We all know the sad story of Chernobyl (Ukraine), its nuclear power plant and the people who lived around it.
But, have you ever wondered if you can visit or do some kind of tourism? I asked myself and the answer is yes, can visit.
The nuclear power plant and Prypiat (ghost town, former pride of Soviet modernity) are located just 2 hours drive from Kiev, the capital of the country, about 100 kilometers to the north, next to the border with Belarus.
30 years after the disaster the levels of nuclear contamination are very high. Two perimeters of 2 km (where it is not possible to live) and 10 km (where it is not recommended to live) around the center have been determined. Still some people live inside this security perimeter.
The Ukrainian government gives the possibility to a certain number of agencies to make excursions and visits to the Chernobyl exclusion zone. In the same day you can visit and return.
The Ministry of Health obliges to register all tourists who access it in order to have controlled each person who enters and leaves.
How to go and what to see in the exclusion zone?
Es mandatory to hire an agency and go with a specialized guide. They handle all the necessary paperwork for you.
Most agencies offer complete excursions of 1 day or 2 days, sleeping in the hostel of the town of Chernobyl. The route is very similar from one company to another.
The return option from Kiev on the same day normally follows the following route:
- Entrance to the exclusion zone, anti-nuclear control and registration at the check-points 30Km and 10Km away. Upon leaving, nuclear decontamination control.
- Route through a totally abandoned town. Before the disaster there were 4000 people, now no one.
- Visit the town of Chernobyl, the robots used for decontamination and the memorial monuments. Engineers and soldiers live here in shifts who are in charge of completely cleaning up the area.
- Entrance to an abandoned and totally contaminated nursery. You can only do this part of the tour for 30 minutes due to health risk.
- Duga-3. Huge abandoned and rusty Soviet anti-missile radar in the middle of the forest.
- Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant: visit from the outside of each of its reactors, including number 4, the one that caused the disaster. Visit of maximum 5 or 10 minutes, just to go down and take 4 pictures.
- Red Forest. Forest that due to its proximity to the nuclear power plant turned red. Given the pollution levels of this forest, you cannot park, just see fast and circulating.
- Pripyat, the abandoned city. Route of about 2 or 3 hours through the Soviet pride town. A town that at the time was one of the most modern and complete in the former Soviet Union. It had 40000 inhabitants.
- Food in the Chernobyl canteen, the only place where you can eat and sleep.
The option of staying to sleep there and doing the excursion for 2 days contemplates everything described above but in more detail. That is to say, both in the town of Chernobyl and in Pripyat all the most emblematic points are visited and that are still standing. In addition, more stops are made at schools and hospitals along the way.
I don't know if it is really worth opting for the 2-day excursion. We do roundtrip from Kiev and we think it is enough. With 2 or 3 hours in Pripyat you can see and experience how tragic everything was. Give enough time to visit the most important points.
Is it safe to go to Chernobyl?
Surely, this will be the second question that you are going to ask and that I also asked myself when I considered going. The answer is: yes, but.
The Ukrainian government agrees to take excursions to the area despite the contamination levels still very evident. All routes include a fairly limited and signposted route. It is recommended and almost obliged not to leave the path that the guide follows at any time. There are areas where you can only be 5 minutes and areas where there is no contamination. The guides carry surface nuclear contamination meters at all times to ensure the safety of tourists.
At each check-point Health and contamination controls are carried out, both when entering and leaving. In theory, no person should be contaminated by exposure for 1 or 2 days. In case of detecting areas of the body with radioactivity, cleaning and total decontamination are carried out.
I recommend go with old clothes and mountain or sports. It is a totally destroyed, dirty and wooded area. Shoes are going to get dirty (and possibly contaminated). Therefore, it is better to wear clothes that we can undo in case of problems.
To clear up any doubts, the agencies explain that right now a 10-hour plane trip is more polluting at the nuclear level for the body than 1 day in Chernobyl. In any case, I would not go to the exclusion zone many times.
Is it worth going?
Going to Chernobyl is a very peculiar type of tourism.
It is an excursion that impacts a lot, I can say that there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. You end the day with a cluster of sad feelings, because of the story behind it, and it's shocked by everything you see.
I think it's a good option to go to the nuclear power plant area if you travel to Kiev. The capital has many things to offer, but within 2 hours by car you can do this unique excursion.
In the next post I will detail my experience and everything I saw, with impressive images.