Thirty-five years after the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, then in the Soviet Union, the dead city is more alive than ever. In reality, the alienation zone, which has a radius of 30 kilometers around the plant, is naturally still in force: no one can live inside it, no one has returned from fleeing the days following the disaster, currently only a few thousand people involved in the decommissioned plant can live in the area, in shifts of 15 days.
As we have already told in our report, the disaster caused the abandonment of a city of about 50 inhabitantsas well as alarm and concern throughout Europe. Over the years Ukraine has found itself having to manage a burden with enormous costs and in addition to international aid it has discovered an unexpected source of income that exploits the tragedy: tourism.
Located a couple of hours by bus from the capital Kiev, the Chernobyl area, with the abandoned city of Prypyat, remained totally isolated from the world for years: then it was opened to small groups of tourists, who over the years have become an important in the national economy. In about 2019 200.000 people visited the area and the Ukrainian Minister of Culture Oleksander Tkachenko trusts the patronage of Unesco to make the area a gigantic natural theme park of horror for 1 million tourists a year.
The success of the television series “Chernobyl” which aired in 2019 and which increased tourism in the area by 30%: suddenly everyone wants to go and see the abandoned city and the power station, and offers flock.
Tour operators and their offers
Visit the Chernobyl plant and the abandoned city of Prypyat can only be done through a recognized agency: individual tours are not allowed and you must join groups organized by official government tours. You can also see videos on the internet of tours that enter Chernobyl from secondary roads and even promise overnight stays in abandoned buildings, but they are to be considered illegal and dangerous. There are areas where it is dangerous to stop and enter even for a few minutes, it is better to rely on official agencies.
Official tours depart from Kiev, include an initial briefing on how to behave in the exclusion zone (no souvenirs, avoid touching things, avoid sitting in contaminated areas, etc.) and can even last a couple of days, with an overnight stay in a Chernobyl hostel in full zone of alienation but in a safe area.
The Chernobyl Exclusive tours website offers one-day group tours already starting at $42 to get tours inside the Centrale (yes, despite everything it can be visited) from over $200. More expensive the day tour than Chernobyl Tours which starts at $99, but is very large and includes several stages.
But what do they see?
There are unexpectedly many things to see. The exclusion zone does include woodlands and small abandoned villages, but there are many interesting installations to visit, only discovered after the accident and subsequent abandonment of the zone. Above all there is Duga a gigantic antenna fed by the plant and used for spy on American nuclear missiles: it is a gigantic metal grate 150 meters high and almost 800 meters long easily visible from the Chernobyl buildings but which officially did not exist.
The focus of the visit is the exploration of Prypjat, the purpose-built city for workers of the plant and their families: its 50 inhabitants abandoned it from one day to the next, leaving everything behind. The tour allows you to see the schools with the books still on the desks and the shops with the goods left in the windows, the emotional impact is enormous. Then there is the visit to Chernobyl itself, a small town which gave its name to the whole tragedy but which in reality was only partially touched by the tragedy: here you can see how the people who still work around the plant live and do destroyed.
Another impressive site to visit is the unfinished part of the nuclear power plant, with the gigantic cooling towers never completed, the abandoned railroad and the nearby contaminated lake, full of abandoned radioactive boats and suspected gigantic catfish.
To Chernobyl by kayak, plane or following the TV series
The offers for alternative tours in the exclusion zone are increasing: Chernobyl Tour proposes a tour of rivers and lakes in the area by kayak, or a visit from the sky (costs starting from $230 per person) of the whole area, which is also the only way for minors to see the area. The same company offers a HBO tours which faithfully retraces the settings seen in the television series aired in 2019, a series which paradoxically was not filmed in Chernobyl precisely for safety reasons. The tour includes a ride at ground floor of the plant, where the first crisis headquarters was installed and even plans a ride in a armored vehicle used by the "liquidators" of the plant during the reclamation and containment work.
And if a nuclear power plant is not enough…
The offer of available tours and things to see has increased with the increase of tourists. A whole series of side tours are now available which have nothing to do with the actual nuclear accident, but which certainly contribute to making a visit of this kind even more extreme. Chernobyl Exclusive Tour proposes one “shooting tours” high adrenaline: for $150 you can go to a shooting range at shoot an AK-47 (the famous Kalashnikov) original, without formalities or permits of any kind. On the same day they will let you try the best of war weapons and not like the Dragunov sniper rifle, a shotgun a la Glock pistol.
Another out of the ordinary experience is always offered by Chernobyl Exclusive Tour: drive a Soviet crawler and destroy a car by running over it. All starting at $250, insurance included. Quieter but no less exciting is the tour of a original soviet missile base, to breathe the real cold war air. The tour at the Strategic Missile Forces Museum (starts at a few tens of dollars) takes you within a original silo 40 meters deep, where the ICBMs were kept. It is possible to visit the whole underground complex, including the cramped ones armored housing of those who should have unleashed an atomic war and outside a parade of intercontinental missiles is visible which frightened NATO. Ex-servicemen of the base act as site guides up to the famous room of the "red button", which would actually launch the atomic missiles.
