May 23, 2015
Hotel: Hotel Kozatskiy; Kiev, Ukraine ($29)
Looking back at it, 1986 was a crazy year. The Challenger disaster was in January, and Chernobyl was in April. I also had some devastating family issues that year.

Today was set aside for a full-day trip to Chernobyl. The SoloEast tour company picks up from outside the Kozatskiy hotel, very convenient for me. Breakfast at the hotel was a bit odd with macaroni and meatballs on offer and didn't start until 8AM which didn't leave much time. People were already waiting on the tour at 8:15 and the guide showed up wearing a Hard Rock Chernobyl shirt. I just had to have one, they sell them for $20 and luckily he had my size. The trip to Chernobyl requires long pants/sleeves. I had forgotten but luckily had my fleece with me. Another guy showed up in shorts and t-shirt and he had to borrow some pants. We had a pretty big group, nearly 20 people. We finally set off about 9AM for the 2hr drive to the exclusion zone. Along the way they showed videos and documentaries about the Chernobyl disaster. They had taken a control reading in central Kiev, background radiation there was 0.12 micro-Sieverts/hr.

We arrived at the border to the 30km exclusion zone where we had to show our passports and don our long-sleeves. The guide mentioned that the roads and buildings were decontaminated, but the ground and dirt surrounding was still 'hot' in many places. Passed through the town of Chernobyl itself, which is still several miles away from the reactor. Workers still live here on an on/off rotation. Our first stop was an abandoned kindergarten, with creepy dolls and barren beds. Most of the buildings in this town had been demolished. After the kindergarten we drove to a panorama of the 6 reactors. There were two reactors that were under construction at the time (5&6) and the cranes still are there to this day. In the middle were reactors 1&2 and then finally the building containing 3&4. Even crazier, I never realized that the other reactors continued to operate up until 2000. Behind reactor #4, was the huge arch of the new sarcophagus, nearly complete. Eventually this will cover the old sarcophagus and be used to dismantle the old reactor.

Exclusion zone

Dos and Don'ts





Abandoned kindergarten




Chernobyl

The town of Pripyat was the next stop. This town was built for the workers at the plant and received some of the highest doeses of radiation.. indeed we passed through a still-hot zone (5+ uSievers/hr). The town had only been built in 1970, so it now has been abandoned for twice as long as it was inhabited. Nature has definitely taken over and it can be hard to see the buildings now behind the trees. We walked through the main square where there used to be a supermarket and restaurant before arriving at the amusement park. This park was scheduled to open just a few days after the disaster, so it was never used. The skeleton of the ferris wheel still looms overhead and there are decaying bumper cars under twisted roof beams covered in vegetation. The open area here still has hot areas as it was used for a landing point for helicopters attempting to extinguish the fires.



Pripyat

Behind the amusement park was the sports field... we didn't even realize we had walked over the running track due to it being so overgrown. After the track we went to an abandoned swimming pool and high school. The whole place felt very creepy. All the windows were smashed out and the buildings had been fairly well looted. The high school had a floor covered with gas masks and empty rooms with creepy dolls everywhere. We also went into one of the residential apartment buildings to see what remained.








Pripyat

It was lunchtime by this point so we drove to the canteen near the nuclear plant. Background radiation here was back to 0.12 uS/hr but we still all went through radiation detectors before chowing down. Food is safe as it is brought from outside the zone. Nearby was a canal... mutated or not there was one huge catfish. We drove up to the monument overlooking reactor #4, only staying a few minutes as exposure risk here is still high.



On the way back to Kiev, we did a detour to see the 'Russian Woodpecker.' This was a huge over the horizon radar that operated in the 1980s. Nearly a km long, the radio pulses it generated interfered with ham radio and airline navigation for years. Now silent and alone. Some people are daring and have climbed up into the antenna, but none of our group seemed up to it. It was a long drive back into town and I crashed in my room for awhile before heading out for dinner.




Chernobyl town sign


Going through the radiation detector

I wanted to try some traditional Ukranian food and Spotkyach fit the bill. I ordered borscht, potato pancakes and dumplings (pierogi) along with a shot of raspberry spotkyach (liqueur). My eyes were a bit bigger than my stomach though as the borscht alone was worthy of a meal. I debated dessert but was totally stuffed at this point.


Borscht, Potato Pancakes and Dumplings

When checking my maps I noticed there was a funicular behind St. Michaels church. The cars run up and down the hill for 4 hryvnia. There was a metro station at the bottom where I caught it back to Maidan. The metro station here was incredibly deep like those in Moscow. I wanted to see the 'Friendship Arch' so wandered to a nearby park but the arch was not lit up tonight. Back to the hotel to crash.

Funicular



Kiev metro