Sports Travel Today

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 atmosphere.

 

In recent times, agents began running trips to the area in and around Chernobyl. The full day tours head out from Kiev somewhere around 9am and these have to be prebooked. Details of guests on the tour have to be submitted and you have to 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 through as a couple of folks on our bus found to their shock and had to get off the bus. The checkpoint is approximately 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 catastrophe, Chernobyl was home to 14,000 people and nowadays, many people still live within the exclusion area and many people building work in the town for up to 4 days a week. The trip commenced in Chernobyl for a conventional Ukraine meal. First stop is the fire station where there is a memorial to the fearless fireman who fought to contain the radiation a number of of whom died of radiation sickness.

 

Next stop is the Chernobyl power plant and it is here you get your very first experience of the deserted architectural structures. There are a few stops around the plant and you get to within 200-300 metres of the reactor. Today, it is impossible to believe what happened here but the tour guides Geiger counter leaves you under no illusions that there is still a serious amount of background radiation in the place.

 

The very last stop is at the ghost town of Pripyat which is situated no more than a couple of miles from the power plant. At the time of the accident it was a much bigger city than Chernobyl with a population of close to 50,000. Nonetheless, police evacuated the population with not much notice and it is an eerie place to go to see. Books lie all with the class rooms, the fun fair which was due to be opened on 1st May 1986, is little by little rusting away and nature has started to reclaim the streets, town square and properties.

 

The trip leaves Pripyat and returns to the edge of the exclusion zone where everyone need to pass through a scanner to be certain they haven’t been exposed to substantial quantities of radiation. When everyone is back on the bus has been given the all clear, it travels back to Kiev.