Chernobyl – The Description
The photo in my previous post was taken approximately half a mile away from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the Ukraine, home of the worlds worst nuclear disaster. Even at this distance the alarms on our Geiger counters had started to go off, at this our guide Maxim had calmly turned and suggested we change the warning setting to maximum as “the noise will just start to get annoying”.
The day had started with an hour long taxi ride from our hotel in Kiev to the border post of “the forbidden zone” and on to the town of Chernobyl where we completed paperwork and were given a list of do’s and don’ts which included not touching the cute kittens as they have rabies as well as radiation to contend with. First stop was the power station which was 9 miles away from Chernobyl and had little to do with the town in anything other than name. We were taken into the stations visitor centre and told about the work they are undertaking in decommissioning the reactors which has so far taken 8 years. Here we enjoyed radiation levels around 200 times higher than you would get here in the Isle of Man.
After the power station we moved on to the abandoned city of Prypiat which was home to 50,000 people and was purpose built for the power plant workers to live. The city was evacuated in 3 hours once the extent of the disaster was realised, 22 years on nature has reclaimed a lot of the city which added to the eerie feel. We were the only people in the whole place and the absolute silence was very strange, especially as we made our way through the abandoned school and swimming pool. The saddest part was the fun fair, where dodgems and a ferris wheel stood rusting but still intact and a slowly rotting teddy bear lay on the ground by a stall.
On our way out of Prypiat we stopped at a piece of road that looked no different from anywhere else, the only remarkable feature being that due to the wind direction 22 years ago when the disaster occurred this 50 yard stretch of tarmac was the most radiated area of the forbidden zone at a delightful 450 times higher than back here. Even with Maxim’s new warnings settings all the Geiger counters started to sound their alarms here.
Back at the base in Chernobyl we all went through a radiation scanner to make sure we weren’t too contaminated to leave and had a lovely 4 course meal at the Chernobyl Hotel, it was a tough choice but we decided to go back to our hotel in Kiev rather than stay there for a night. Back in Kiev a couple of hours later we’d all showered and put our clothes in a bin bag, the trip was truly amazing and brought home the reality of something that is easy to forget about due to 22 years and a few thousand miles.
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