I don't know if it's of interest to anyone here, but @elenatria, @progressi9 and I were in Lithuania for a week and had some emotional and exciting moments at the HBO Chernobyl locations. 😁

At the palace of culture and sports we interrupted some current filming and discovered Boris' armchair.

In Fabijoniškės we learned from which rooftops the scenes were shot and where CGI Chernobyl was located.

In the KGB prison it was pleasantly chilly with 34 degrees outside.

We saw shooting stars on the Alley of Sigitas Geda.

They're the same picture.

The Bench Scene in Pravieniškės without the bench but right next to a prison, quite secluded and tranquil and without a cab driver for the ride back.

And at the Amsterdam School Museum, Valery's appartment (directly across the street from our hotel) we learned about the Jewish, gay former occupant of the appartment and how important this place was to HBO, as well as how important it was to them to decorate the entire appartment, including the inside of the fridge, in Soviet style. Or how Valery's cat was almost fed dry food. 

And then there is the back door that could be used to visit Valery's appartment hidden from the eyes of the KGB. 😏

I can only summarise it by saying that it was incredibly unique and emotional and I learned to appreciate every place, every scene we visited in a whole new way.

I can still hardly believe everything we learned, especially from our wonderful guide and host in Valery's appartment.

@fuerst-von-argot @progressi9

I think I found the exact spot where Jared/Valery stood to take that photo. 😶

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl 2007-Train Hanger

The Black Bird of Chernobyl

The Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 is arguably the worst nuclear disaster of modern times. Strangely, if reports uncovered following the end of the Cold War are to be believed, many of the plant workers and residents of the nearby town of Pripyat reported seeing a strange, bird-like figure with red eyes in the air above the town in the days leading up to the tragedy. Even stranger, many of them reported receiving strange phone calls with only mysterious noises on the other end before the line went dead.

Many also spoke of experiencing a sudden onset of nightmares. The firefighters and emergency responders who were sent into the immediate vicinity following the explosion also reported seeing a strange winged creature flying through the air, weaving in and out of the smoke while they did their best to fight the blaze and rescue any survivors.

To add even more intrigue to the alleged strange events, a strange cigar-shaped object was observed almost directly over the disaster site for several hours following the explosion. The creature became known as the Birdman of Pripyat or the Black Bird of Chernobyl. Skeptics argue that it was simply a large bird.

Chernobyl

On April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.

Although Chernobyl is primarily a ghost town today, a small number of people still live there, in houses marked with signs that read, "Owner of this house lives here", and a small number of animals live there as well. The Claw, The Elephants Foot, and Red Forest are things you should stay clear from if visiting Chernobyl.

Tubbo and Fit calmly trying to help a radioactive green Luzu (who is also acting pretty chill about it) as his house becomes the next viable location for the elephant's foot from Chernobyl is so funny to me. Like I'm just imagining this

🌸 choosing their Earth! date locations: Tashirojima Cat Island, Disneyland, Hello Kitty Theme Park. They keep a cute album of photos and tickets for every location to remember the experiences by.

🐉 choosing their date locations: The ruins of Pompeii, Chernobyl ruins (they were somehow safe because of him), the Paris Catacombs. They are trespassing in all of them instead of getting proper tourist tickets.

They both enjoy all of their dates.

ask for infodump about Chernobyl as someone who has never even heard of it

INHALES

Chernobyl is considered to be the worst nuclear disaster in history, rated at a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), the only other disaster ranking at a 7 being in Fukushima back in 2011. The disaster occurred on April 26, 1986. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant was located in Ukraine, which was under the control of the Soviet Union at the time. It was only about 16 miles from the Belarus-Ukraine border, which was also under Soviet control. There were two main towns nearby, Chernobyl itself, which was older, had only about 15,000 residents, and was actually farther from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant than Pripyat, which had about 50,000 residents, and was only about 2 miles from the plant. Pripyat was newer, and residents had an average age of about 26. The town itself was filled with young, well educated people starting new lives. A large number of public buildings were located in Pripyat, including a school and a sports complex, which contains the famous Azure Swimming Pool. The plant supplied Pripyat with energy, and the place was considered a sort of "dream city." The plant was an RBMK-1000 type reactor, a generation I nuclear reactor, which are the earliest, and generally most hazardous, nuclear reactors. RBMKs were used to produce Plutonium, a radioactive material primarily used in nuclear weapons. However, they could also be used to produce civilian energy, so a few were constructed to supply parts of the USSR with power. At the time of the incident, there were four reactors in operation, with reactors 5 and 6 under construction. A test was scheduled to be conducted to see if the backup generators could successfully turn on in time to keep the cooling systems running at safe levels. However, the test was delayed until the less experienced night shift was in. They turned off the reactor's shutdown feature and lowered the power to the reactor. Reactors need energy to function, as they have to be cooled. For these reactors, large amounts of water were used to cool them. Without the shutdown function, the reactor was in danger of overheating if it wasn't cooled. Regardless, they ran the test. When the backup generators took too long to turn on, panic set in, and the reactor began to overheat. Then, somehow hit the AZ-5 button, which lowers all control rods into the reactor at once. Control rods are used to absorb excess amounts of shed neutrons from the nuclear reactions. However, they momentarily increase reactions when first introduced into the reactor chambers. The undertrained staff of the night shift were not aware of this. With the increased reactivity, the reactor was now dangerously hot, and the casinging around the fuel rods began to rupture, causing white-hot radioactive fuel to come into direct contact with steam. At 1:23 A.M., April 26, 1986, Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor #4 exploded. The contact between the fuel and the steam caused a steam explosion, blowing the 1000 tonne reactor roof into the air and spewing radioactive debris and particles into the air.

Two plant workers were killed instantly by either the force of the blast or from being hit by debris. Although plant workers realized what had happened rather quickly, superiors were slow to act. Firefighters were called in, but they were not told the dangers of the radiation. Most died within a few months. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. In Pripyat, the Amusement Park that had been scheduled to open the next day was hurriedly opened a day early to distract residents from the fact that the reactor was on fire.

It took 36 hours for Soviet Officials to finally begin to evacuate Pripyat, only after residents had begun to report nausea, dizziness, fatigue, vomiting, and headaches, all symptoms of radiation poisoning. A few weeks earlier, citizens were trained with gas masks in case there ever was an incident. Officials said that they didn’t need them, as they didn’t want to cause a panic.

Residents were also told they would be returning soon, and to leave everything behind. They did not come back. This left Pripyat as an eerie ghost down where everything seemed to have simply been dropped and left. Today, it is still abandoned, and is being slowly reclaimed by nature.

During the cleanup of the incident, “Liquidators” were called in. Some knew the dangers, others didn’t. The fire of the reactor was too hot to be put out by water, so tons and tons or boron, sand, and lead were dumped onto the burning reactor by helicopters that flew over. It didn’t help much, and the reactor finally stopped burning after about 2-3 weeks. A structure dubbed “The sarcophagus” was built over the reactor to contain the radiation, though it was rushed and leaked radiation. A large area of woodlands was contaminated by the radiation, and it turned red and died, earning the nickname “The Red Forest.” Most of these trees were cleared and buried. Highly contaminated houses were knocked down, animals were shot, and crops destroyed. Absolutely everything that was highly contaminated was at least attempted to be destroyed and buried. Still, not everything could be destroyed and buried, there was simply too much. One object, dubbed “The Claw of Death” was, according to conflicting accounts, either used to assist in the overall cleanup or was used specifically in the cleanup of the plant roof. It is radioactive enough to give a lethal dose if sat in for about 11 hours.

Another rather infamous object is “The Elephant’s Foot” which is a mass of sand, concrete, and melted reactor fuel that had melted its way through the floor and down into the basement. Upon discovery, the sheer amount of radiation it gave off was enough to give you a fatal dose within about 90 seconds. Today, that’s increased to about five minutes. The foot was unyielding to sampling tools, so, they shot it with a Kalashnikov Rifle (AK-47) to get a sample.

After a very short period of time, the remaining three reactors were up and running again, as the USSR simply needed power desperately. By December of 1987, all three reactors were up and running again. They were operated for years, until the last reactor was finally shut down for good in 2000. Being so close to the border, and with the wind conditions of the time, mass amount of radioactive particles were blown north to Belarus. The Soviet Union had planes fly over and seed the clouds with chemicals, forcing them to rain on rural land instead of heavily populated areas, but this still had a major effect, as about 1/3 of Belarusian farmland was contaminated. However, the winds began to shift, blowing radiation towards Europe. Sweden was the first to sound the alarm, asking if something had happened after detecting dangerous amounts of airborne radiation and determining it was not from any of their own reactors. The USSR finally admitted there had been a “very small” incident at Chernobyl, and was very reluctant to give the world information. Careful monitoring protocols were put on resources everywhere in Europe, from grain to milk to wood, all were carefully measured for radiation. Years later, after the Sarcophagus was determined to be unsafe, the New Safe Confinement unit was constructed, which is a semicircular dome over the existing Sarcophagus. The New Safe Confinement was finished in 2018. 

DONE!

(For now)

@not-wizard-council-aristocrat @anarcho-neptunism @siley-the-wizard @villainessbian

So anyway, calling it now (and spoilers for Burrow's End Episode 1), the Red Warren is located in Chernobyl's 'Red Forest' and all the trees are red due to the radiation. The dust cloud was kicked up by vehicles moving along the road and the radiation within the dust is toxic if inhaled but it didn't affect the stoats until it was stirred up into the air by the heavy machinery. (This exact thing happened recently in the news, I believe)

The 'blue' is most likely the glow of radiation as seen through water (it's kept in water to keep it cool so it is always glowing blue). I'm assuming that one stoat saw it and passed the legend down through the generations. They mentioned in the intro that the blue gifted them their intelligence (paraphrasing) so perhaps they are mutated stoats and that's why they have language and societies?

The 'incorrect' and 'unnatural' rocks they talked about are probably overgrown roads and pavement. That would explain the 'burnt' smell. And it would explain why the dust cloud smelled like pavement if it was being stirred up by vehicles.

It was mentioned that Thorn remembered the smell from the clothes of the things he saw. That was a massive hint, as it's been established that animals don't have clothes in this world. So obviously Thorn came across some humans. He probably got his electrical burn from them somehow and maybe he also saw their machines?

Anyway, I'll be interested to see if this is indeed Chernobyl (or perhaps a fictional Chernobyl-like radioactive place)

Are urban locations for camps (alleyways, abandoned buildings) something that is being considered or on the way? I think they could provide a lot of fun opportunities, there’s so many types lf abandoned locations that cats could hang out in! I know i personally would love to see an abandoned theme park territory (not necessarily because of chernobyl but that’d certainly be a fun thjng to take inspo from!)

They could be a new tab on the territory selection called “urban!”

Hi!

Potentially, but I will neither confirm nor deny! We have a couple other projects on the go regarding biomes, so we want to see how those go first.

Thanks for your question!

~Chase

alright, Burrow's End conspiracy theories time!

what we learned is that the Blue is affecting everything in a radius around the "Second Sun" located at the grey rectangle rock - most likely a human structure as depicted on the DM screen. The "non-bears" Ava described are most likely vehicles, since (like the bear) they move around carrying smaller creatures inside and kicking up dust while doing so. The creatures described by Thorn look like humans with gas masks and hazmat suits on.

(which, might I add, is so fucking cool because seeing humans through another creature's eyes really is an eldritch horror experience, Lovecraft move over we have @quiddie now)

Two things jumps out to me straight away: the Meadow and the dust storm.

The Meadow was full of blue flowers, but also seems like it was protected by electricity somehow (the lighting coming from the earth). Was it electric fences ? A force field ? Why would humans protect flowers ?

Now, the dust storm is weird. Sure, a truck (or multiples) can kick off a lot of dust, but not enough to kill MOST OF THE STOATS in the Red Warren. The damages it dealt means it was more than dust in there, and when Viola remembered the dust cloud from the end of Episode 1, Aabria added something about it being kicked off "on purpose". Was the purpose to get rid of the stoats? To empty out the forest of threats like the parasited bear ?

Another detail I saw in Episode 3 is when Izzy asked if she was able to read English, Aabria confirmed the humans language isn't English because she "doesn't want the events to be able to be attached to a real place". So the events probably are inspired by multiple real life events but she wanted to be cool about it and have creative liberty and not tie it to a specific setting and have people in the comments calling out inaccuracies the whole time (which... fair)

Finally, with next week's teaser and Viola's vision of seeing her kids in a grey smooth stole burrow, we can assume that the facility has been abandoned by humans and reclaimed by stoats. All of that is speculative since the next episode isn't out yet though.

With all of this new info, here's my theory:

The Blue is the consequence of a human-made thing that went out of hands. Is it radiation? Pollution? Something else? Don't know yet. But it's airborne and has affected an entire perimeter around the facility and the creatures within it.

Humans don't seem to approach the Blue without hazmat suits, and protect the area with electricity, either to keep stuff from coming into the area, or to avoid affected creatures to leave the area. (the Meadow was described as far south in relation of the second sun so it might be around the border of the area ?)

A recent expedition into the polluted area kicked off a lot of dust, and the concentration of Blue killed the weaker stoats: elders and children. It might also be a gas that was spread by humans to quell the number of animals in the area, because they know they've been affected (sapience, mutations) and want a clear path to go back into the area without much threat.

The epicenter of the Blue, the facility, since it was deserted, has been used by stoats because the Blue gives them powers; it made them intelligent, capable of some sort of magic, so why not go closer to the source of their power ?

The whole situation makes me think of some ecological disasters - Chernobyl being front and center - with these mutations and invisible force/enemy. Maybe the zone was evacuated of human presence for a long time, leaving the stoats to develop their society (irl stoats are very territorial and don't like to share quarters after all). But maybe they're coming back and menacing the family with their presence and activities. Maybe the stoats were an experiment that escaped when the Blue happened ? Maybe they were just affected by it the most out of all animals for some reason ?

I mean, I can spin theories all I want, but at the end of the day these stoats have invented a writing system so it might be all for nothing and Aabria is a mastermind operating beyond the scope of our minds

Concept: the Chernobyl warnings in the Phantomhive manor after Sebastian claims O! Ciel's soul. Just imagine it.

"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here."

- The entrance hall, dilapidated, with the stairs collapsing on themselves. The Phantomhive insignia is scattered around the room.

"What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger."

- A hallway, with paintings falling and torn. The portrait of Vincent and Rachael is present.

"The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us."

- Panning downstairs to the kitchen, then to the servants quarters, then to Sebastian's bedroom.

"The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours."

- Lingering wisps of magic, a shadow in the corner. Sebastian is long gone and yet the tainted nature of him lingers.

"The danger is to the body, and it can kill."

- An abandoned silverware knife near the sink. There's dried blood on it that was never cleaned. There was no one left to clean it.

"The form of the danger is an emanation of energy."

- An eye patch left behind on a random floor. It should not be there. But no one remains to claim it.

"The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited."

- The Young Lord's room. A tea set sits untouched. The binds are drawn. The candles are unlit and burnt down to the base. No one is left.

𝐖𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤!

It's been just over a year since we've shared an update here - but worry not, we've not disappeared!

We've been extensively traveling across Europe and America and can't wait to share with you locations from:

🇦🇱 Albania 🇧🇾 Belarus 🇺🇦 Chernobyl 🇪🇪 Estonia 🇮🇪 Ireland 🇱🇻 Latvia 🇱🇹 Lithuania 🇲🇰 Macedonia 🇵🇱 Poland 🇪🇸 Spain 🇬🇧 United Kingdom 🇺🇸 USA

Highlights include abandoned ghost towns, former military bases, hospitals, hotels, abandoned fighter planes, Soviet relics and more!

Furthermore, we've revamped the site with a new urbex map, allowing you to discover nearby locations. Plus, our urbex guides cover everything from essential equipment to location scouting, safety measures, and the legal aspects of urbex exploration.

We're thrilled to be back! Stay tuned for a new report tomorrow.

The Black Bird of Chernobyl

The Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 is arguably the worst nuclear disaster of modern times. Strangely, if reports uncovered following the end of the Cold War are to be believed, many of the plant workers and residents of the nearby town of Pripyat reported seeing a strange, bird-like figure with red eyes in the air above the town in the days leading up to the tragedy. Even stranger, many of them reported receiving strange phone calls with only mysterious noises on the other end before the line went dead.

Many also spoke of experiencing a sudden onset of nightmares.The firefighters and emergency responders who were sent into the immediate vicinity following the explosion also reported seeing a strange winged creature flying through the air, weaving in and out of the smoke while they did their best to fight the blaze and rescue any survivors.

To add even more intrigue to the alleged strange events, a strange cigar-shaped object was observed almost directly over the disaster site for several hours following the explosion. The creature became known as the Birdman of Pripyat or the Black Bird of Chernobyl. Skeptics argue that it was simply a large bird.

"No bullets left"

I HATE SNORKS BRUH EVERY TIME THEY JUMP OUT OF NOWHERE MY HEART ALMOST STOPS😭😭

location: lab x18, game - shadow of chernobyl