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Visiting Chernobyl was not in my travel plans-thanks to a friend, I learned about organized tours that take one to visit this ghost town, which became infamous sadly because of the April 1986 nuclear disaster. Chernobyl can be visited only with an organized tour: it is necessary to go with a guide. On this day you learn a lot about what happened in those ominous days.

Visiting Chernobyl: the sarcophagus and the Red Forest

The tour starts at 8 a.m. and you arrive in the “Red Zone” after about an hour and a half. As the first thing you see is the sarcophagus used to cover nuclear reactor number 4. This sarcophagus was built for the purpose of limiting radioactive contamination in the area.

The second tour is devoted to the Red Forest, which is still contaminated in some sections. Tour organizers provide a Geiger counter, i.e., a nuclear radiation detector: in this area the counter “beeps” continuously, signaling an area at risk, where you stop for very few minutes.

Visiting Chernobyl: Pripyat

After visiting the Red Forest we arrive in Pripyat, the town closest to the nuclear power plant. Pripyat at the time was a small town of 50,000 and was considered a small Soviet jewel: in addition to being modern, it was also referred to as the city of flowers as it was well maintained and adorned with many flower beds. In Pripyat we walk around the abandoned city for about two hours. The guide is very good at explaining the locations: the bakeries, houses, schools, supermarkets.

At the end of the walk in Pripyat we arrive at the main square. Unfortunately, this square also became the most contaminated area because of the helicopters that landed nearby after flying over the nuclear power plant (in fact, there was a hotel in the square that was used as a base in the first days after the disaster). Near the center is a playground that was never used: it would be opened on May 1, 1986, which was 5 days after the disaster.

The fourth visit, not far from Pripyat, is to the fire station, where it is possible to see the vehicles used in 1986.

Visiting Chernobyl: Duga antenna – 3 and the country of Chernobyl

In the afternoon we go to visit Duga-3, which is the world’s largest antenna capable of intercepting missiles. It is impressive to see this 150-meter high, 90-meter wide and 700-meter long construction dating back to the 1970s. The Duga – 3 certainly is among the largest antennas ever built in the history of mankind: the maximum range even reached 2500 km. At the time, the location of this antenna (which is actually scary) was known only to NATO:

The last visit is to the town of Chernobyl: this is a town that is still inhabited, despite there being a curfew from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. Near Chernobyl is a memorial dedicated to all the towns evacuated in 1986. About 200 towns were evacuated: reading their names gives a sense of the extent of the disaster.

We return to Kiev at 7 p.m. with a big lump in our throats.

ORGANIZING A VISIT TO CHERNOBYL

As mentioned at the beginning, it is not possible to visit Chernobyl alone. One must, in fact, visit Chernobyl with a guided tour: I highly recommend that of Civitatis. The tour is about 12 hours long; Kiev is a great place to visit Chernobyl. I also recommend devoting a few days to visiting Kiev and, more generally, Ukraine..

WHY VISIT CHERNOBYL?

In my opinion, it is a live history lesson: I had never walked through an abandoned city, and the guide is very good at explaining all the historical events and trivia. In particular, the visit to the antenna left me dumbfounded: seeing such a gigantic construction, created on defensive purposes only, gave me for the clear perception of how tight the rope was between the US and USSR and how close the world was to a third disastrous world war. The visit to Chernobyl is a mix of history and heartbreak.

IS IT SAFE TO VISIT CHERNOBYL?

• Contamination is still present in the area, but it is confined almost exclusively to the Red Forest. In fact, the Geiger counter only reached the critical value during the Red Forest crossing. In addition, some machinery (such as vehicles used by firefighters) also has above-normal radioactive data.

• A day at Chernobyl exposes to about 0.004 millisieverts: this figure is similar to that obtained after an hour on an airplane. Every human being is continuously exposed to radiation: spending a few hours in Chernobyl is not a risk if the recommendations are followed.

• So what are the recommendations for seeing Chernobyl safely? You absolutely must wear closed clothes and shoes (wash them thoroughly at home), you cannot sit on the floor, you must not touch the various objects (let alone take them home), and you cannot eat in the alienation zone. The last check is done at the exit of the alienation zone: in fact, the exposure figure accumulated by each individual during the day is measured.

CHERNOBYL, WHAT HAPPENED?

What happened at Chernobyl on the night of April 26, 1986? The Chernobyl accident, classified as level 7 (on a scale of 7, thus catastrophic) was due to a concatenation of human and instrumental errors (in particular, poorly designed control rods). During a safety test, in fact, the reactor lost power: the test was not aborted and the plant was not shut down. On the contrary, reactor power was increased by pulling out the control rods: the reactor became totally unstable, and at that moment it was decided to shut down the reactor. The dramatic consequence of putting in the control rods and shutting down the reactor was the explosion of Reactor 4.

The explosion literally uncovered the reactor: shortly afterwards a second explosion completely destroyed the building. After a few days of impasse, the Soviet government decided to evacuate more than 300,000 people: the area, in fact, was exposed to radioactive levels millions of times higher than natural radiation (to exemplify, a figure of one hundred thousand x-rays per hour is calculated).

It is not easy to calculate the human losses due to the Chenobyl tragedy, In fact, in addition to the 65 confirmed deaths (mostly rescuers) we must add about 4 thousand deaths, due to a rise in cases of thyroid cancer.