Those who re-enter the Zone, particularly the scientists and engineers exploring the sarcophagus, are called Stalkers. The plant is hastily covered with a concrete 'sarcophagus'. The surrounding area becomes highly irradiated and is closed off, dubbed the Zone of Alienation, the Exclusion Zone, or simply The Zone. In 1986, a blackout safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine causes its core to explode. The Strugatsky brothers in-turn novelise an early screenplay of the movie as Stalker.
In 1979, legendary Soviet-Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky loosely adapts the book into the equally respected and influential film Stalker. Bouis translates the book to English for the first time, and it becomes an acclaimed and influential novel across nations.
In 1972, Soviet-Russian author/brother duo Arkady and Boris Strugatsky released the Sci Fi novel Roadside Picnic: Aliens arrive on Earth at six Visitation Zones, leave reality-warping artifacts and anomalies behind, and go right back to outer space, much like how people leave their trash behind after a roadside picnic fortune-seekers, dubbed 'stalkers', illegally enter these zones in search of artifacts and knowledge.