Eiffel Tower of Trenċín and the Chernobyl Riviera

May 25, 2025

The mayor here said that the old railway bridge (still amazed there’s no name for it!) is the “Eiffel Tower of Trenċín,” which immediately triggered in me that I once met with the mayor of Ivankiv, the county seat of the Chernobyl district (Leaflet does not support footnotes, so scroll down to see my footnotes from this article. Consider this 1). He said that Ivankiv, and the surrounding villages , was the “Chernobyl Riviera.”

This was such an incongruous image that I knew I must seek out this Riviera. Could it really be true? Indeed, it was.

There are almost two dozen volyky domu – mansions – on Kyiv Lake, the same body of water the Chernobyl nuclear factory sucks its water supply from, just a few kilometres to the north. These homes are fitted with perimeter walls, satellite dishes and Range Rovers. New fibreglass boats sit in the water, waiting to take their owners out to catch catfish. In the forest at the edges of their property, fat wild boar wait to be killed. And eaten. “Look at this beautiful view,” said vacationing Sergei Kuzmenko, “It’s better than in the movies.”

Life on the Chernobyl Riviera

This is not a surprise, as mayor’s love nothing more than aspirational branding. It’s a shortcut to cultural value by matching their local landmarks with the iconography of global recognition. Both these mayors tapped into symbolic capital as a means of generating civic pride.

No caption necessary.

While at first I saw the mayor of Ivankiv’s branding as darkly comic, I certainly could understand why he was so desperate to change the script: mention ‘Chernobyl’ to most as a holiday destination, and I’m sure your days as a travel agent would be over as immediately it began. Imagine being the mayor of a town absolutely nobody wants to visit. So why wouldn’t he try and place Ivankiv on a mental map that people understand? (footnote 2)

I think these mayors’ desire to culturally attach themselves to something beyond their city limits reveals something else, something deeper: anxiety about visibility. I like that the mayor calls this bridge his Eiffel Tower (footnote 3), as he promotes a larger question that I find helpful: what kind of seeing does a bridge (or other infrastructure) deserve?

The Eiffel Tower of Paris

The Eiffel Tower of Trenċín

I am intrigued by this friction that both mayors conjured, between local banality and symbolic inflation, the infrastructural and the iconic. I’m not sure attention alone can confer significance, but perhaps the viewing platforms (and other actions) I have in mind can hold that question open, as a way to stage infrastructure on site and in view, so all of us can have our own, personal, Riviera’s.

Footnotes

1) I made this story in 2010, well before the Russians invaded. Ivankiv was one of the first cities to be occupied by the Russians in 2022, and many villages in this direct area were destroyed. I am sure Russian soldiers found the “Chernobyl Riviera” and turned it into something much more gruesome for their own feral needs.

2) He also told me that one day, he hopes Chernobyl potatoes will be as popular as Spanish oranges.

3) Granted, he’s referring not to the bridge in its present state, but its future. See here .