Chernobyl Tour

cutout of reactor #4. 



abandoned hotel of Pripyat



I'm not sure what to say. It is quite sobering and fascinating at the same time. I went into control room 1 and saw what control room 4 should still look like. It is funny how antiquated the controls look. I am still amazed that we sent men to the moon and back to earth again when we did! On the tour we learned the whole scenario of events that occurred on April 26, 1986. The incredible thing is that they guys in control room 1 did not necessarily know what was happening at reactor 4 right away. Our interpreter was 10 years old and lived in Chernigov at the time and he only learned about the disaster a couple days later over the world radio. We visited the once affluent town of Pripyat, now it is a total ghost town. This town was a completely modern town with all the amenities. The children had beautiful parks to play in, a May Day carnival was being set up, and they could buy ice cream and oranges! People from other towns would visit Pripyat for a special weekend! Now it is empty, vandalized, and overgrown. The most important thing to remember while touring Pripyat was to watch out for broken glass and avoid stepping on the moss (high concentration of cesium). We stopped at Chernobyl city (outside the 10 mile perimeter exclusion zone, where people live and work at the reactor for 15 days a month). It was pretty quiet; we took pictures of monuments to the heroes and even toured the zoo (thanks to Laurin Dodd). I still can't believe I was standing only a few 100 yards away from the number 4 reactor and looking at all the structures created to protect us from that mess and the amazing structure that is currently being built to help decommission it!

door to reactor #1

dont step on the moss

Remembering the tradgedy

Tony’s tour was a bit more in-depth, he had the chance to actually visit Control Room #4 and he roamed the halls of reactor #4. He said while you are standing on the site just in front of the reactor it was more massive than he imagined and he became more excited and amazed that he could be a part of this historical structure, even if it is to a small degree.









The reactor core configuration at the time of the accident