studentsineurope

Tour a Nuclear Disaster Site!

Most of us who were already born were too young to remember, but on April 26, 1986, the nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in present-day Ukraine melted down and spewed a devastating amount of radioactive material into the air.  At first the Soviet government tried to keep it under wraps, but once they realized the magnitude of the disaster, they were evacuating area residents by the busload.

They never returned.

The refuse of the Soviet Union rots, rusts, and collects dust in ghost-town Pripyat.

Now, Pripyat, the once-thriving town closest to the power plant, is a radioactive ghost town and an eerie portrait of life in the twilight of the Soviet Union.  Except for what was removed by clean-up crews and scavenged by looters, everything that was there on April 26 remains today.  It’s like a communist Pompeii.

But now it’s capitalist 2009.  Why not make money off it?  Some entrepreneurial (or opportunistic, depending on how you look at it) individuals have for several years been organizing group day trips for the curious and adventure-seeking.  A number of tour companies and travel agencies based in Kiev, about 100 km from Pripyat, arrange tours at a cost of between $150 and $250 per person (the cost is greater when there are fewer participants.)  The fee takes care of transportation, bureaucratic arrangements to enter the so-called “Chernobyl Exclusion Zone,” a guided tour of Pripyat – and radiation testing upon departure.  You know, to make sure you aren’t, like, dying or whatever.  (According to the Wikipedia entry on Pripyat, whose source is unclear, radiation poisoning is an extremely minimal risk, and the guides will steer you away from the most dangerous areas.)

For those who are undeterred, Pripyat can be a wonder to behold.  An amusement park that never had the chance to open its door sits unused, its Ferris Wheel in permanent stasis.  School walls adorned with the work of children collect dust.  Untamed vegetation is reclaiming squares and courtyards once smoothed over with concrete.  One tour company gives the following itinerary (even nuclear wasteland trips have an itinerary): a 9:00am bus ride from Kiev takes visitors to the area, passing through the exclusion zone checkpoint and onward to the also-abandoned village of Leliyov and Pripyat.  After that, there is a stop by the “Red Forest,” so called because radiation has permanently altered the color of the trees.  Yay.  From there, they go to the Chernobyl Scientific Center and to another village where day-trippers supposedly have the opportunity to meet with “re-settlers” who have moved back after the disaster.  Then, onward through the control point to check your dose of radiation and back to Kiev.

Costly?  Sure.  Dangerous?  Maybe.  But a once-in-a-lifetime experience?  Without a doubt.