Everything But The Weed

Approved by:
Linda Maze, a Wedding photography Gainesville FL in Gainesville Florida

At 1:23am on 26th April 1986, an explosion at the number 4 reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew the roof off and sent a cloud of radioactive particles into the air.  

In recent times, agencies set about running tours to the area in the vicinity of Chernobyl. The full day trips leave Kiev around 9am and these have to be reserved in advance. Details of individuals on the tour have to be submitted and you are required to take your passport. If your name is not on the list or you don’t have your passports, the guards at the edge of the exclusion zone will not let you continue as two individuals on our bus found to their shock and had to get off the bus. The checkpoint is approximately 78km (49 miles) from Kiev and there is absolutely nothing to do there. From here the bus goes into the exclusion zone and does not return for several hours.

At the time of the catastrophe, Chernobyl was home to 14,000 folk and right now, several people still live inside the exclusion area and many different people work in the town for as many as 4 days a week. The visit began in Chernobyl for a conventional Ukraine lunch. First stop is the fire station where there is a memorial to the fearless fireman who struggled to contain the radiation the majority of of whom died of radiation sickness.

Next stop is the Chernobyl power plant and it is here you find your initial view of the abandoned architectural structures. There are a handful of stops in the vicinity of the plant and you get to within 200-300 metres of the reactor. Nowadays, its really hard to picture what happened here but the tour guides Geiger counter leaves you under no illusions that there is still a large amount of background radiation in the vicinity.

The very last stop is at the ghost town of Pripyat which is situated no more than a couple of miles from the power plant. On the day of the catastrophe it was a bigger metropolis than Chernobyl with a population of close to 50,000. Yet, authorities evacuated everyone with very little warning and it is an eerie place to have a look at. Books lie all surrounding the class rooms, the fun fair which was due to be opened on 1st May 1986, is slowly and gradually rusting away and nature has started to reclaim the pavement, town square and architectural structures.

The excursion leaves Pripyat and returns to the edge of the exclusion zone where everybody need to pass through a scanner to make sure they haven’t been exposed to large amounts of radiation. When everyone is back on the bus has been given the all clear, it heads back to Kiev.