 Workers enter the so-called diarator stack, where they drill holes in the concrete to install support beams that are supposed to stabilize the outward leaning Western wall which is in danger of collapsing. Their dark workspace is located close to the center of the explosion and is so highly contaminated that they can only work in 15-minute shifts despite wearing highly protective gear and respirators. ©Gerd Ludwig |
 On April 26, 1986, the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine contaminated thousands of square miles, forcing 150.000 inhabitants within a 30km zone to hastily abandon their homes. Nineteen years later, the still empty school rooms in School #2 in Prypyat- once the largest town in the zone with 49.000 inhabitants - are being taken over by nature. ©Gerd Ludwig |
 On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the world worst nuclear accident to date, the Ukrainian government legalized trips to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, hoping for droves of visitors each year. Chernobyl and Pripyat have since become prime disaster-tourism destinations. Tourism is leaving its mark: less and less the town bears honest witness to the hasty departure of the former residents. In the early days, scavengers stripped the rooms of valuables and illegal intruders left their marks. And now, tourists with their guides assemble creepy tableaux to illustrate the flight from disaster. ©Gerd Ludwig |
 Zolotoy Kluchik (Golden Key) is the name of a kindergarten in Pripyat. It is one of the few (out of the 16 some kindergartens that once existed in Pripyat) which is shown to tourists on a regular basis. Everything in the place is obviously rearranged either by tourist or to cater to their expectations. As this has been going on for quite some time now, many of the rearrangement show a patina and therefore feel authentic to the uncritical observer. ©Gerd Ludwig |
 Pripyat is a town less than 3 kilometers away from the reactor, was constructed for the plant's personnel. Once a beautiful town by Soviet standards, its 50,000 inhabitants were evacuated 36 hours after the accident. Today a chilling ghost town, its buildings bear witness to the hasty departure. Dolls are scattered on the floors of abandoned kindergartens. Amidst the surrounding decay, decades after the catastrophe, nature reclaims the town: trees grow through broken windows, and grass pushes up through the cracks in dormant roads that once were glorious promenades - but the town remains unfit for human habitation for hundreds of years to come. ©Gerd Ludwig |
 Ignoring radiation levels, several hundred of elderly people have returned to their village homes inside the Exclusion Zone, preferring to die on their own contaminated soil instead of a broken heart in anonymous city suburbs. At first, Ukrainian officials discouraged them, but soon turned a blind eye and are now even providing them with regular medical check-ups. ©Gerd Ludwig |
 The destructive effects of Cesium to the thyroid gland are undisputed. The Chernobyl accident released severe fallout of Cesium 127 that drifted northwesterly over Belarus, contaminating thousands of square miles of fertile land. At the Thyroid Center in Minsk, surgery is performed on a daily basis. Amongst the patients in room #4 was Dima Bogdanovich, 13, who had just undergone his first surgery for thyroid cancer, and liquidator, Oleg Shapiro, 54. ©Gerd Ludwig |
Gerd Ludwig
THE LONG SHADOW OF CHERNOBYL
On 26 April 1986, at 1:23 am, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s Reactor No. 4 blew up after operators botched a safety test, triggering an explosion and a fire that burned for 10 days. The radioactive fallout spread over tens of thousands of square kilometers, driving more than a quarter of a million people permanently from their homes. To this day, the long shadow of Chernobyl continues to darken lives – socially, environmentally, and physically.
Mikhail Gorbachev, then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, writes in the preface to the book The Long Shadow of Chernobyl by Gerd Ludwig that:
The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, even more than my launch of Perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was an historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed.
Gerd Ludwig has documented the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident for more than 20 years and ventured deeper into the reactor than any other Western photographer. He has traveled into the building that houses Energy Block No. 4, where radiation is still so high that access is limited to only a few seconds, just enough to photograph the clock, still stopped at 1:23:58 in the morning.
It was the most challenging photographic situation I’ve ever encountered. The space was dark, loud, and claustrophobic; we rushed through dimly lit tunnels strewn with wires, pieces of shredded metal and other debris. I needed to dodge the spray of sparks from the drillers in highly contaminated concrete dust; and I knew that I had less than 15 minutes to capture an environment that few have ever seen, and that I might never access again. The adrenaline surge was extraordinary.
SPECS
Number of works: 106 color photographs
Size: 70 x 100 cm and 46,5 x 68,6 cm
Type of prints: Digital prints
Catalogue: The Long Shadow of Chernobyl
Edition Lammerhuber
118 photographs on 252 pages
languages: English, German, French
Gerd Ludwig was born in Alsfeld, Germany in 1947. After interrupting his German literature studies, he traveled in Scandinavia and North America while supporting himself with jobs as a bricklayer, sailor, gardener and dishwasher. Upon his return to Germany, he studied photography with Professor Otto Steinert at the Folkwangschule in Essen, graduating in 1972. He co-founded VISUM, Germany’s first photographer-owned photo agency in 1973, and began working for Geo, Stern, Spiegel, Zeit-Magazin, Time and Life, making his name by photographing renowned artists, such as Joseph Beuys and Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
In 1984, Ludwig relocated to New York. In the early 1990s, he signed on as a contract photographer for National Geographic Magazine, focusing on environmental issues and the social changes in the former Soviet Union. Broken Empire: After the Fall of the USSR, a ten-year retrospective was published in 2001.
Gerd Ludwig’s engaged reporting on the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl is considered a milestone in modern photojournalism. The Long Shadow of Chernobyl, published by Edition Lammerhuber, features an essay by Mikhail Gorbachev, combining images from his 20-year-long coverage of the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date.
His works have been exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals such as the Perpignan Visa pour L’Image and the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria. He was awarded with the Lucie Award for International Photographer of the Year in 2006, the German Society for Photography (DGPh)’s prestigious Dr. Erich-Salomon Award in 2014, and the 2015 Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. In 2016, Minus 2/3 was published in English, German and Italian by Rocky Nook and dpunkt Verlag. Sleeping Cars was published in the same year by Edition Lammerhuber. Gerd Ludwig lives and works in Los Angeles.