Elena Filatova

Infobox Writer
name = Elena Filatova


pseudonym = Kid of Speed
Gamma Girl
birthdate = 1974
birthplace = Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Writer, Photographer
genre = Nonfiction, History
movement =
notableworks =
influences =
influenced =

Elena Vladimirovna Filatova ( _ru. Елена Филатова, born 1974) is a Ukrainian motorcyclist and photographer who uses the online nickname "KidOfSpeed". Her website, containing a photo-essay of her solo motorcycle rides through Chernobyl's radioactive "dead zone", gained her internet fame.cite news|url=http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,18825302-912,00.html|title=Nuclear ghosts shadow victims|last=Staff|date=2006-04-15|publisher=The Advertiser (Adelaide)|accessdate=2008-09-05] It was later revealed that the story accompanying the photos was fictional; they were in fact taken during a public group tour.cite news
title= Pripyat Journal; New Sight in Chernobyl's Dead Zone: Tourists
last=Chivers
first = C.J.
publisher=The New York Times
date=2005-06-15
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902EEDD163BF936A25755C0A9639C8B63&sec=travel] Her website gained popularity due to its mention on Slashdot and other online news sources.cite news|title=The World; Account of Chernobyl Trip Takes Web Surfers for a Ride|last=Mycio|first=Mary|date=2004-07-06|publisher=Los Angeles Times|accessdate=2008-09-05]

Chernobyl photos and motorcycle trip

On her website, she posted photographs of her motorcycle and tour trips in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 18-21 years after the nuclear disaster there. She visited the virtually abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine and a circular area surrounding the 1986 Chernobyl disaster known as the Exclusion Zone.cite news|url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/russia/a-day-in-the-halflife-of-chernobyl/2005/08/24/1124562907092.html|title=A day in the half-life of Chernobyl|last=Staff|date=2005-08-27|publisher=Sydney Morning Herald|accessdate=2008-09-05]

Filatova took a large number of photographs of Chernobyl-area buildings, cottages, rusting never-to-be-used Pripyat carnival equipment, the interiors of disused schools and homes, fire, petrol, police and government stations, and of people who had since returned to the area. The photos are arranged in the form of a story presented as an account of a trip by a biker who travelled alone in the radiation zone. However, Chernobyl tour guide Yuri Tatarchuk claimed that Filatova "booked a tour, wore a leather biker jacket and posed for pictures."

Criticism and response

Around May 16, 2004, Filatova posted to her website that she was "being accused that it was more poetry in this story then reality. I partly accept this accusation, it still was more reality then poetry"; by May 24 she had removed the note. [cite web
title=Wayback archive for http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/
url=http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/
publisher=Internet Archive Wayback Machine
accessdate=2006-10-05] On the first page of her KiddofSpeed website there is a dialog embedded by the owner of her host server pointing out that regardless of whether or not "poetic license" was taken, the site serves to "remember a forgotten region".

Other projects

Among her more recent projects is a photo-journal about the Serpent's Wall near the city of Kiev, her home. The journal contains photos of Filatova's exploration of an ancient wall and more modern World War II fortifications built amongst its remains. She also includes history of the region during both the 1917 October Revolution and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

Other links in her website lead to her photo journal of the day of the Ukraine's Orange Revolution. In April 2007, she posted more photos of the surrounding Chernobyl area that had been taken in March of that year.

One of the latest projects on the site is photos of abandoned Soviet prison camps established under Stalin as part of the Soviet Gulag system.

References

Bibliography

*cite book
title=Tjernobyl. Dagbok från spökstaden
isbn=9171260501
first=Elena
last=Filatova
authorlink=Elena Filatova

External links

* [http://www.elenafilatova.com/ Filatova's homepage]
* [http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ older KiddOfSpeed homepage]
* [http://www.theserpentswall.com/ Filatova's documentation of the Serpent's Wall]
* [http://www.legag.com/tchernobyl/ La zone de Tchernobyl aujourd'hui, la ville fantôme de Pripyat, la terre des loups...] Photos de Elena Filatova