Sights and Scars of Imagined Geography: Journeys through Environmental Disasters in Post-Soviet Countries

Recent travel writing responds to the ecological concerns of its readers and discovers ‘new exoticism’ in the places of environmental destruction. In this paper, we aim to explore the ecocritical insights in the travelogues across post-Soviet zones of radioactive hazard. We focus on the literary strategies used in the travelogues to describe invisible threats such as radiation. We demonstrate that while the contaminated sites in Chernobyl, Kyshtym and Semipalatinsk have suffered similar environmental harm, the travel accounts make a clear distinction between Chernobyl and other regions. Chernobyl is presented as a glamorised ‘dark tourism’ destination, whereas the affected areas in Russia and Kazakhstan are invisible to the public. Unlike Chernobyl, Kyshtym and Semipalatinsk remain populated and their inhabitants keep being exposed both to health risks and human injustice.