Irradiated Tours
Never have I had so many unexpected problems in advance of a trip. The idea of going to Ukraine started 8-9 months before the trip, and tickets were booked far back in november.
5 days later Estonian Air went bankrupt. A tiresome process of getting the money back was fortunately fruitful and new tickets for the exact same route got booked through Adria. A few months later another one wanted to join the trip, but the flights we had booked were not available, and we realized that they'd changed the flight to Tallinn from 9am to 8pm, making it completely impossible to reach our connection. Another long session on the phone, and we got our tickets changed.
Then we had the "problem" with none of the agents who rents out apartments getting back to us - fine, we still managed to find a good enough hotel. The football club that was supposed to face Dynamo Kyiv managed to get bankrupt, and one of the travelparty skipped out last minute.
And of course there were delays on the flights, but we got through it all and found this eastern capitol in a very pleasant mood when we arrived.
Chernobyl was of course an obvious goal for the trip, and as we had to meet up with the group at 7:30, it meant for an early rise. The group was split in two directly, and we barely saw the others the rest of the day. All in our gang were however still together, along with three Frenchies, one American and a somewhat weird Brit who offered Dag to be a girl if he bought him icecream. And yeah, he was always in the way of everyones photoes as well.
Everyone got equipped with our geiger counter which interestingly enough showed slightly higher values in Kiev than in most of Pripyat, the abandoned city where the workers for the nuclear plant lived. There were however small hotspots here and there, such as the picture above shows where radiation spiked. 0,15 to 0,2 was probably the most common value we read. We did however drive through "the red forest" where the counters went mad if we held them towards the windows of the bus.
A very sovjetian stop border control before we were allowed to enter the area was of course part of the trip. They say it's because they still control the area and haven't really left the Sovjet-period, if that is how it is or if it's a part of the trip I can't really say for sure. Fact is at least that they want to know whom is in the area at all time, and that is both understandable and a lot safer than just letting anyone in.
Reactor 4 which collapsed back in april 1986 was still visible, but the dome they are building to cover it up was almost ready and will be moved over it in november or december. A bit of a weird vibe to be so close to a factory which in the worst case could have wiped out half of Europe.
Pripyat was probably the main goal with the tour, the abandoned city which once was Sovjets finest, both in terms of facilities and the people living there. Hotels, schools, playgrounds, an amusement park, a stadium as well as big apartment complexes was just some of what the inhabitants could enjoy. 30 years later however, nature had started to take the area back.
It was not allowed to enter any of the building, for the simple reason that they aren't all safe, and it's easier to make all illegal to enter than to check up on the various buildings all the time. There were guards in the area, but I kind of assume a small bribe would be enough if we were discovered.
We got through the amusement park with the iconic ferris wheel, radio cars and some other derelict attractions. We also got about 10-12 drops of water around there, but we were told there'd been rain the whole day in Kiev, so we were lucky that way. On the way back we also stopped by the massive Duga Radar also in the area before we had to go through several decontamination stops which basically was just a machine we stood in for a few seconds before it cleared up. Apparently we risked having to dump our clothes, getting a full scrubdown or just washing our hair, but according to the guide it had never happened to any within his 2 years of touring Chernobyl. So chances were slim and none of us were stopped either.
The next day we'd booked the lovely Irina Ivleva as guide for the day. She met up at our hotel at the agreed time and we left to explore the city. I'd written a bit with her before the trip and stated that we had to see the UNESCO protected Saint-Sophia Cathedral (above) (read more about it here)
The square outside was covered with huge decorated easter eggs created by artists from all around the country. Kinder (as with Kinder eggs) had a huge stand and was apparently a major sponsor of the event, but weirdly enough the didn't sell anything. We were however able to find a sales stand a different place later in the day and got some huge kinder eggs to bring home. The tour continued to an artsy area where i think all of us really enjoyed ourself. Small cafés, street stalls, unique stores and cozy bars all along the area.
We ended up by a funicular after a while, but the real surprise was at the top where an amusement park/fair was installed in a park. A small cabin had what they called 7D short movie experiences. There was only room for four of us, so we split up and I joined the "safe" movie with dinosaurs chasing the car or bike we were tricked into believing we were on. It ended with a pterodactyl dragging us up in the air and dropping us in what was a much more believeable drop than I'd guessed before joining. Would have been fun to read the pulse at the time, but I forgot that of course.
The last of our party was supposed to arrive by the time the guided tour ended, but his plane was also delayed, so we invited our guide to join us and take his ticket for the pubcrawl we'd booked for the night.
The pubcrawl guide turned up 20mins late, and it looked like he'd just awaken. He took us to a small bar close by, where they'd managed to run out of ordinary beer, but still had some dark left. He asked us what kind of bars/pubs we wanted, and didn't really care much after that. He'd booked a table at a great bar where we could buy "the helmet" which meant you were given a straight jacket, a military helm, set fire to some boozedunked napkins on top of the helm, before he knocked three (very soft) drinks in your head that you had to shot, then knocked you in the head with a large wrench before getting a beer barrel in the head. Filled his mouth with spirits, knocked our heads together and blew a fireball out in the room. Huge show-off factor, not nearly as scary as it sounded. The main "problem" was to get down the shots as there was a lot of foam after he'd knocked us in the head.
The flight back home was, in tradition with the rest of the trip somewhat delayed, and with a short transfer in Riga, we barely made it. However, as most on the plane from Kiev was on their way to Oslo, they held the plane the few minutes needed and we got back in ok time. Arrival back in Oslo however turned out to be the start of what made May 2016 one of the more shitty months for me so far.
