Chernobyl

After meeting up in Maidan Nezalazhnosti (Independence square), my fellow extreme tourists and I hopped into our minibus and headed north towards the site of the worlds worst nuclear accident. Progress was slow, with heavy traffic and poor roads, as well as the unusual route, it took us 3 hours to get to the checkpoint of the 30KM exlcusion zone. The guards took us off the bus one by one and checked our passports before we headed towards the small village of Chernobyl where our guide was waiting for us. We were led up to a small briefing room where he checked that we all had closed shoes and full length trousers, as shorts and sandals are strictly prohibited. The briefing was concise and the divisions between the 30KM exclusion zone and the most dangerous 10KM exclusion zone containing the reactor itself were explained in detail. After a short Q&A session, we headed further into one of the worlds most dangerous places stopping a couple of times to see among other things, the monument to the firefighters. These poor souls were pretty much sent to their deaths very soon after the explosion with little or no knowledge that the levels of radiation in the building were so strong that in some cases they would not last more than a few days or weeks. Were it not for their heroic efforts in the early hours of April 26th 1986, the 30KM exclusion zone would have been an 800KM zone!

After the monument we headed towards the power plant which is very large indeed. There were 4 reactors at the plant with a further 2 under construction and the cranes that were being used still stand today. As we moved closer toward reactors 1 & 2 our guide asked us to leave our cameras on the bus as Russian and Ukranian secret service staff were present and tend to get nervous about western tourists taking photos. We crossed a railway bridge and our guide produced a loaf of bread that he had somehow smuggled in and started to throw chunks of it in the cooling channels (man made rivers to feed the reactors with water). Much to our surprise, 10 to 15 foot long catfish emerged and swallowed the large chunks of bread whole. I'm not sure what the reasons are for their huge size but they were very impressive (and hungry)!

As the bus wobbled along the crumbling service roads, reactor 4 got bigger and bigger until we had pulled up next to it (less than 100M away). Given the radiation levels here we would only stay for 20 minutes. The levels were several hundred times greater than normal and we were told about the working conditions inside the plant where 4000 people now work. Some workers arrive at the site, pass the checkpoints and head to their area where they can work for anything between 20 and 60 minutes per day, there are even some areas within the reactor itself where people can only be exposed for 2 minutes before going home! After some photos and a last look at the crumbling sarcophagus we headed futher north towards the workers' city.

Following another headcount from a soldier in blue fatigues, we were let through another checkpoint down a forest road, at least that's what it seemed to be... It was actually the lost city of Pripyat and every now and then we caught a glimpse of a tower block or a phone booth in between the trees and plants that had reclaimed the earth there. a few hundred yards later the trees cleared and we stopped in the centre of the city. It was eerie and almost as if it had been set up deliberately but after peering into what was the supermarket, it's obvious that it hasn't. We moved around to the back of the Restaurant and found the now famous fairground which is dominated by the huge ferris wheel that has not turned in over 21 years.

Our final 3 stops were a shore side view of several boats rusting away near the pripyat river, another monument to the disaster next to several of the 'liqidator's' vehicles and a surprisingly nice lunch back in sunny Chernobyl. The timing of the weather was amazing as no sooner had we got back on the bus, it rained like you wouldn't believe!