Chernobyl, France

A very recent and increasingly popular place to visit while in Kiev is the site of the worst nuclear meltdown in human history. Chernobyl puts Three-Mile Island and that power plant a few years ago in Japan to shame. I had tried to convince Jonas to go with me in January, but to no avail. So, with a second chance (third, actually, as Brian was supposed to go with me when he visited Kiev a few weeks earlier), I booked a trip to Chernobyl.

The story of Chernobyl is well documented. In 1986, one of the nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant underwent a catastrophic meltdown. A general lack of understanding of the effects of radiation and the seriousness of the situation led to a huge amount of initial fallout though, relatively speaking, the meltdown was fairly well contained in the aftermath of the initial explosion.

Ineptitude is hardly a strong enough word to describe how unprepared the Soviets were for this sort of thing, though. The Soviet party leadership was told there was a minor explosion, that it was under control. The nearby towns of Залиса and Припять were not evacuated right away. Hundreds of workers continued to toil away in the ‘hot zone’ for days on end, ultimately exposing themselves to deadly radiation in doing so. In fact, the severity of the accident was not known until the Swedish government, thousands of kilometers away, informed Moscow that the northernly-blowing winds were dropping radiation dust particles on Stockholm. Clouds of radiation had, by then, passed through Belarus (who received the brunt of the fallout -- see http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl/ for some grueling imagery related to that; proof that the true death toll from the disaster continues to climb), Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Poland, and Sweden.

To be fair, though, had the Soviets not contained the reactor core when they did, and had winds shifted towards western Europe, some experts say that much of western Europe could have been victims of unthinkable nuclear fallout.

Today, though, things have calmed down a bit inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. That’s not to say I wasn’t hoping to be bit by a radioactive mosquito and develop superpowers. Lingering radiation means that the area is cordoned off by the Ukrainian military, and regular workers are still being monitored for potential negative effects of radiation.

Anyway, the story:

I had to wake up at 7:30 for this all-day excursion. This was no easy task, as I’d been celebrating July 4th for the entire previous day with Chris, Amelia, and all the non-Americans at the hostel (i.e. Ukrainians and Poles). I was out the door by 8.

I was told to meet the group for Chernobyl at 8:30 or 8:40 at the latest. But I had some trouble finding the group, as the only directions I had were drunken oral directions from Vova from the night before, when he was joining heavily in our aforementioned 4th of July party. We were supposed to meet in Podil, the old town of Ukraine, but it took a little bit of time and a call to Peter to figure out where exactly.

I did, however, find the group, and Paul, my German friend from Dresden whom I met in Stroze at Peter’s big birthday party and would later bump into at the hostel in Kiev, though he didn’t stay with us at Why Not?. He was on the same trip this day, by chance.

The group left around 9:30 or so. The group itself consisted of Paul, myself, two Finnish brothers, two other Finns, and an old married American couple on some big summer tour. 

We arrived at the first checkpoint, the 30km zone (a 30km radius around the reactor), at 11:30. We took a brief bathroom break, and then had an excruciatingly long wait in the bus while the guide that met us bribed our way past the guards. We didn’t make it through the gates until 1:08pm. We had to show our passports to get in, and have the van searched, too.

We also had to sign a paper that said we agreed to their rules, the rules of the “Instructions Letter for Visitors of the Exclusion Zone and the Zone of Absolute (Compulsory) Resettlement”. These rules consisted of such gems as:

“During the visit to the exclusion zone it is totally prohibited to: ... Touch any structures or vegetation; sit or place photo and video equipment on the ground; gather, use and bring from the exclusion zone and the zone of absolute (mandatory) resettlement vegetable and cattle breeding products (vegetables, fruits, berries, mushrooms, plants, fish etc.), which were cultivated on the area of the exclusion zone and the zone of absolute (mandatory) resettlement, except specimens for scientific purposes; drink water from wells, rivers and other open water sources.” (italics not in original)

After passing the checkpoint, we were officially inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a 2,500 square kilometer area that is controlled strictly by Ukrainian military personnel at all times. We headed straight for the reactor. Literally, actually, down a very long and straight road.

We passed through Chernobyl town, which is a recent village of about 2,000 workers and 100 self settlers (old people who came back after evacuation despite the risks). As our tour guide described it: “It’s a strange town, with no kindergartens, no playgrounds, and of course no children.”

At 1:40 we found ourselves at Лелiв Checkpoint. Passing this checkpoint with relative ease got us into the inner zone of the Chernobyl Exclusion area.

I should point out that normal gamma radiation levels are usually around .05-.15 (µSv)/h, and normal neutron levels are around 0.0 - 0.03cps. I don’t know what those numbers mean, but that was the baseline I was given as we stood outside the zone. I’ll mention some more numbers below, so keep these in mind.

Driving a bit longer, we came to lunch at a worker’s cafeteria just next to the fourth reactor (the one that melted down). We were, of course, assured that all the food was locally grown produce. We weren’t disappointed, the meal was quite delicious.

To enter the cafeteria, we had to stand in a body scanner, which checked us for radiation. We’re fairly certain that these body scanners at the cafeteria were for touristic purposes only, though the ones before we left were pretty serious-looking. Radiation was definitely in the air though (lingering radiation, that is). The radiation detector that the guide for our trip wore read 2.68 (µSv)/h for Gamma and 0.21 for Neutrons outside the building.

After lunch, we headed to the river to feed the catfish. This doesn’t sound interesting to me either, but when I looked down into the water and saw the catfish, I figured out why we did this.

Catfish are not that big. Most of the time. When catfish mutate after a horrific nuclear disaster, they tend to grow. There were about 8 or 9 catfish in this river that dwarfed the normal sized catfish near them. We’re talking about 15 times larger than the average catfish. Their mouths would hold both my fists. They were about 7 or 8 feet long, by my estimations. It was absurd.

At 3 we approached the viewing point, which was the closest to the reactor we would get. This brought us about 200-300m from the reactor building itself. Our guide’s gamma detector started climbing. 17.53, 18.81, 19.26, 19.28. It climbed as high as 22 or 23 (µSv)/h. This put us at something like 40 times the normal level of radiation in our air in clean environments while we were there.

We took some pictures, and then moved on to Припять (Pripyat), the abandoned city.

When the fourth reactor exploded in a fiery blast of invisible killer particles, Pripyat, the nearest populated city, was entirely unaware. They remained unaware for a while, and it was a few days (I think) before they were told to evacuate the area. The city itself had a population of several tens of thousands, and despite being relatively new (founded in 1970, Pripyat was celebrating it’s Sweet Sixteen that year), was entirely abandoned overnight. Looters and government officials would eventually scrounge most useable items, appliances, etc for themselves, the latter saving the bulk of their find for use within the Exclusion Zone by workers.

It really is incredible how quickly nature reclaims a space that was once bent to the whims and hopes of man. Buildings still stand, of course, but many windows are shattered, doors have fallen off their hinges, metal is rusted, poles have collapsed. Grass grows through every nook and cranny of every piece of pavement. What was once the main street of the city, Lenin Prospect, is now a shrunken pathway, with plants pushing aside the pavement to make room for their roots to take hold. Trees have somehow even managed to begin to grow on the roofs of major buildings, like the 7-story Готель Полісся. A child’s doll lay on the top of a wall, its leg separated from its body, itself separated from its owner.

Perhaps the most iconic and depressing images one can find of Pripyat are that of the fairground. There was a little carnival in Pripyat at the time of the meltdown. I couldn’t figure out if it was traveling or permanent, but if it was traveling, it didn’t travel any farther than here. Rusted bumper cars, falling apart and surrounded by moss, grass, and shrubs, sit sadly as the poles that once powered them through the electrified network on the ceiling lilt and rust. 

A similar fate has befallen the other attractions of this carnival. A 20-basket ferris wheel hasn’t turned in 26 years. It’s lights don’t shine and the yellow on the carriages themselves are beginning to fade.

In a large, multi-story building we entered and explored, we found countless shoes strewn over the floors, a ruined abacus, disused bathrooms and dismantled plumbing and circulation systems. Several bottles of what looked to once have been milk have evaporated their contents and sit empty on shelves, surrounded by dust, dirt, and debris. Paint peels of the walls around every corner.

We made it up to the roof of one of these buildings, stepping over shattered glass and squeezing between doors, as well as stepping over bushes and other plantlife near the roof. With a little imagination, we could look over the city and start to picture a vibrant Soviet city of 40,000, abandoned overnight and transformed into the perfect setting for a bad horror film (see: Chernobyl Diaries [2012], filmed in.. Not actually Chernobyl).

Our last stop in Pripyat was the public pool. The complex it was in, complete with gymnasium, locker rooms, and gigantic pool, is an exemplar of the Soviet mentality of communal living. No one should own their own pool, they would have this one massive pool to swim in. But no one swims there anymore, and the water is drained. I jumped into the pool’s shallow end, and walked around for a bit, trying to picture the children who must have cannonballed in and annoyed their parents.

But for the severity of the sad conditions of the town, it doesn’t feel depressing at Pripyat. Very few people actually died there. The scary thing about the city is not the death toll of the people, but the extinction of the lives that were here. People who lived here had to move, without warning, without many, if any, belongings, and were not allowed to return. An entire city was wiped out, even if the people were not.

After Pripyat we worked our way out of Chernobyl, stopping at the final checkpoint to get scanned for radiation and to search the van for anything we may have taken with us. We all passed with flying colors, and we were permitted to leave.

The drive was 2 or so hours long to get back, and I had a date that night, so I was eager to return home, but what a visit! In a few years, Chernobyl will probably be overrun with tourists, but while we were there, it was just Paul, me, some Finns, two Americans, and a guide.