small task for someone who is 82 and lives alone. Upon suggestion of our guide, we offered bags of food and drink as gifts to Maria for inviting us in to her home. In return she tried to give us large bottles of vodka, which our guide politely turned down on our behalf. Maria's husband died some years ago and she now grows all her own food and farms chickens and other animals. It doesn't appear that she is bothered by the radiation in the area, and judging by her apparent good health, she must be one of the lucky few with no immediate threats of exposure.

Maria joked with us that the previous weekend an unfamiliar, important-looking man paid her a visit. Over a long meal they chatted, but it wasn't until he was about to leave did he tell her he was one of the heads of the CNPP checking up to see how she was. She found this most amusing.

As a photographer, a voice in the back of my head kept nagging me to take some photographs of Maria and her home, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. She is such a kind, friendly lady that I wanted to respect her privacy and leave with only my memories of our time there. She handed us some chocolate as a parting gift, and we went on to explore some of the other areas of the village.

Abandoned village homes.

Left to decay.