72 Hours in Pripyat and Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: An Urban Explorer's Journey
I love to visit abandoned places and Urban Exploration, so when I first heard about the possibility to visit Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, I knew one day I will visit it. This is my relation from my 72 hours trip to the city of Pripyat and the surrounding villages.
The Chernobyl Disaster
Early of 26th April 1986, just another routine experiment in the fourth reactor went wrong, leading to the radiation breach equivalent to four hundred Hiroshima explosions.
For the attention of the residents of Pripyat! The City Council informs you that due to the accident at Chernobyl Power Station in the city of Pripyat the radioactive conditions in the vicinity are deteriorating. The Communist Party, its officials, and the armed forces are taking necessary steps to combat this. Nevertheless, with the view to keep people as safe and healthy as possible, the children being the top priority, we need to temporarily evacuate the citizens in the nearest towns of Kiev Oblast...
That day there was an experiment which was designed to get the information how long the support system of Chernobyl nuclear power plant would last after main power disable. Unfortunately, lack of people's training and poor system design led to a huge mistake. Automatic shut down mechanisms were disabled (for the test), so when te power surge occurred, there was no way to calm everything down. Reactor core exploded.
Some of the team died instantly, others died soon of acute radiation sickness. Same happened to the firefighter teams that arrived to help, most of them started to complain about the metallic taste in their mouth and died soon. Authorities soon realized the scale of the disaster and they sent automatic-controlled bulldozers without humans inside. Unfortunately, their electronics started to scramble by radiation, so at the end, it had to be people to go there and clear the bulk of the waste.
The core of the reactor was burning until 10th of May when people finally sealed it using more than 5000 metric tons of lead, clay, sand and neutron absorbing boric acid (which was dropped from helicopters). Later the sarcophagus made of iron was built and installed over the core and now the new one is built. Planned completion date was stated as November 2017.
Is it safe to visit Chernobyl and Pripyat today?
There are some rules you should follow, but yes, it is safe to have a trip to Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The rules are easy, and if you will follow them, you should not receive a daily radiation that is bigger that you receive durin1-hour flight or 1/160 of a chest x-ray. So make sure you:
- Follow group leader - he knows the best routes for you.
- Try not to walk on the high grass and do not sit on the ground - there still can be some radiation on the grass or in the ground holes.
- Try to not touch buildings, trees etc. - try to not touch anything if possible.
- Wear appropriate - wear long trousers and long socks, avoid open footwear.
- Try to not drink or eat in the open air - to make sure any of the radiation will get to your inside.
- Do not eat anything that you didn't take with yourself - do not pick any mushrooms, berries etc.
- Do not take anything with you - even a small rock in the zone can be radiated.
- Measure radiation - if you will receive a Geiger counter, make sure to measure radiation before you go to the building or before you will leave it.
Trip organization
All tours to the Pripyat are organized and guided, you cannot go there on your own. All tours depart from Kiev, and the Chernobyl Zone is about 5 hours drive from there.
What to take with you?
There are some things you should pack for the trip. Make sure to take long trousers, long socks and some kind of trekking shoes. This should be clothes that you should be able to throw away easily. The more you will cover yourself, the more safety you will be.
Take also a flashlight, as you will probably get inside some dark buildings. If you have or can afford, you can buy Geiger counter (ask firstly if you won't receive one from your tour guide). You should probably take also a photo camera with you because there will be a lot of awesome places.
Additional information
Some other information you can find useful.
- The most common trips to Chernobyl lasts 1 to 3 days inside Exclusion Zone. As far as I know longer trips are sometimes also available.
- You must have 18 years old or more to go to Chernobyl.
- You can fly your drone in Prypiat, it's also safe to take a tripod.
- Since 2012 you are not forbidden to go inside the buildings, but you will probably do this with your tour guide despite it.
- You will probably spend the nights in the newly reconstructed hotel in Chernobyl city where all the workers of the zone live (there is an internet connection there).
Duga radar
It was the Soviet Union OTH (Over The Horizon) radar system used as a part of the early-warning network. It was used from 1976 and stopped working after Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Located in the forests surrounding Chernobyl, but visible from miles.
Called also The Russian Woodpecker or The Steel Yard, Duga-3 was extremely powerful, over 10 MW in some cases, and broadcast in the shortwave radio bands. The Soviet Union was using Duga system to early inform about any objects (rockets or airplanes) flying towards them.
If you will want to climb Duga (it's not legal, but sometimes tour guides allow you to do this) prepare for a heavy effort - it's a long way up.
Pripyat
Pripyat town is named after the nearby river with the same name and it's an abandoned ghost town in northern Ukraine, near the border with Belarus. It was founded in 1970 as the ninth nuclear city in the Soviet Union and has more than 49 000 population just before Chernobyl disaster.
I decided to mostly show you here my photos from abandoned places across the Pripyat town, as it describes it better than the words.
There are so many different interesting places in the city of Pripyat. I have tons of photos and it was really hard to choose the ones to show you here. Hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions about Pripyat town itself, you can always ask me in the comments section below.
Villages near Chernobyl
Chernobyl is not only Pripyat but also many different small villages or farms. We had a quick tour through the most interesting ones, and here are some pictures I took.
Other places
While visiting Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, if you have some more time, it's also good to visit few other interesting places you can find there.
Cooling tower
One of the half-finished cooling towers, which lays 2.5 kilometers away from the Chernobyl Disaster. The plan was to build an even bigger nuclear plant here, but it all fails after the explosion.
Flooded barges
Near the Pripyat river, you can also find some flooded barges, dead fishes all across the coastline and many other interesting things.
Military unit with rocket bunker
We also found in the forest an abandoned military unit with an awesome rocket bunker, but I have no idea where that was and ever our tour guide said that he was there a first time.
Holiday resort
This is the much more popular place where a lot of tours come. This woodland holiday resort was the place where Chernobyl workers used to come to rest, but also many other people from all Soviet Union, especially from Kiev.
I have many more pictures (like hundreds), but if I would like to show you all of them, you will probably get tired of watching. I tried to show as much of different places as I could. If you are interested about more abandoned places, feel free to see my other page called Into the Shadows.
Conclusion
You can say a lot of things about the trip to Chernobyl, but you cannot say it's boring. If you like abandoned places, you are a photographer or just want to feel like inside the catastrophic movie, this place is perfect to visit.
I was there for 72 hours, wandering through this lost world as fast as I could to see as much as possible, but still, I only scratched the surface of Pripyat and its surroundings.
This is undoubtedly an adventure that will keep you in mind for a very long time.
