Chernobyl Travel Guide

Just 100 km north of Kyiv, Chernobyl is the site of the worst atomic energy disaster in human history. It may be sick but at least until beginning 2000 it was possible to arrange a visit through the tourist office in Kyiv. You take a bus to a checkpoint about 20 km from the power plant, where you change to another bus which never leaves the contaminated zone. Among the "major attractions" are the villages of Kopachi, which has “partially encased” houses, and Pripiat, a ghost town left exactly as it was when the residents were evacuated. The culmination of the tour is the cement- and lead-encased nuclear reactor, known as the Sarcophagus. The casing is so corroded now that you could actually put an arm through the lead and concrete at some points. After a final radiation check, visitors switch back to their original buses for the return to Kiev.