Carl Willis's video: Visiting the Khodemchuk Memorial at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Not many industrial structures contain entombed human remains. An exception is the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. 35-year-old pump engineer Valery Khodemchuk was buried alive in one of the main circulation pump engine halls in the Unit 4 reactor building on April 26, 1986 when the infamous reactor exploded, and there his body has presumably remained. Life has gone on--almost inexplicably--at the stricken plant: Unit 2 continued to operate for another five years (until damaged irreparably in another accident); Units 1 and 3 outlived the Soviet Union, shutting down in 1996 and 2000 respectively. Workers still occupy the site around the clock but presently are tasked with the challenges of decommissioning the station. Though the years have passed and the mission has changed, Valery Khodemchuk has remained at his post throughout. There is a memorial to Khodemchuk deep within the Unit 3-4 Ventilation Block, at perhaps the closest accessible spot to the room in which he is buried. The memorial, well-maintained and decorated with plastic flowers and bits of candy, is mounted on the west wall of Room 419 on the station's +12.5-meter elevation. According to a site safety document, this room appears to be a facility for the preparation of water filters (probably for the reactor water systems). This video depicts bits of the walk through the station interior enroute to the memorial. First is a section of the main deaerator building corridor, +10m elevation, heading west. Next we climb a narrow stair into a maintenance corridor at the Unit 4 side of the ventilation block between Units 3 and 4. (I erroneously comment that I think we are headed into Unit 3's main circulation pumps, which aren't far away). A glimpse of the memorial is shown at the end, followed by a still of my best effort to generate a composite floor plan of the station from a safety document and point out what's visible in the movie clips. I'm grateful to the management of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant for allowing us in this summer, and still hold out hope that I'll be able to get downstairs in the Sarcophagus one of these days. I relish the thought that on this little walk we came within an estimated 20m of the infamous stalactite known as the "Elephant's Foot", two floors below us. And heck, Khodemchuk probably could use all the company he can get...I imagine that's a very lonely place to be for 25 years. NOTE: This video contains ANNOTATIONS. Please PAUSE the video and read the annotations for a fuller understanding. Thanks!