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Ukraine To Open Chernobyl Area To Tourists
Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that Ukraine plans to open up the sealed zone around the Chernobyl reactor to visitors who wish to learn more about the tragedy that occurred nearly a quarter of a century ago. Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yulia Yershova says experts are developing travel routes that will be both medically safe and informative. 'There are things to see there if one follows the official route and doesn't stray away from the group,' says Yershova. Though it is a very sad story.' The ministry also says it hopes to finish building a new safer shell for the exploded reactor by 2015 that will cover the original iron-and-concrete structure hastily built over the reactor that has been leaking radiation, cracking and threatening to collapse. About 2,500 employees maintain the remains of the now-closed nuclear plant, working in shifts to minimize their exposure to radiation and several hundred evacuees have returned to their villages in the area despite a government ban."
But Greenpeace told me that half the frickin' Ukraine was going to be instant radioactive death for ten thousand years...
Getting a tan on holiday is often expected, but I don't want to come home from holiday, glowing in the dark!
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
STALKER. cosplay for real
Will motorcycle tours be offered?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The nice thing about a trip to Chernoybl is that you will always have your extra limbs to use as a conversation starter. "So, wanna know where I got all those extra testicles?"
If they make it look remotely like the Fallout series (esp. the second or New Vegas), then they will probably get plenty of visitors...
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Well it looks exactly like the sets in STALKER, so there's that at least.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
I know that the most interesting places will be the apartment buildings and other structures where the cold war era artifacts are left untouched. I hope that they stay that way, and don't get sanitised or removed by tourists. The first tour of the area will probably be the best.
That would be home made Kombucha.
Get out of here Stalker
No thanks. I've watched The Simpsons. I know what a nuclear power plant looks like.
Well I got spurs, that jingle jangle jingle...
Looking for Urchin artifact, offering 5k RU.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/
Regardless of any controversy over how the pictures were taken, they and the commentary are interesting nonetheless.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant "idiot".
— Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic
That thing is a mess, and they're struggling to contain it even after decades. They should nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be--- oh, wait.
Actually, the area is already open to a plethora of tourists and buses. You pay your $50USD, and you get taken through the exclusion zone(s), stopping at the monuments, reactor, and Pripryat.
Some snaps from my trip, for the interested:
http://ninjito.com/2008-08-16
The reactor: ;)]
http://ninjito.com/2008-08-16/qx-ch-6.jpg
'The' hotel in Pripryat
http://ninjito.com/2008-09-12-PANO/qx-pano-pripyat-1.jpg
Roof of the hotel, with the reactor in the background [Note, this was seen by 'straying from the group
http://ninjito.com/2008-09-12-PANO/qx-pano-pripyat-2.jpg
Neat shot of some of the hidden murels
http://ninjito.com/2008-08-16/qx-pripyat-1.jpg
Free tans that glow in the dark!
Some friends of mine did a tour through there - to within ~200 metres of the reactor 'sarcophagus' a few months ago. These tours have been running for years now form several different operators. Look up any travel website or just google 'chernobyl tours' and you'll find plenty about this.
I read the article but still can't understand WTF it's about when you consider these tours have been going on for years.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
nearly a quarter of a century ago
I suppose the more succinct and arguably more precise "24 years ago" or "in 1986" sounds so ordinary (to a journalist's ears, at least.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
In Soviet Russia, Chernobyl tours you!
You hope that tourists don't wreck "it".
The problem I think is deciding what "it" is. The state of the area on 13 December 2010? What happens if a tourist breaks off a piece of something / steals something? do you put a replica in its place? What happens if there is heavy snowfall this year or rainstorms and these threaten to damage the soviet murals in the buildings or even collapse a roof of a building. Do you let them collapse, rebuild them, actively preserve them in some state?
This is the dilemma - what is the state you want to keep things in? Clearly the place has been touched by people, weather, and wildlife since (1986 was it?) - there's decay, graffitti, some stuff has been moved or stolen. What are your feelings? is it a tourist park, or a memorial, or other? Historians and cultural experts all have opinions about this.
Close to home, in the town I live in, Bletchley Park also has this issue to a small degree. They are always struggling for money but one question they have to think about is what state to preserve the place. A lot of the the famous codebreaking huts are in really poor condition - but then they were only designed as temporary wooden buildings to last a few years in the war. Now 70 years on their cheap constructions are falling apart. Do we freeze them somehow? tear them down and build replicas (but maybe to higher quality so they last longer and can survive tourists)? Do we save what is left and incorporate some of that original material alongside new material (replacing rotten wood, etc?
A big challenge for cultural preservation everywhere. What is the purpose of the Chernobyl area? What do you do when the buildings become unsafe because the weather has got in and they are in danger of falling down?
AFAIK, the zone is already open for tourists. In guided tours, with authorized guides, the tour takes at most a day, visitors are screened for radiation levels upon entering and exitting and the guide has an active geiger counter at all times (which is one of major attractions too). At least a few travel agencies in Poland and Ukraine offer these tours (e.g. link)
The route, time and organization of these tours really minimizes all radiation-related danger to bare minimum and as long as you follow the guide, there is no risk of overexposure whatsoever. (still, the free-roaming of Pripyat part of the tour, on the other hand, has a considerable risk of getting hurt by parts of ruined buildings.)
The zone is in major part uncontaminated and totally harmless (save for rabid wolves, collapsing roofs of houses, getting lost and freezing to death, wild boars and the likes) but there are still many smaller or bigger patches of more radioactive areas - not radioactive enough to harm you if you cross in a car or even walking at a fast pace, but enough to mean somewhat heightened cancer risk if you camp there for a night. Generally, if you have a geiger counter and an inch of brain to follow what it says, radiation is not a danger - the count rises, you turn around. If you are an experienced hiker and have some rudimentary means of defense from wild animals, you can spend weeks in the zone just fine.
Generally, obtaining permission to enter the zone is not very hard. Many Airsoft groups organize their games there for example. Which areas you are allowed to enter and for how long, is a different matter. You get day permissions at most for Pripyat, but for example, the far west of the zone is pretty open and accessible - the standard 30km perimeter around the power plant has been extended about 30km more to the east-north-east where one of two major clouds of contamination struck. That cloud was long, wide, but more stretched, so the levels near that border of the zone have already dropped to entirely safe levels by now and getting a prolonged permit for that area is not a problem at all.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I highly recommend reading the book _Wolves Eat Dogs_ by Martin Cruz Smith for a fictionalized account of chasing criminals thru the Zone of Exclusion. Lots of details about radiation, residents who stayed, and the disaster itself. Don't know how close it is to truth of course. Disclaimer: he's my favorite mystery writer.
My last year's visit to show off: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=chernobyl&w=78303790%40N00
do we get to see thunderdome in bartertown?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh,
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Well, I already managed to leave Pripyat alive in Call of Duty 4, so I'm not going to risk it once more.
I got to see a presentation given by a nuclear scientist who went there last year on a vacation - it can be done, but it takes at least one person in the tour that speaks decent Russian. Wild pictures - growing up at the end of the Cold War, seeing an abandoned, looted Soviet-era city is a little creepy.
Scratch that, a whole bunch of creepy.
The guy doing the presentation had his own geiger counter, and was showing just how hot some areas of Chernobyl still were. It was wild stuff, and sobering...
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
Yeah, I was planning to take my mate there for his Stag Weekend, mainly so that he can't have kids.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
... environment kills YOU!
I am glowing with anticipation
It would also be a good idea for the tour to include all of the hospitals that take in the young children affected - twenty years later - by the Chernobyl disaster.
It's wild how much it looks like Feodosia, Allushta, and Sudak... all of which have been continuously inhabited. Of course, the Soviets weren't really known for pushing the architectural envelope.
Touring Chernobyl is like walking across a freeway blindfolded, because it's okay, you can't hear any cars.
You see:
(1) The "Quiet Prius" prob: You basic inexpensive Geiger counter, for durability, has a thickish diaphragm over its sensor, which blocks alpha and beta radiation. The element of most concern is Plutonium, which is an Alpha emitter. So, as listening for traffic is not very efficacious at discerning quiet cars, a geiger counter is of no help, indeed, it's less than helpful.
(2) The "Quiet on the average" prob: It does not help that traffic sounds quiet. All it takes is one car to send you flying. Similarly, it does not matter that the radiation level is, on the average, low. All it takes is one particle of Plutonium, nestled against a lung cell, to start a cancer. The cell does not care that averaged over a day, over your whole body, you just picked up a millirad. All it knows is that an alpha particle just smashed into its DNA and caused a mutation. Yes, DNA has some self-repair mechanisms but they're not foolproof.
(3) The "Ivana made it okay" prob-- it does not matter that some dame allegedly snapped some pics years ago. She may be dead or dying now. Plus we will never know how many folks took a similar trip but are now too sick or too dead to post their pics.
(4) The "But Ivan made it across" prob-- It does not matter that your tour guide has been there a dozen times-- You don't know how many other guides are now in the Kiev Home for Comrades With Bad Coughs Who Eventually Keel Over.
Maybe the analogy isn't so bad. Think about whether you'd walk across a quiet freeway before you sign up for this trip.
Come kids, take a picture of the two-headed radioactive squirrel to show back to mummy when we go back.
You need to watch this - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=414073095760658789
You would probably get more radiation exposure from the TSA to fly over there and back....
...as if they created a Root Canal Island. :)
...after the trip must be interesting.
I wonder if someone couldn't construct a radiation hardened building in the middle of it all? Then they could turn on some air raid sirens in the middle of the night and kick you out for authenticity.
well "traveller", as in "hey man, I am a traveller, not a tourist!" - means a tourist with pretensions.
I had great fun backpacking round the world and telling the international hippy set that I was most definitely a tourist, not a "traveller'. Either you live somewhere, or you're just touring through it, or you're popping in for a quick look.
And yup, most of the time you're a fish out of water and a total idiot. But hey, we all got to get along. I put up with dumb Americans in my neighbourhood and gently try to educate them when its possible so when I visit America they'll tolerate me being dumb and hopefully educate me a little too....
Only if they let me carry my trusty 10mm Pistol+ that I use for radscorps.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yeah. Mine was "Johnny Guitar". Every time I heard that come up on a radio, I wanted to put the laser pistol+ to my own head.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Here.
Best Slashdot Co
Things that can kill you dead without going out of your way to visit it the site of a major nuclear catastrophe. I mean if im going overseas Im going to like Japan to play with the women and see vending machine that offer adult film star panties, and facial recognition software to determine for me what I want to drink lol. Or im going to Amsterdam to smoke a copious amount of weed in a myriad of different ways. Or to see the Autobahn just because I want to see the Autobahn.. Lots of things rather than risk radiation poisoning for a couple of tourist snap shots.
When you dislike the human race as much as I do, Karma:Bad is inevitable lol.
STALKER 2 will be a game box with a Makarov pistol, 2 clips of ammo and a plane ticket to Chernobyl.
Sent from my CR-48
Please upload your video. You can call it 3guys1radioactivepowerplant.
Queue Obligatory "In Soviet Russia..." in 3...2...1...
Just another day in Paradise
What, no PDA this time? I was hoping for a Droid.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
I toured Chernobyl and all I got was this lousy third testicle!
load "$",8,1
Well, it's expected that you supply one. Although the deluxe edition comes with a Droid X and an AK-74.
Sent from my CR-48
What, all zero of them?
This AC surely deserves an audience.
That song rules. Has great guitar break in it
It's where you really want to live although you're too dumb to realize it.
> My last year's visit to show off: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=chernobyl&w=78303790%40N00
Pretty pleased with the Stalker tag
Ah. A vacation that leaves you with a nice healthy glow! What could be better!
But seriously, sign me up. The research possibilities are endless. All the sci-fi mutant stuff of "S.t.a.l.k.e.r" aside, seeing how life responds and adapts to that type of environment is fascinating.
I think we should collect all of the idiots and send them to Chernobyl on tour as long as we don't have to pay for their medical care later!
There goes my plan to strike it rick, buy the Chernobyl area from Ukraine, and set up my own little soviet nation...
It's always confirmation bias!
.. environment kills YOU!
So this must be some imaginary organization, huh? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Children's_Project_International This documentary must be a Hollywood, or better yet, a Greenpeace creation with special effects & actors, huh? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=414073095760658789# This page, taken out of a book about the increase in Thyroid cancer in children in/around Chernobyl must be a fucking imaginary publication, with imaginary facts, huh? http://bit.ly/feqkh6
a Gamma World LARP in a suitable environment!
There was even a girl there!
A few years back there was a great HD documentary on the wildlife returning to the area. They followed the lives of several animals (I think a cat and a wolf for one). Wildlife is doing very well, but apex predators are accumulating large doses of radiation from being at the top of the food chain. Who knows what effects that will have, but I was amazed at how well the ecosystem rebounded. I guess I was expecting a Mad Max landscape.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
(I'm originally from Kiev, not too far) See these tours have been going on for a long time, and people are allowed there mostly if you have connections, or a relatively small bribe (by US standards). Its just that now, apparently, it is no longer illegal - and you may enter "officially"; Before, there would be guards at the outpost near the entrance who would have typically not let you enter without a monetary contribution.
My mother went there a while back, the officials on duty gifted her some radioactive flowers, which were GIGANTIC, and then proceeded to wander around the reactor. In neighboring cities (like Kiev) about 10 years ago they would sell gigantic strawberries and other berries/fruits, which obviously were irradiated and harvested from around that area. It's creepy, and even as a kid I had enough common sense not to try them :) Some do, though. Some still live on the outskirts of Pripyat'.
It is not dangerous at all if you only visit the place for a short amount of time. So in a day or two you may get a months-worth of radiation, but seeing an abandoned soviet city, with abandoned daycare centers and whatnot - its a touching sight worth all the radiation you can get ;)
Also, many of the apartment buildings are partially overwhelmed with wild animals who took it that the abandoned city is now their territory - therefore, I recommend going there in winter so you could see if the snow near the entrances to buildings has animal footprints! If so, I really discourage you from entering those buildings.
That's more like it! See you in Borispol.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Chernobyl as a tourist attraction sounds like an episode of Futurama.
If they plopped an old icebreaker in the exclusion zone near Pripyat and called it Skadovsk, I'd book my trip tonight.
Sent from my CR-48
That, and we simply have no idea what to do with the spent fuel.
Blatently false, and yet it shows up in every thread about nuclear matters.
Our inability to dispose of spent fuel is a political problem, not a technical one.
Options:
1. Reprocess - it's still 90% or so usable fuel, if repurified. - The remaining isotopes tend to stay radioactive for a lot less time; more like 300 years, not thousands.
2. Use in breeder/alternate reactors
3. Bury in salt mines
4. Dump at sea into subduction zone
There's more, including a technology under development to do neutron bombardment to force fission quicker and artificially accellerate decay.
Still, I oppose just doing #3/4 until #1 or 2 is done because, well, it's still usable, why would we WANT to throw it away? Why spend the effort to design a vault good for thousands of years when I figure we'd just end up digging it back up in a couple centuries to use it as fuel again anyways?
Don't forget that you can keep store a multi-decade amount of waste from a multi-gigawatt plant in what's essentially an extra deep pool.
I don't read AC A human right
I for one welcome our zombie overlords!
My other sig is extremely clever...
It is a great song, and an even greater movie by the great Nicholas Ray. But after hearing it for the hundredth time when you're trying to dispatch a legion of deadly deathclaws does tend to ruin it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Many of the first responders and direct participants died from beta burns, shallow large-area skin burns comparable to thermal burns.
Excursion into Chernobyl are officially there for at least seven years now. With safe routes, procedures, etc. They are being done weekly. I wonder why did they woke up a few days ago and decided to publish this press-release about something that is old. I was in the zone for quite some time (not on excursions, just happened to work there). Aside from glowing in the dark, no other health issues so far. It's been a few years already.