Trip to Chernobyl: than the exclusion zone attracts thousands of foreign tourists. PHOTO - ForumDaily
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Trip to Chernobyl: than the exclusion zone attracts thousands of foreign tourists. PHOTO

Chernobyl ... There was a tragedy, which has no analogues in the world. The tragedy that destroyed entire cities and changed millions of destinies. A tragedy that we did not know about.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

After the success of the Chernobyl series from HBO, the whole world started talking about the disaster again 33 years later, and a record number of tourists were recorded in the exclusion zone, says Present Tense.

Against the backdrop of aroused interest, the newly elected president of Ukraine first of all also visited Chernobyl. Zelensky outlined incredible prospects for the exclusion zone.

“Let’s finally turn the exclusion zone into a scientific and future tourist magnet,” the president suggested.

But where is the lie and where is the truth? And what is really happening in the exclusion zone? Dozens, maybe hundreds of films tell about the tragic past of Chernobyl. Let's talk about its present and try to find out what the future holds for the exclusion zone.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

“Chernobyl” became an exciting film for millions of viewers, but for Ukrainians it was and remains a terrible reality. Although, apparently, years and fear take their toll: this dangerous and at the same time unique place in Ukraine is remembered, perhaps, once a year. And the rest of the time, Chernobyl is something that everyone wants to forget like a bad dream.
Of the 70 000 tourists who visited the area last year, 80% are foreigners. And today the exclusion zone is simply the realm of tourism.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

The Dityatki checkpoint is the main gate to the Chernobyl zone for legal tourists. There are 1000 people here on a weekend, they are greeted and escorted through checks - mainly dosimetric ones.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

The German Holberg was preparing for a trip to Chernobyl for several months. He travels alone. He says his friends wanted to go, but haven’t decided yet.

On the subject: 'Everybody died!': US secret intelligence released about Chernobyl disaster

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

For those who were not afraid to come, they also distributed household dosimeters with instructions on the bus. Warned: starting from the 10-kilometer zone, the device will always show more than the norm. So it happened when the buses pulled up to the place where 33 years ago a tragedy occurred - the 4 reactor of the power unit exploded.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

Now the service life of the first shelter has already been exhausted, so power unit 4 was covered with a new protection called “Arch”. It should contain radiation for the next 100 years. But tourists can only look at the engineering miracle of technology, which protects millions of lives, from afar.

“Arch” is the heaviest mobile structure not only in Ukraine, but also in the world. If a strong wind, for example, or a tornado is approaching, an employee presses a button on the remote control - and the systems protect the “Arch” automatically. Protect at all costs: in addition to a tornado, it must withstand an earthquake, cope with possible fires and, most importantly, prevent a new release of radiation.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

For this, hundreds of engineers have developed special robotic devices that will have to disassemble the destroyed reactor and extract tons of the remaining radioactive fuel.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

Robots should start their rescue operation as early as next year. If you just imagined how a robot from a Hollywood blockbuster takes pieces of molten uranium from a fourth power unit, then this is not at all the case. Robotic equipment is a crane system (painted in yellow). The rest is located near the ill-fated reactor.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

Despite the constant beeping of the dosimeter, it is incredible to be in a place from which millions fled. And understand that mortal danger is still there, inside, trying to break through the dilapidated walls. Not only are the numbers on the meter scary, it’s scary to realize that the fourth power unit is now in emergency condition and could collapse at any moment. But engineers say the Arch has a double shell and while collapse is considered a theoretical possibility, it is unlikely.

On the subject: Sarcophagus in Chernobyl on the verge of collapse: will tourists be allowed there

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

Holger from Germany arrived in Chernobyl prepared.

“The main thing is not to touch anything with your hands or stomp your feet,” he says.

In Chernobyl, radiation has become one of the thrill rides that foreign tourists follow. Tourists like such conditional games with danger. But nevertheless, they are more impressed by the era frozen in time.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

Deciding on a tour is not easy, not only for security reasons, but also for financial reasons: tours for foreigners are not cheap. Economy option - about 100-120 dollars for one day with the group. Private excursions are several times more expensive. If you are willing to pay more, you will be shown not only the flavor of the dead Chernobyl villages, but also will be introduced to people who stayed here to live after the accident, or rather to survive.

Baba Ganya greets guests with a Chernobyl vodka and lard. For 33 years, she lives in an officially non-residential village. People like her were nicknamed homeowners - those who returned to live in the area after the accident. Although, by law, there should be neither theirs, nor their households, nor their crops.

On the subject: Child of Chernobyl: the story of an only child born and raised in the exclusion zone

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

“I’ve been eating these potatoes for 33 years and I’m healthier than you in Kyiv,” Baba Ganya smiles, pointing to a bag of potato vegetables.
The youngest homeowners in the zone are already far beyond 70, Babe Ghana under 90. Yard and garden - that's her whole world. The store comes to them once every five weeks.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

According to those accompanying, after the accident, about 2400 people returned to the closed zone. Now there are 115 left. They voluntarily live in isolation, although they are always happy with tourists and vegetables. But those who want to listen to the stories of women Ghani are becoming less and less - now not people, but objects of the Soviet era are more popular.

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Pripyat, the most popular among tourists, is already in disrepair. Entering buildings is prohibited today. The state has no money to save the ghost town. The trouble is that many objects, if not to say the majority, have become potentially dangerous in the tourist area. The only hope, according to tour operators, is to achieve the inclusion of the Chernobyl zone in the UNESCO list.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

But while the issue is being resolved, the destruction of Pripyat is regularly helped. For example, on a famous Ferris wheel, someone recently cut a brake system. Now it moves on its own.

“If a wheel falls, even HBO won’t help,” says guide Anya.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

It’s not for nothing that she remembers the series “Chernobyl” that thundered throughout the world - she believes that its fame will be a salvation for the zone and will bring even more guests here. But so far everything is not so fast and simple. According to Anya, “a couple of people” from the group raise their hands when asked a question about the series - yes, they came because of HBO. Some are already planning ahead, but there is no big influx right now.

What awaits Pripyat - mass tourism or destruction? The head of the Ukrainian State Agency for the Management of the Exclusion Zone, Vitaliy Petruk, believes that it would be right to destroy it. But this requires funds. It is quite possible that Pripyat and other objects will be transferred to virtual reality technologies and will continue to receive tourists, leaving everything in the zone as it is. But the exclusion zone will remain a regime, because the main task for the future is to prevent the spread of radiation.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

The only direction that can potentially give the removal of radionuclides from the exclusion zone is airborne fires. There are enough forests here, and for a long time there has not been a year for this forest not to burn. In Chernobyl, sanitary felling is constantly carried out precisely so that the forest remains a protection against radiation, because only living trees are able to absorb and retain radionuclides. Dry and dead trees are cut and checked for radionuclides. Such wood remains in Chernobyl, it is used, for example, for heating houses in the zone. And if the tree is not infected - it is taken out and sold for firewood.

In 2015, a forest fire destroyed about 5 thousand hectares of forest in a week. As a result, the concentration of radionuclides in the air then increased, but not critically. The consequences of that fire have not yet been removed: the new forest does not have time to grow, the old burns out, the protective barrier from radiation is becoming smaller.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

For many years in Chernobyl, nature without man has taken its toll, and now this place is unique: a whole open-air laboratory. This is the largest reserve in Ukraine today, which could please a tourist, but guests between natural and industrial sites choose the latter.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

On one-day excursions, the tourist manages to see, probably, less than half of all the interesting things. This is probably why another tourist movement was born - illegal. In tactical form, two groups of law enforcement officers go on a raid. Like real trackers, they are looking in the long deserted houses of the Pripyat forest overgrown with traces of the stay of a man - a stalker.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

Having found stalker apartments, the patrol remains there and awaits the return of illegal tourists. They choose the most dangerous objects, because their main goal is adrenaline. Their personalities establish and write out a protocol for administrative violation. Then they are sent to Kiev. The amount of the fine is minimal, and the stalkers are not scared, so with a high probability they will soon come here again.

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People disappointed with the Chernobyl zone cannot be met. Without exception, whether a tourist or a stalker, they leave here with their impressions.

“This is memory. Many unique places take time and can no longer be seen,” says a tourist from Australia.

Photo: video frame currenttime.tv

Chernobyl is one of a kind on the whole planet. Someone will object - there is still Fukushima. But only during the Japanese accident, there were only two elements in the emissions: iodine and cesium isotopes, which would disappear in 30 years. But Chernobyl strontium and plutonium doomed this territory to 24 000 years of alienation. And this is an eternity. Therefore, no one will venture to say what Chernobyl will look like. But the flow of tourists here will never run dry.

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