Visiting the Exclusion Zone of Chernobyl

May 18th, 2020. Preparation for the trip.

The worst nuclear accident in history took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Pripyat, Ukraine on April 26, 1986. I am going to visit this area after 34 years.

I want to go to this place with my friend Alex, because i don’t want to go to this abandoned area alone. And of course with a guide for safety, also he can show the most interesting places and tell something about it.

There is a small risk of radioactive particles attaching to you, so we bring long clothes to cover all our exposed skin. We also take Geiger counters, water and some food.

May 20th, 2020.

This day x finally came!

Now we’re 30 kilometers away from the reactor, where the explosion happened. We drove through the local village and after a while we arrived.

We visited an abandoned kindergarten, I think it is one of the creepiest places I’ve ever been. There are a lot of toys, notebooks, wood trash, rusted beds and other stuff. It was the most challenging moment to keep myself.

After that we came into theatre, where we saw a lot of trash, posters and destroyed theater equipment. Definitely we walked next to reactor 4 and Red forest. Red forest got this nickname, because all the trees died and it turned this hue of red, because when reactor exploded, wind pushed all of radioactive material into this forest, and now it’s still a place that is highly radioactive.

All day we measured ionizing radiation and it was very interesting!! A few hours later we were tired and decided to go back to Kiev.

May 22th, 2020.

I am back at home and finally can talk about my emotions. Okay, to be honest i am still in shock and in my opinion no one can convey these feelings. It was 100% worth the money and i definitely recommend it!! This trip was unforgettable, I got many different emotions.

I have a good impression about it, but I am not sure that I will go to Chernobyl one more time, because it’s also very difficult emotionally to look at this whole tragedy. All people should know history and now we can see history in real life, this is very important.

I hoped it was interesting, thanks for reading!

Polina Lyusiy.