Stalker Launched Once Wont Woek Again

How the video game South.T.A.Fifty.Grand.E.R. inspired a wave of existent-world Chernobyl tourists

A virtual world leads to IRL excursions

Past Apr 29, 2021, 12:32pm EDT

Illustration past Alex Castro

At the entrance to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine, 35 years on from the worst nuclear disaster in history, a xanthous souvenir van sells T-shirts, key rings, and glow-in-the-nighttime "Chernobyl condoms," all branded with gas mask symbols or stylized radiation warning signs.

They sell hot dogs and coffee. There'south "Chernobyl ice foam," advertised by colorful signs reminiscent of the Raygun Gothic manner of atomic-era Americana. As I join the other tourists and queue for a coffee, speakers play "I Don't Want To Prepare The Globe On Fire" by The Ink Spots, a track lifted directly from the soundtrack of Fallout three. By the time I finish my drink I'm listening to Doris Twenty-four hour period croon: "Again… this couldn't happen again / This is that once in a lifetime / This is the thrill divine."

In May 2019, HBO'southward miniseries Chernobyl became an unprecedented hit. The existent Chernobyl Zone saw a record number of 124,000 visitors that twelvemonth, and many commentators suggested the HBO testify had caused a sudden Chernobyl tourism smash. In reality, though, queues at the Chernobyl checkpoint had been growing at a consistent rate for a decade prior — and the touristification of Chernobyl owed at least equally much to video games as it did to telly.

In 2007, two games were released that imprinted Chernobyl into the minds of a whole generation of gamers. In the Due west, Telephone call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a blockbuster. It featured a stealth mission titled "All Ghillied Up," which was gear up in Pripyat, the abased workers' city that stands aslope the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The mission opens with panoramic shots of Pripyat'due south deserted housing blocks, while a voiceover intones: "50,000 people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town." This Chernobyl setting lent Call of Duty a new dimension of danger and intrigue; it created a strong visual impression, although, really, the gameplay that followed could take been located practically anywhere.

The aforementioned cannot be said for S.T.A.L.Yard.E.R.

S.T.A.50.Chiliad.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Ukrainian studio GSC Game Globe released Southward.T.A.L.K.Due east.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl the same yr Call of Duty 4 came out, but while both featured first-person shooter gameplay set in Chernobyl, in S.T.A.50.M.E.R.'due south case it was more than only phase dressing. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. introduced players to a world in which the landscape — the mysterious "Zone" — became a character in its own right. This was partly the consequence of an innovative global AI system that created the sense of a living, animate globe: non-thespian characters would interact, fight, strum guitars, or fend off packs of rabid dogs, with or without the histrion being present. Immersion was heightened by the lack of a fast travel selection, forcing players to spend an awful lot of fourth dimension looking at the always-changing scenery. But the personification of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s terrain ran deeper all the same, as it was rooted in the game's mythos, which tapped into older ideas from Soviet-era science fiction.

Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker was a dreamlike meditation on want and ruination, in which an almost shamanic figure, known equally "Stalker," leads two tourists through the mail service-industrial landscapes of a mysterious, sentient Zone to find the Room at its eye where a visitor's wishes could be granted. However, S.T.A.L.Yard.E.R. shares more Deoxyribonucleic acid with Roadside Picnic, the 1972 novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, which inspired Tarkovsky's motion picture. The protagonist of Roadside Picnic is just one of many stalkers. In the wake of some unexplained extraterrestrial event, areas of the Globe's surface have been contaminated past alien energies. These areas are evacuated to form war machine-guarded "Zones," and the "stalkers" are the scavengers who venture illegally inside to hunt for valuable alien artifacts left scattered across this strange and toxic landscape.

To adapt this earth for the medium of games, GSC Game World gave their stalkers assault rifles, created rival factions, and populated the wasteland with corrupted wildlife: mutated dogs, boars, and worse. The Zone of the game borrows the novel's alien "anomalies" — invisible traps that shoot jets of flame or catapult unwary travelers into the heaven — and at the center, as in both the volume and the film, lies the mysterious hope of a "Wish Granter." But the developers also fabricated the bold decision of placing this literary Zone within Ukraine'southward own existent-life Exclusion Zone: the one,000-foursquare mile region of evacuated farms and villages that surrounds the Chernobyl Plant.

I asked GSC Game World's PR manager, Zakhar Bocharov, how that decision came almost. "Several locations were considered for the game," he explains, "just Chernobyl only clicked at a certain point as the perfect setting for this story. It was the conclusion of Sergiy Grygorovych, the game's manager, and so everything came together around that idea. Chernobyl gave us that rich temper, and huge lore possibilities."

Long before the game, the fictional works of Tarkovsky and the Strugatskys had sometimes been described as seeming almost prophetic of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and the existent-life Zone that was established in its wake. Southward.T.A.L.K.E.R. was born into a narrative space already carved out by urban myths and conspiracy theories. "Our core team is Ukrainian, then everything that happened at Chernobyl was very familiar and personal for us," says Bocharov. "The idea of telling a story in this space came organically — just with certain tweaks, similar an altered history and sci-fi elements."

Southward.T.A.Fifty.Grand.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was a phenomenal success: it earned critical acclaim around the earth and sold a reported 2 million copies in its first twelvemonth. A prequel (Clear Heaven) and sequel (Telephone call of Pripyat) soon followed. These games built a cult following, specially in Eastern Europe. They inspired live-activity roleplay events, themed airsoft tournaments, and festivals such as the 2009 S.T.A.L.M.Due east.R. Fest in Kyiv. It was but a matter of time before the game'due south influence reached Chernobyl itself.

S.T.A.L.One thousand.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

In 2019, I interviewed Yaroslav Yemelianenko, the co-founder of Chernobyl Bout, one of the dozen or so companies that offer trips inside the Chernobyl Zone. He told me how his own interest in Chernobyl started with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.… and so, realizing that the "existent Zone" could exist visited just nearby, he joined a tour to Pripyat. By 2008, he had established his own company, and one of their early offerings was a S.T.A.L.K.East.R.-themed bout visiting locations from the game. The gift van at the archway to the Zone belongs to Chernobyl Bout, as well. Whereas the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was one time exclusively controlled past Soviet-fashion bureaucrats, there is a sense now that a new generation is taking over — and increasingly, they offer a Chernobyl experience that delivers on expectations set past pop culture references.

Withal, not all South.T.A.L.K.Due east.R. fans are looking for that group bout experience. Stepan (who, for privacy, prefers not to use his total proper noun) is one of a growing number of young Ukrainians who visit the Chernobyl Zone illegally. Many phone call themselves "stalkers." On his trips, Stepan carries food and water, a first-assistance kit, and a cheap radiation meter he purchased online. He says it takes him 3 days to hike from the Zone'southward perimeter contend to Pripyat, a journeying that mirrors the player's progress through the game world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Simply like Yemelianenko, Stepan's interest in the real Zone started with the game.

"When South.T.A.50.M.E.R. came out, it was something actually new and exciting for me. Non just because it was ready in my country… simply also because information technology felt more existent than other games I had played. I wasn't some magical hero, or 'called one,' y'all know? Just some random guy, taking on a big hostile globe. I could relate to that." Stepan adds, nevertheless, that he abandoned the game subsequently becoming a real stalker. "Playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. made me curious to encounter these places in real life. Merely now that I know the real Zone, I can't imagine going back to the game's version."

Chernobyl Tour believes that with the right marketing and itineraries, it can tempt Southward.T.A.L.G.E.R. fans to join its groups instead. Its master deputy Kateryna Aslamova explains: "In many cases, people enter illegally to visit places they can't see on regular tours. Occasionally, I have ex-stalkers on my tours ... now, with all the pick we offer, they realize in that location'due south no longer a reason to go illegally."

But Stepan is non convinced. "Firstly, the legal entry fees are a footling more difficult when you lot're earning Ukrainian wages," he says. "But mainstream tourism will never capture the feeling of exploring the wild Zone. When I become at that place, I want to hear the woods … to be alone with my thoughts in a place beyond the racket and rules of normal life. To be completely responsible for my own fate. This is a actually unique and special feel … you would never get this on a legal tour, surrounded by people, buses, guides, and gift shops."

Other guides take a more doubter approach toward the activities of illegal tourists, believing in that location's space for stalkers and bout companies to coexist in the Zone. Yevhen Chkalov was a junior game designer on S.T.A.Fifty.One thousand.Eastward.R., whose responsibilities included developing and scripting some of the game's side missions. Nowadays he leads tours in the real Chernobyl Zone and runs the online fan community Bar Apocalypse, which caters to S.T.A.L.One thousand.Eastward.R. and ii of its offspring, the Metro and Survarium franchises.

"Stalking and tourism are ii sides of the aforementioned coin," Chkalov tells me. "Some visitors want the farthermost experience and full temper … others just want to come across the Zone without all the hard work. I used to be a stalker myself, merely similar many other legal guides were. I have a expert relationship with the stalkers now. They recommend my services to those who can't manage the long hike. And I send them the people who don't feel satisfied by what's offered on the legal experience."

South.T.A.Fifty.One thousand.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

There were stalkers in the Zone before 2007, but S.T.A.L.Chiliad.East.R. gave them a shared identity — the basis of a subculture — and Chkalov says the majority of stalkers today were inspired by the games. Though some are in for a surprise: "They play some games and decide they want to attempt this experience in existent life … only then they find out that hiking for days and days is a niggling harder than just pressing the 'Due west' push. It'due south serious concrete activity. That's why then many stalkers surrender themselves to the police." At present, the penalty for being caught in the Zone illegally is the equivalent of a $xx fine, later on which the government typically drive the trespassers dorsum to the constabulary station in Ivankiv, a town exterior the perimeter fence. "In the Zone, nosotros call this 'the taxi to Ivankiv,'" Chkalov jokes.

In 2018, I decided to bring together one of these stalker trips. A Ukrainian guide led united states chest-deep through a river to enter the Zone, and so for four days nosotros hiked through wild, wooded landscapes between run-downwardly villages and the shells of one-time farms and factories. The parallels to S.T.A.L.K.Due east.R. were occasionally quite surreal. Inventory management was a serious event, our backpacks stuffed with first-help kits, staff of life and salamis, just like in the game. We couldn't comport all the water we'd need, but our stalker guide had his friends hibernate supply stashes ahead of the states, for which they shared a list of coordinates. It became a kind of orienteering mission, always hiking toward the side by side stash pinned on our electronic maps. When nosotros finally reached Pripyat on the fourth night; the feel of stepping out of woods and into a whole deserted city was but equally exhilarating and cathartic a reward equally it was to achieve the virtual Pripyat later hours of wandering through S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'south version of this Zone.

Concept fine art for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ii.

It is easy to see why then many erstwhile gamers take joined the ranks of the existent-life stalkers since 2007: this feels like the ultimate live-action roleplay experience, a true concrete immersion into the game'southward earth, complete with many of the dangers that entails. Zakhar Bocharov tells me that while GSC Game World appreciates South.T.A.Fifty.G.East.R.'s passionate fan base, the developers themselves do non endorse illegal tourism in the real Zone. He stresses the many dangers and says the company would e'er recommend visitors to bring together a legal tour instead. Though he also acknowledges, "our words would hardly change annihilation."

With Due south.T.A.L.K.Due east.R. ii scheduled to release in 2021, the developers have lately been spending more time in Chernobyl themselves. "The Zone is changing constantly," says Bocharov. "Our core team visits every couple of months, or even more than often. Sometimes it's for photogrammetry work, and sometimes only for inspiration. S.T.A.L.Thou.East.R. 2 volition include new locations along with the quondam ones — in a seamless open up world for the first time in the series."

When South.T.A.L.K.Eastward.R. came out in 2007, Ukraine didn't even recognize Chernobyl as a tourism destination. Security was far less stringent than it is today, and the Zone was a playground for looters and poachers, stalkers and bandits — "a symbol of abuse," according to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But the existent and virtual Zones are gradually diverging and in 2019, Zelenskyy signed a prescript for the development of the territory, promising to create "a green corridor for tourists," while stamping out corruption. "We must requite this territory of Ukraine a new life," he stated, during a visit to the Zone. "Until at present, Chernobyl was a negative part of Ukraine's brand. It's time to change it."

From the land's perspective, the stalkers are very much a part of that onetime image. In September 2020, the Verkhovna Rada — Ukraine'south parliament — was presented a proposal for amendments to the law concerning trespassing in the Chernobyl Zone. If passed, this bill would upgrade stalking from an administrative offense to a criminal offense under Ukrainian police. The current $20 fee for a "taxi to Ivankiv" would increment by a factor of a hundred and be backed past the threat of jail time.

Sitting at the Chernobyl checkpoint with my coffee, I watch five minibuses and two coaches gyre past into the Zone. The recent upgrade from analog printed checklists to a digital barcoded ticketing system has dramatically increased the charge per unit at which visitors tin be admitted. As video game soundtracks play in the background, one grouping stops to shop for souvenirs; they're Smooth tourists, and 4 of them are wearing S.T.A.L.Chiliad.Eastward.R. T-shirts. This regulated, streamlined new version of Chernobyl tourism is better for business, information technology's better for Ukraine, and information technology means that by the time Due south.T.A.Fifty.One thousand.E.R. ii arrives, whatever would-exist trespassers are going to find information technology harder than e'er to access the Zone. However, Yevhen Chkalov predicts that the stalkers won't exist giving upward anytime presently.

"In that location was an illegal tourism boom directly after the success of the first game," he points out. "When Southward.T.A.L.G.E.R. 2 releases, you can wait another wave."

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Source: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/29/22403796/stalker-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-tourists

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