At 1:23am on 26th April 1986, an explosion at the number 4 reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew the roof wide open and sent a cloud of radioactive particles into the air.  

In recent years, agents set about leading excursions to the area in and around Chernobyl. The full day visits head out from Kiev around 9am and these have to be prebooked. Details of guests on the excursion must be submitted and you must take your passport. If your name is not on the list or you don’t have your passports, the guards at the edge of the exclusion zone will not let you pass as some folks on our bus found to their dismay and had to disembark the bus. The checkpoint is roughly 78km (49 miles) from Kiev and there is absolutely nothing to do there. From this point the bus makes its way into the exclusion zone and doesn’t be back for several hours.

During the time of the disaster, Chernobyl was home to 14,000 citizens and currently, many people still live inside the exclusion zone and a number of people construction in the town for as many as 4 days a week. The visit began in Chernobyl for a conventional Ukraine lunch. First stop is the fire station where there is a memorial to the fearless fireman who fought to contain the radiation a large number of of whom were to die of radiation sickness.

Next stop is the Chernobyl power plant where you find your very first sight of the abandoned properties. There are a couple of stops in the vicinity of the plant and you get to within two or three hundred metres of the reactor. Today, its hard to think of what transpired here but the tour guides Geiger counter leaves you under no illusions that there is still a large amount of background radiation in the area.

The very last stop is at the ghost town of Pripyat which is situated less than a couple of miles from the power plant. On the day of the accident it was a larger city than Chernobyl with a population of approximately 50,000. Even so, authorities evacuated everyone with minimal notice and it is an eerie place to drop by and see. Books lie all with the class rooms, the fun fair which was due to be opened on 1st May 1986, is gradually rusting away and nature has began to over grow the pavement, town square and structures.

The trip departs Pripyat and returns to the edge of the exclusion zone where everyone need to pass through a scanner to confirm they haven’t been exposed to extreme amounts of radiation. As soon as everyone is back on the bus has been given the all clear, it heads back to Kiev.