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Showing posts from April, 2019

A tour to Chernobyl: why to go there?

The exclusion zone is an area near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which in fact, has not been a closed area for a long time;besides the dark tourism, the ordinary touring also does good business here. On the one hand, nothing is being done to develop the trend in the Exclusion Zone; on the other hand, a huge desire to see something unknown and the popularity of the computer game called "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." does its work. Any full-aged person with no medical contraindications can book a tour to Chernobyl. The tour costs from 400 to 1000 UAH depending on the agency you have selected and your personal needs. After all, when there is a will there’s a way. But, it is more important to understand why you need it. Destroy myths and satisfy your interest There are plenty of myths going around the Exclusion Zone. Starting with children’s scary stories of two-headed monsters, and ending with adult stories about marauders. A one-day tour will not give you an answer to

Chernobyl is not a radioactive nightmare like it may seem

After 30 years of a nuclear catastrophe, radioactive contamination in the zone doesn’t seem so straightforward. “I spent half of my life here,” said Gennady Laptev. The broad-shouldered Ukrainian scientist sadlysmiles, standing next to the empty cooling tank of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. “I was only 25 years old when I started working here as a liquidator. Now I am almost 60,”he added. Thousands of liquidators who took part in a large-scale and dangerous clearing operation after the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 visited the exclusion zone. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, BBC reports. The cooling station tankdried out when the pumps that took water from the nearby river were finally turned off in 2014. This happened 14 years after when the three survived reactors stopped the operation. The dust analysis for testing radioactive contamination is only a small part of the pollution study in the exclusion zone, which has be

Touristic Chernobyl: the places of heroism and looting

More and more people come to visit the restricted area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant year after year. Travel agencies offer one-day, two-days or even a week trips to theexclusion zone . However, there are illegal tourists who jump over the fences and follow the non-touristic routes. Why the recent disaster is so attractive for both groups of tourists? Sunday.7.30 am. Half-sleeping people are standing near minibuses with radiation hazard signs on the windshield and drink coffee. These are tourists. They will spend the whole day in the Chernobyl zone. “In 20 minutes we’ll make a stop at a gas station. There you can use the civilized toilet, the last one in our route,” - the guide announced. The first companies selling Chernobyl tours appeared at the turn of the 90s, in the early 2000s. They not only organize trips, but also solve bureaucratic issues; to visit the zone you need have a permission of the state. You also need to pay for it: it’s less than 5 euros for