Monday morning came and I woke bright and early, showered, packed myself full of breakfast, and headed to independence square to meet the Solo East group. One might imagine that group wouldn’t reflect the typical tourist group and that is certainly correct, with a bunch of like minded people particularly eager to enter a nuclear disaster exclusion zone. One Aussie proudly proclaimed that he’d go into the reactor if they’d let him – although I’m sure he meant the reactor building, rather than the reactor itself!
We then continued on the road and passed through another checkpoint. Driving past the power plant itself, we gazed in awe – and quickly snapped pictures when allowed, while passing workers of Novarka, the French company who won the bid to build a new confinement structure over the existing “sarcophagus.” We went directly to Pripyat, passing a third checkpoint. Pripyat was the city built to manage Chernobyl, which was meant to have twelve reactors in total: four were operational at the time of the accident, two were under construction, and another six were planned. Construction ceased on the fifth and sixth reactors after the accident at reactor four, but the remaining three were used until one caught fire and the other two were phased out of service in money-strapped post-Soviet Ukraine, the last reactor begin shut down in 2000, some fourteen years after the accident.
Pripyat is a big attraction of the trip, and a New Zealand gentleman was particularly bummed that we couldn’t go into buildings. The city, evacuated a few days after the accident, has been vacant since the accident, save a few looters, tourists such as ourselves in recent years, and any other government authorized individuals. The city is said to have been designed as an ideal communist city, and a lady on our tour who lived under Soviet rule confirm that, indeed, people would travel to cities near nuclear power plants for better quality goods. We stopped by an apartment style building we could look into and then a school. It is remarkable how much nature has taken over in the interceding 26 years. Were pavement would have once been obvious and likely flanked by grass, trees and other vegetation growth have nearly obscured the existing route. The sights are quite sad and telling, though, as one accident eliminated a huge area and a lot of buildings from use, in addition to the even more significant loss of life. These are some of the costs that are unlikely to be reliably included in the cost assumptions of nuclear projects.
We walked through the city’s central square seeing a hotel among other buildings. I should note in most pictures that have as a focus the damage of the disaster I have tried not to have a mile-wide smile in (saving that for pictures that focus principally on the amount of radiation I’m absorbing). The idea isn’t to look gloomy, but demonstrate respect to the many thousands of victims of the Chernobyl disaster, who lost their lives, suffered non-lethal (or not immediately lethal) health consequences, or were displaced and lost all their belongings – a bit of a trick by the government who did not inform the majority of Pripyat residents for a handful of days before telling them they’d be displaced with an opportunity to come back in a few days – so they wouldn’t take belongings contaminated by radioactive material. It might be worth a moment to mention that the Soviets didn’t inform those living downstream of the radioactive cloud, anyone public, or the World for that matter about the disaster or any radioactive leak until aftter the Swedish detected radioactive contamination at one of their nuclear facilities, but determined it was not being created by the facility. This chain of events is believed to have contributed significantly to the demise of the Soviet Union.
We saw a grocery store that was a curiosity – some parts were in remarkably good shape, such as the signs hanging from the ceiling. While at the same time, the outer wall which would have sealed the building off from the elements was obliterated – where the doors were, the jams appeared as if they had been sawzall’ed off at their base. That and the presence of misplaced furniture escaped obvious explanation.
Next was the fair – which never opened, instead becoming part of a dark chapter of history just days before its scheduled opening of May 1, 1986. The fairgrounds came with an increased level of radioactivity, having received more dust from helicopters which landed there as part of the initial response. Indeed, we had the Geiger counter up to around 24 uS/h per hour – as a side note, the Geiger counter rarely stopped beeping, a warning indicating increased levels of radiation, the whole time we were in the smaller 10 km exclusion zone. The Ferris wheel and the bumper car facility are two well-known scenes from Chernobyl. There is also a merry-go-round of sorts. No kids get to play here now.
We walked past another type of pre-school or kindergarten that provided for a great (and likely placed) picture of a disheveled stuffed animal in a window frame before seeing another apartment building. Then, the big highlight: we were allowed to enter the pool building (on the promise that we didn’t identify her as letting us do this apparently prohibited activity)! The building had a gym, with a partially ripped up floor – again admitting no ready explanation, and a large pool with narrow paths on either side.
Leaving Pripyat we took pictures of the sign, then off to one of the most exciting parts: the building housing the reactor! There is a monument in front near the reactor. A new ventilation pipe was built on the reactor complex as it is apparently necessary and the old one is becoming unstable (and, I surmise, could wreak havoc if it collapses). The reactor is enclosed by the “sarcophagus,” the name given to the hastily built, leaky, and unstable structure currently enclosing the reactor. The yellow and gray scaffolding was added in 2006 to prop up the structure and reduce the likelihood of collapse, which could release considerable quantities of radioactive particles. Novarka is building a gigantic new structure that will slide over the old one. The plan has been routinely delayed, but once built the new structure is expected to last about 100 years and is designed to hold some cranes which will be used to begin dismantling the existing sarcophagus and clean up some of the reactor site. It will be built on rails and then moved over the existing sarcophagus.
We then had lunch at a curious cafeteria very close to the plant that appears to date from Soviet times and we presume is continued to be used for current workers on site. We had to go through some old-school looking radiation detecting devices to monitor for radioactive contamination. The lunch was quite good, and we took bread to feed catfish in a channel near the plant. A hefty man driving an old Soviet truck stopped, walked on the bridge, and threw a whole loaf of bread into the water. I surmised he’d pull out a gun and shoot the catfish if they didn’t swallow it whole, but after a minute or two he jumped in his truck and drove off.
We then stopped down the road to take a panoramic picture of the plant – destroyed reactor four on the far left of our view to the unfinished reactors five and six on the right. I presume the cranes, contaminated with radiation, have been left as they were in 1986.
Leaving the exclusion zones we passed again through the 10 km and 30 km checkpoints, this time having to go through the same radiation detecting machines. Everyone passed and we continued what seemed like the most hazardous part of the tour: the ride back to Kiev. We also passed a liquidators memorial. On the way to Chernobyl our driver demonstrated how to pass on a gravel shoulder among a variety of shady developing-country driving skills. The way back could likewise be described as competing with a fear-instilling amusement park ride. I’m bewildered that drivers in developing nations, where new cars often cost about the same as in first world nations, but incomes tend to be much lower, drive with such hazard.
I'm just glad you made it out without developing any of those pesky Chernobyl mutations, lol! Although I suppose a third arm might actually come in handy 😉