Chernobyl: A Stalkers' GuideDrawing on unprecedented access to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone including insights gained while working as a tour guide and during an illegal "stalker" hike Darmon Richter creates an entirely new portrait of Chernobyl's forgotten ghost towns, monuments and more Since the first atomic bomb was dropped, humankind has been haunted by the idea of nuclear apocalypse. That nightmare almost became reality in 1986, when an accident at the USSR's Chernobyl