It was caused by an inadvertent explosion of the core at Nuclear Reactor Number Four while undergoing a power failure test. We spent two days at the Chernobyl plant’s “ground-zero” and the immediate surroundings.
Our overall trip started with a stay in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Kiev is sixty miles south of Pripyat. I had been there before during the waning days of the Cold War (1989), but this was a new experience for the rest of the group. To be honest, Kiev is a second-tier capital and tourist destination.
Most of our time was spent at or near Maidan, the central square. It was a bustling gathering spot and place of historical significance. Across the square, interactive displays and colorful booths were being built to promote the upcoming Union of European Football (55 national soccer associations) men’s and women’s Champions League finals. Team supporters were already arriving, and they were wearing their colors proudly.
Besides Maidan, we toured an ancient cathedral, and we ventured to a free public park and attractive outdoor concert venue called Spivoche Pol—“The Singing Field”. Public transport got us to the nearby Dnieper River, but the closest, unofficial, breach-a-fence entry point was situated high atop a slope.
That outing didn’t go well. The heat and gut issues took me down, so Brett accompanied me back to the hotel for rehydration and rest. The group reassembled at dinner.
The next morning, we and a couple other “radiation junkies” located and boarded the bus to Chernobyl. Our courteous guide was short, dark-haired, thirty-ish. He had been leading these trips for many years. During a sinister moment, I wondered silently if he had a two-headed infant son or daughter at home.
The sixty-mile ride north to Chernobyl City was comfortable. Much of it was through forests; the power plant was way out in the wilderness that separated Northern Ukraine from Belarus. That remote location was fortuitous when the sh*t hit the……dry uranium rods.
We were issued three, yellow handheld “dosimeters” for our group of five. These were “Geiger Muller counters”, and their purpose was to monitor our radiation exposure real time. The tour company’s website—six pages about safety (Overcompensating?)—assured us that our tour would avoid the high-rad’ parts of the complex, and that our exposure would be trivial.
For example, they claimed that a stay of one day in Chernobyl exposed a human to less radiation than two days in Denver. (Note to self: avoid Denver.) They added that our daily radiation would be “about the same as a digital mammogram”. It wasn’t clear if the mammogram rating—0.4 microSieverts—needed to be doubled to be accurate…not that I had plans for a mammogram.
All that information was helpful…more so if I knew what micro-Sieverts were.
We stopped for a brief, bland lunch at our overnight quarters-to-be, the Desyaska Hotel in Chernobyl City, situated barely outside the danger zone. Afterward, our bus rumbled past armed security and into “the death zone” city of Pripyat where the disaster had actually occurred. [Play “The Twilight Zone” theme song here.] We wore no special suits or respirators like the ones movie coroners wear at ripe crime scenes. We were simply in street clothes. As in Kiev, the Spring weather was hot and and very humid. We were warm but comfortable…for a while.
We stepped off the bus at Reactor Four…the one that blew, burned for nine days, and tossed atomic fragments into the atmosphere. (The secretive, brutish Soviets notified the world of the disaster after three days, and only when questions and alarm about extraordinary atmospheric radiation levels were raised by neighboring countries.)
The fire was eventually extinguished and the ugly cavity was sealed by continual dumps of rubble and flowing concrete from aircraft flown by brave and soon-dead pilots. For thirty-two years, that bomb crater represented a monument to technology-gone-bad.
We didn’t see that colossal mess, however. A couple months prior to our visit, the accident site was covered with an enormous, slide-over hanger-like structure that now provides added protection against escaping radiation. The new cover also looks far more benign than the rubble beneath it. Still, it was an unforgettable and frightening sight.
Our group in front of a monument to lost workers. In the background is the new sarcophagus over compromised Reactor Number Four. From left: William Wiersig, and the Gordons: Christopher, Brett, John, and Roger.
We toured the area around the power plant. Before the explosion, Pripyat was considered a model city with showcase neighborhoods for the 47,000 residents. Now it was gone.
Except for a cadre of power plant workers and fire fighters—some brought in from outside—the area was evacuated in a few days. However, for most of them, that was too late.
The Chernobyl disaster is the most deadly nuclear accident in history. While it will take more time to fully measure the death and sickness that resulted, hundreds were hospitalized soon after the incident, and more than thirty people died in the first few weeks and months. More became sick and more died in the decade that followed. Thyroid cancer was the most common cause.
Pripyat remains unoccupied and significantly dismantled. At a cost of 18 billion Rubles ($580 Million), 500,000 workers were brought in to decontaminate the town. Nearly all concrete surfaces—miles of streets, sidewalks, squares—were removed due to their porous, radiation-retention texture. A very few were needed for permanent access, so they were left and sealed with asphalt.
Our dosimeters only registered an alarming number once. That was near a shirt—a crumpled display item—that had been removed from the now-inaccessible basement of a particular building. Early disaster workers and firefighters had disrobed and showered in that basement. The radioactive reading of that shirt was 8,000 times the ambient level we had been experiencing. None of us tried on the shirt; we didn’t even touch it. We got the hell away from it.
What remained of Pripyat was a ghostly space of crumbling buildings. Some were off limits due to unstable stairs, collapsing floors and walls, and open elevator shafts. Debris was everywhere. It was apparent that the residents had departed quickly.
A few buildings had already collapsed. This damage wasn’t from the explosion; Nature was reclaiming the area. It was destroying man-made structures, and new organic growth was swallowing the entire space where the urban sprawl once dominated. This was a surprise to us. We expected the zone to be intact but barren and uninhabitable. Scientists said it would remain that way for up to ten-thousand years.
Those predictions were ignored by trees and shrubs. Merely thirty-two years after the town had been evacuated, thick underbrush and lush, towering trees, obscured multi-story buildings.
Tromping through the woods, we could not see buildings that were only a hundred feet away. We closely followed our guide’s path through the thick, teeming forest lest we get lost.
Vegetation wasn’t the only thing living in this new landscape. We saw foxes, mice, wild cats and dogs. Insects were plentiful…too plentiful. Mosquitoes and flies swarmed us by the thousands. The white coroner-suits and respirators referenced earlier would have provided us tremendous relief. Instead, we swatted, swore, and picked up our pace. Did I mention we swore?
We each improvised personal cover. Three pulled their shirt collars over their heads. Brett removed his outer shirt and wrapped it around his head. I had brought a hooded jacket, because I wanted to be prepared for rain. In spite of the heat, I donned the jacket and laced the hood tightly around my head and face. Only a third of my face was exposed—I had far more protection than the rest, lucky—but it I was still a target, and I was freaking hot.
By the time the afternoon ended, we had seen many dilapidated buildings and rooms filled with trash, documents, and animal feces. We needed relief from the relentless forest. Finally, we boarded our bus and traveled to the border of the zone.
At the “safe boundary”, we were required to leave the bus, show identification, and pass individually through (alleged) radiation detectors: floor-to-ceiling contraptions made of steel tubes, cables and lights. (The devices looked like they had been made by a high school shop class.) Serving also a turnstile, these cages would release the captive-tourist only if his surface radiation registered within safe limits.
We all made it through the machines, although one of them kept malfunctioning. We speculated that the radiation detectors were bogus or inoperative. The process seemed like a crude performance to convince us or the rare safety inspector that responsible precautions were being taken.
At our hotel, we were assigned keys and we dumped our luggage. The rooms were adequate—sort of “YMCA-spartan”. The boys shared double rooms; the old man pulled rank and got the single.
Dinner was unremarkable, although the cold beer slid down well.
Based on its label and his inability to read Ukrainian, Brett called it “Arbuckle”, and that became our go-to beverage. It is actually spoken as “Lvivske”. Chris reads Cyrillic, so I think he got the name right. Still, Arbuckle had a goofy, endearing ring to it.
We slept well, had breakfast, and we boarded our bus for the continuation of our tour. Thankfully, we spent less time in the brush. We were taken to a MASSIVE “Duga over-the-horizon radar antenna”. It served as part of the Soviet missile defense early warning radar during the ‘70s and 80s; it could notify the military of an American or NATO missile launch.
The structure was 682 feet long and 276 feet high, and it gave the impression it could unintentionally cook meals as far away as Bangkok.
That characterization is not far off. The system could generate 10 million watts of power. When in operation, the antenna created repetitive tapping sounds that could be heard on shortwave or HAM frequencies, earning it the name Woodpecker. It also disrupted television signals all over the world.
After seeing the antenna, we crossed a lake used to store water for the plant’s cooling towers…those vase-shaped concrete structures seen at nearly every nuclear power plant. On the other side of the lake, we entered one of the towers. It was about 400 feet high, 120 feet in diameter.
Having imagined that such towers housed large equipment, black magic, and dangerous radiation, I was astonished when we simply walked under the twelve-foot-high lower edge and saw a nearly empty form. Ignorance! Water is heated in the power plant, and the resulting steam drives turbines.That steam is then piped into the tower and vented. It is that simple.
After that, we returned to the exclusion zone border, passed through the faux-detectors, had a quick lunch (with Arbuckles) at our hotel/roadhouse, then we traveled back to Kiev.
The next day was our Kiev-Moscow travel day. That was complicated by political tensions between Ukraine and Russia. Just three years earlier, the Russians simply annexed (took by force) part of Ukraine, the Crimea region. So, there were zero flights from Kiev to Moscow. We boarded our Baltic Air flight for Riga, Latvia. After a short layover, We took an Aeroflot Russian Airline flight to Moscow.
Chris knew his way around Moscow very well. He helped us with currency, underground rail and bus tokens, directions, and recommendations. He did a great job. We visited the noteworthy sights: Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and the elegant GUM department store.
Three of us went into Lenin’s tomb…my second visit in twenty-nine years. Confirmed: Lenin looks a bit waxy, and he is definitely still dead.
With Chris’ guidance, we explored other parts of the city, and we ate very well. The trendy Arbat District—a pedestrians-only promenade—had Western shops and attractive people. It appeared that commerce in modern Moscow was booming.
We visited “Bunker 42”, a Cold War-era shelter and command post 211 feet underground. It has since been renovated and stocked with 50’s-era furniture and military communication equipment, some of it legitimate.
On our last day in Moscow, Chris, Brett, and William enjoyed the sun and atmosphere by the lake at Gorky Park. Roger and I visited a games museum, and we returned to “the Arbat” to shop and eat.
It was a relaxing day before our long journey home.
The trip exceeded our expectations, and it was delightful to have spent it with family. (William is considered family.) For others, such a trip is highly recommended.