I’m picked up at my hotel in Kiev, along with five other intrepid travellers. Sergei, the rep from the travel company, seats us in the VW Transporter and warns us that, when we get to Chernobyl, we can enter any building but at our own risk.
They’ve been abandoned for more than 20 years and some are in an advanced state of decay. He tells us that one visitor the previous month had fallen and cut herself on broken glass and it’s a long, long way to a hospital. With a smile, he slams the bus door and shouts: “Remember, don’t step on the grass or the moss and keep to the tar.”
We leave in the rush-hour traffic - through the outskirts of Kiev and then through pine and birch forests - 130km to Chernobyl. One sees few people and no animals in the fields.
We arrive at the first of the military road blocks, Dytyatky, a guarded checkpoint marking the border of the 30km “zone of estrangement” or “zone of alienation”. This is the entrance to the exclusion zone that circles the area around the reactor and where no one gets in without permission. The city of Chernobyl lies within this zone.
“No photos,” says the guide. I sneak one through the window as he and the driver get out to present the soldiers with our papers. The barrier goes up and we continue on the road to Chernobyl.
Doesn’t look much different - no animals though - a bit scrubby, then forests with lines of birch trees - well it is November.
‘Don’t step on the grass or the moss’
Denis, the guide, gives us some background. Chernobyl is about 20km from the site of the nuclear power plant and, as it was the closest city, that’s how the power plant got its name. Chernobyl, once home to 14 000 inhabitants, is now basically uninhabited. About 500 people do still live there - scientists and radiation physicists, plant workers and construction crews and “liquidation” officials, as well as a few old returning residents.
We arrive in the city - it is virtually deserted - - a couple of maintenance people - a few soldiers. We drive under the gas pipes that snake above the roads - Denis tells us they can’t put them underground because of the contamination.
We stop at a building housing the “Chernobylinterinform”, one of the departments of the ministry of emergencies of Ukraine - an oldish wooden building where we go upstairs to get an official briefing.
It starts with the night of April 26 1986, at 1.23am when Reactor No 4 exploded. Something went wrong during a safety test and the reactor suffered a catastrophic steam explosion that destroyed part of it, resulting in a severe nuclear meltdown.
Graphite fires broke out at temperatures of up to 2 000�C and tons of radioactive debris was hurled several kilometres. The reactor core burned for 10 days, sending a plume of lethal smoke into the atmosphere.
The highly radioactive fallout drifted across most parts of Europe, even reaching the eastern United States and parts of Japan. The Soviet government did not admit an accident for three days and only after the smoke set off radiation alarms in Sweden.
Wall maps show the extent of the radioactive cloud that was released at the time of the explosion. The depth of redness denotes the highest area of radioactivity. I notice that we are going to be in the deep red zone.
‘To those who saved the world’
We are then instructed where we can walk and, more importantly, where not to - the grass or the moss - and not to put anything on the ground. We all sign liability disclaimers. We troop downstairs back to the minibus. Downstairs some old ladies are preparing our lunch for later that day - we all use the toilet - our last chance for a while.
Finally, we try out the radiation machine - like an old chemist’s scales - feet placed on the raised portion and palms on the panels at the top. The machine turns green each time - the correct colour -we’re okay so far.
A few cats with kittens play on the ground outside - we all avoid touching them.
We set off again and move down the street to the monument to the courageous firefighters of Chernobyl. They were the first on the scene of the disaster. The plaque reads “To those who saved the world”. Many died soon afterwards.
On the way to the power plant we stop at the 10km road block, the Leliv checkpoint. This is the boundary of the second exclusion zone - the “inner zone”.
We stop a bit further down the straight road at a sign indicating the village of Kopachi - the nearest old village to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It’s no longer there. Along with 78 other villages in the area, it was completely demolished due to contamination, bulldozed and buried in its entirety, under mounds of soil. The people were evacuated, never to return.
Only rusty triangular yellow signs dot the landscape marking the highly radioactive remains. Scrubby bushes and trees struggle to get a foothold.
On again towards Reactor No 4. We stop at the side of the canal that leads to the cooling pond - in reality a man-made lake, now with radioactive sediment at the bottom. We look at the remains of Reactors 5 and 6 which were still being built at the time of the disaster. Cranes stand like vultures over the unfinished buildings. This would have been the largest nuclear power plant in the world.
We move on. It starts to rain - we stop in a car park about 50m to 75m from the Reactor No 4 sarcophagus. Beyond the wire mesh fence is the large concrete domed structure that covers the ruined reactor. Parts of the concrete shell are cracked and crumbling, slowly disintegrating, and the outside is stained with rust. Underneath all of this, there are tons of radioactive waste.
Amazingly, in late 1986, Reactors No 1, 2 and 3 were put back into operation. Reactor 2 was closed in 1991 after a fire, Reactor 1 in 1996 and the No 3 Reactor, adjacent to the destroyed No 4, was shut down only in late 2000. Denis tells us that a new steel structure will be built to replace this hastily built sarcophagus, but it’s likely to be at least five years before completion.
He casually mentions that the radiation levels here are 300 to 400 times the norm - we don’t linger. A few photographs and then off.
We stop on the outskirts of Pripyat at the so-called Bridge of Death. Sited above an overgrown railway line, it gives a good view of the reactor. It is said that many people came from the town to watch as the reactor burned and got a large dose of radiation.
Another checkpoint and then we are into Pripyat. At 3km from the reactor, this city was newly built at the time of the power plant’s construction, in 1970, to house the staff of the nuclear plant and their families. In 1986, it was home to around 50 000 people. Now it is deserted. It was evacuated 36 hours after the explosion. Residents were allowed to take one suitcase and were told they would be away for three days. The entire population of the city was loaded on to 1 200 buses - the 15km-long line of buses wound its way to a village 70km away.
No one lives there now. No one was ever allowed back. Everything that was left behind stayed there.
After the control post, we drive down a long straight road, overgrown, with high-rise apartment blocks either side and stop in the large central square. Ahead is the empty Palace of Culture - to the right the abandoned Hotel Polissya and to the left a deserted restaurant. The roof of the hotel had been used to direct helicopters bombarding the burning reactor with sand and lead.
In the silent square, poplar trees have sprouted through the cracked concrete. We wander about by ourselves. Standing in the square looking up and down deserted streets with abandoned buildings is an eerie feeling - I hear no bird sounds - only doors creaking in the breeze. Almost total silence.
Its surreal emptiness has an unreal edge to it - - the ever-creeping moss - bright green and lush, sprouting up through cracked pavements. Trees sprouting from doorways. Behind us on the corner is a large apartment block where you can see the wallpaper curling off the walls.
Abandoned shops are on the ground floor and rusting telephone kiosks outside. A hammer and sickle decoration on a lamp post for the 1986 May Day celebrations that never took place, reminding us that all this took place when it was part of the Soviet Union.
We move on to a funfair that was due to open five days after the accident - it never did. A rusting ferris wheel no one has ever ridden. Dodgem cars frozen in time on a weed-infested track. A fairground ride, its swings rusted and twisted.
We go into a nearby technical school - overturned chairs, rusty lockers - some ceilings have collapsed and the floors are disintegrating.
We follow Denis into the darkness of what was once the police station. He leads the way over crumbling concrete floors behind the charge desk to the cells. Index cards litter the floor. Feeling our way and gingerly stepping through broken glass, it is pitch black until someone uses his camera flash.
This city is like a time capsule - it is possible to go into any of the buildings (at your own risk) to see what remains, after 20 years. Everything inside the buildings was left behind.
Denis says that, since the 1990s, many buildings have been looted and ransacked. The city will not be safe for centuries. Some radiation released will take 300 years to decay to one-thousandth of its present level.
We stop near the site of the Red Forest. Now bulldozed and buried in trenches, the entire forest went red just after the accident. It is said to be one of the most contaminated places in the world. New trees are sprouting up and scientists watch to see what will happen.
Denis tells us that some wild life - wolves, foxes, wild boar - has come back into the area in the absence of humans, although we saw nothing.
“Don’t step there,” he shouts at me as my foot sinks a little into the mud. The radiation is much higher here in the surface layers of the soil. I rinse my shoe in a nearby puddle and hope it’s enough.
Then on to the river - dozens of large rusting half-sunken boats litter the shore and the abandoned ports. They were used to transport debris and are too contaminated to use again. Then on to a graveyard of vehicles used in the emergency - lorries, fire engines, helicopters, buses, armoured vehicles - all left to decay.
Back to Chernobyl for lunch - our “ecologically clean meal”, as the brochure promises. En route, we stop at a little shop selling food and drink for the workers who live there. I buy a Sprite.
Denis tells us that our food was brought from Kiev or at least from outside of the “dead zone”. It is tasty - cabbage salad, borscht soup and a meat and potato stew.
After lunch we again check our radiation levels on the radiation machine - all green. Cats are still playing around outside in the moss and grass. We see our first dog fast asleep under a tree.
We leave and, at the last checkpoint, the soldier orders us out and into a room where there are a line of what look like the starting gates at a race track. One for each of us. We stand in them, feet on the plinths, palms on the top panels. The lights go green, the gates click open and we pass through to the other side. We’re okay.
If you would like to book a trip to visit Chernobyl, contact Solo East Travel on www.tourkiev.com
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