Heart of the river - Urban Exploration.

Heart of the river - Urban Exploration.

In order to feel like an urban explorer, it is not at all necessary to buy a plane ticket and fly to the end of the world; this can be done in the city where you live, in its center, where, presumably, there are no blank spots.

I was not born in the city exactly, I have been living here since 2004.

Most of the city is still unexplored for me, but when such an opportunity arises, I put it in priority.

It seems to me that four o'clock in the morning is a good time to wake up. drink a cup of coffee and go in search of the unknown.

It was such a morning on January 19th of last year.

16 degrees Celsius below zero and early morning dusk.

My goal was to find an island in the hydropark, which, once they began to build in the middle of the Ustye River, which flows in the middle of our city and divides it into two halves connected by bridges.

This is a small river that flows out of the Basiv Kut Lake and flows into the Goryn River.

There is fish in this river, but I would not eat it. The reports of the sanitary and epidemiological station indicate that here, very often, the norm for the content of halera bacillus and Escherichia coli is exceeded.

In addition, water from the Tuberculosis Dispensary and many other sources is drained here in order to create risks of ruining your mood.

But, it adds extreme to my journey.

The island, which I was planning to find, I had not seen before, but I heard from fishermen that there is a place on the river where the grand construction of a recreation park was started.

I stopped my car near the river bank at half past five in the morning and began my journey.

More recently, high-rise buildings have begun to be built on the river bank. I will not argue with the architect. who decided it was a good place for a weaving house.

Except for some buildings on the opposite bank of the river, this area seems wild.

There is one restaurant here, the owner of which thought it would be a busy place, but this did not happen. There is no mass movement of people.

A sports complex has been built opposite the restaurant. sometimes they play football here.

There are many sports grounds behind this fence.

Gradually, I approached the place where that grandiose construction had begun. which I talked about earlier.

Concrete steps descended to the platform, which, most likely, was supposed to serve as a pier for pleasure boats and just sit on a bench as a place to rest.

The further I walked along the river bank, the more it became like the location of the game Stalker, or Fallout.

The screams of crows and the crackling of ice under my boots were the only sounds in this strange place.

It was a bit creepy here, but, most of all, I was worried that, in the cold, the battery of my camera would quickly run out.

From the first minutes, I did not worry about the outcome of the expedition, I found a lot of photographic subjects at every step.

It looks like a fungal disease of willow, or. this, some kind of parasite from the movie Aliens sucked on a tree branch.

The sewer brings warm liquid from the grateful residents of the city to the river and melts the ice on the surface of the river.

The similarity to the Stalker game intensified when I saw the chimneys of a thermal power plant. It's good that there is no nuclear reactor here.

Next, I saw the second pier, that meant. that I'm on the right track.

After walking another hundred meters, I saw something that did not fit into the concept of "Recreation Park", where people should walk along the river along the embankment.
How will they jump over these pipes lying on the ground and hanging overhead?

I remember myself in my youth, probably, I would have risked and climbed to the other side, but not this time.

I turned around and looked at the path I had traveled. Beautiful landscape, isn't it?

If I was looking for the heart of the river, then the heart of the city in this photograph.

Millions of liters of hot water run through these pipes there and back, warming houses and giving people hot water.

But, it becomes clear why the tariffs for hot water are so high.

All the warmth of this water is given to this abandoned place. I did not see any intact thermal insulation on the pipes.

It looks like the labyrinths of the minotaur.

It was very slippery here, I thought. that on such a journey you need to go in ice skates for figure skating.

Usually, there are maintenance personnel who make a round of the territory along which the pipeline is laid to check for damage, but, here, we have not heard of such people.

This is the source of high hot water tariffs.

Apparently, this pipeline was laid by those who believe that it is useful to be tempered in the cold.

I really wanted to walk along this pipeline. but, it was perpendicular to the direction of my movement towards the destination of the journey.

Here, I first saw a wild cucumber and its thorns.

The area of ​​the pipelines was abundantly overgrown with trees and created favorable conditions for the growth of fungi.

My photographs alternated one after another, my camera did not rest.

These mushrooms are well preserved if you consider that it is January.

Колючий огурец рос повсюду и дарил мне новые фотоснимки.

See how a cucumber vine climbed a tree ... how did she do it?

I had to climb through thorny obstacles.

When I saw the blue roof, I realized that the goal of my journey was already near.

But, cucumbers continued to haunt me, as guardians of this place.

The blue building hides the one to whom, every month, I pay for the electricity spent, a bad and greedy guy.

Sometimes, I turned around.

I have seen woody mushrooms, but I did not expect to see a common, banded mushroom at this time of year.

I think it's a fake honey fungus, poisonous but cute.

This is not a montage, I decided to confirm this fact of the find.

On a nearby tree, I saw another thermophilic mushroom called Oyster mushroom.

These are real walruses in the world of coffins.

On the tree stump, I saw a whole family of honey agarics.

We got contrasting photographs against the background of snow.

Another tree fungus is a tinder fungus that looks like an airship.

As it turns out, this is a mushroom paradise in the city center.

And now, the hour of X has come!

Through the trees I saw the purpose of my journey.

I saw two concrete islands of a circular shape, which were located in the center of the river.

Apparently, the builders had serious plans for these islands. I don't know what was supposed to be there, perhaps it should have been a cafe on the water, but there are trees growing there today.

I could not go further. Deep trenches with water blocked my way. I didn't risk it.

These islands looked like a balloon that no one needs anymore.

This ball swam near these islands, apparently, he knew that he was similar to them and decided to stay close to kindred spirits.

At first, I was upset that I could not go further, but, then, I thought about climbers, who, sometimes, make several attempts in order to climb the impregnable mountain. Perhaps I will come back here.

On the way back, new finds awaited me. Another parasite has taken a liking to a tree branch.

Another thrilling shot.

I have always liked taking pictures with reflections in water.

The planet Pandora exists!

Step by step civilization and its noise approached. But, no, not yet, very early in the morning, no noise.

When you see a lot of human footprints on the path, you understand that you have been where only you and the purpose of your journey exist.

Unfortunately, there is a photo upload limit, which I have exceeded, but you were able to get a general idea of ​​this morning adventure.

Author @barski
Ukraine

For my publications, I do not use stock photographs, it is fundamentally important for me to use photographs that I have made with my own hands for publication and I can name them - authorial work.

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