Stalking the Atomic City: Life Among the Decadent and the Depraved of Chornobyl

Part Kerouac. Part Barry Lopez. Totally weird and poetic. Travelers make their journeys to the Zone from all over the world for all different reasons. Kamysh guides them through. No stories here exactly, just life — kind of. Sometimes reality can be much stranger than fiction, and here we get what very well could be a final glimpse of a relatively undisturbed Chernobyl, a place the author calls "the most exotic place on Earth." Recommended By Eric L., Powells.com

"His voice must be heard." —Patti Smith

"A poetic rush to madness...a stunning, original voice as lyrical as it is unnerving.
—Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown

In the shadow of catastrophe, Markiyan Kamysh writes with all of youth's wayward lyricism, like a nuclear Kerouac. —Rob Doyle, author of Threshold

A rare portrait of the dystopian reality of Chornobyl, Ukraine, as it was before the Russian occupation of 2022.

Since the nuclear disaster in April 1986, Chornobyl remains a toxic, forbidden wasteland. As with all dangerous places, it attracts a wild assortment of adventurers who feel called to climb over the barbed wire illegally and witness the aftermath for themselves. Breaking the law here is a pilgrimage: a defiant, sacred experience mingled with punk rock, thrash metal, death, decay, washed down with a swig of high-proof Vodka.

Author Markiyan Kamysh grew up with intimate knowledge of the devastation of the nuclear plant's explosion — his father was an on-site liquidator after the disaster and died of exposure when Markiyan was young. This, too, drives him in searching for meaning instead in the beauty and chaos of what remains.

In Stalking the Atomic City, Kamysh tells us about thieves who hide in the abandoned buildings, the policemen who chase them, and the romantic utopists who have built families here, even as deadly toxic waste lingers in the buildings, playgrounds, and streams. The book is complete with stunning photographs that may well be the last images to capture Chornobyl's desolate beauty since occupying Russian forces started to loot and destroy the site in March 2022.

An extraordinary guide to this alien world many of us will never see, Kamysh's singular prose that is both brash and bold, compared to Kerouac and gonzo journalists, captures the understated elegance and timeless significance of this dystopian reality.

“A visceral, graphic report from dystopia.” Kirkus Reviews

“Evocative...a stark metaphor for post-Soviet depravity....Captures the zone's strange mix of beauty and bleakness with precision. A captivating study of 'the most exotic place on earth.'” Publishers Weekly

“The exhilaration of the intrepid trespasser sings throughout this crass, funky ode to an addiction to living in the realm of desolation.” Peggy Kurkowski, Shelf Awareness

“A gonzo account of life as a 'stalker' — a shadowy thrill-seeker haunting the Chornobyl exclusion zone after dark, sneaking past the guards and scaling radio masts. Kamysh's throbbing, fragmentary prose offers heart-stopping insight into what drives those who choose to trespass in dangerous places: reckless abandon in abandoned places.” Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

“Stalking the Atomic City is a brilliant, angry, witty, passionate book about the end of the future and what happens afterwards — Tarkovsky meets Hunter S. Thompson. Read it.” Kevin Power, author of White City

“If Hunter S. Thompson were to write a Lonely Planet Guide to the Zone, it might sound something like Stalking the Atomic City — but Kamysh's range is broader, his perceptions and language more nuanced.” Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr, The Harvard Review

Markiyan Kamysh is a Ukrainian writer who, since 2010, has illegally explored the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and represents it in literature. He is the son of a Chornobyl liquidator who died in 2003. His first book, Stalking the Atomic City, was translated into multiple languages. You can also follow Markiyan on Instagram, @markiyankamysh. He lives in Kyiv.