I know I know, another Chernobyl one. Posting this so i've got some explores under my belt on the forum.
I'll try post photos of stuff that isn't seen as often! (Although it's been heavily covered)
Background:
Well we all know what happened here, but in the late 80s a failed nuclear test caused the power plant to go into meltdown, this caused many many square miles to be evacuated.
Trip:
I booked a private 1 day tour through the exclusion zone with a guy from work. It worked out reasonably priced and gave us the freedom to go inside buildings and wherever we wanted. We sort of did the tourist tour backwards so whenever we were at location it wasn't busy and it worked really well.
I stayed outside Kyiv and the tour company were awesome at picking us up!
Got really wasted the other few nights in the Ukraine.
Photos:
We started like everyone else inside the Kindergarten outside chernobyl, this is where you really notice the raditation levels increasing a bit from background, quite an eerie location but there's quite clearly a lot of new props set up there for tourists.
Next was outside the reactor itself, the size of this building is unreal, we went here early to "beat the crowd". Theres quite a few dogs in the zone and this guy was chilling nicely.
Next we went inside the police station and there were some absolute weapons grade toilets in there, surprisingly still intact after all these years. There was some cells we explored but noticed a few photos of these.
Outside the station is the vehicle garage, and workshop. Around this time we noticed military patrolling to keep people out of buildings but the guide made us hide a bit for 10 mins while they passed, they didn't check too intensely.
Tipped over bus just outside, there were loads of vehicles and plenty on the roof of the station which was quite weird. Didn't make it up there.
Vehicles on roof ^
Next was the sports stadium that never actually opened, I beleive it was due to open within a week or 2 of the meltdown. This place was the hardest to get my head round, the field which used to be a football pitch was basically just a forest, mother nature had quite literally taken this back.
View of the reactor from the roof of the apartment blocks, this was pretty interesting again seeing all the trees which had taken back and flourished.
Gimey swimming poor just near the ferris wheel, not seen as many photos of this one and it still had gross water inside, pretty run down area.
Forgotten memories of chernobyl??
We visited the gymnasium which was near the ferris wheel area. This had quite a bit of equipment left and to the left you can see a boxing ring, no floor on it though.
Inside the concert gall, the lights had fallen and the roof was collapsing, probably quite dangerous in there with so many suspending lights and fittings.
Little hut, just outside the Duga-2 radar array. We walked quite a bit away from the array, exploring the military part of the base which was cool. It was still manned by active military and had a checkpoint.
Just a view up the side of the radar array. We did a full lap around it, the scale of this needs to be seen to really appreciated.
Nice bit of graffiti under the array.
Finally on the way out and near the town of Chernobyl, there is a memorial. Each of these signs highlights a village or town that was evacuated as part of the exclusion zone, you typically on think of Pripyat.
Great trip, would definitely go again and highly recommend a private tour, not sure i'd have the minerals to sneak in myself. Heard some pretty crappy stories of the military demanding money for passports etc.
Kyiv is great too.
For a day, you can really get a lot of ground covered, we went in tons of buildings, see most of the tourist spots and did lots of building exploration.
I'll try post photos of stuff that isn't seen as often! (Although it's been heavily covered)
Background:
Well we all know what happened here, but in the late 80s a failed nuclear test caused the power plant to go into meltdown, this caused many many square miles to be evacuated.
Trip:
I booked a private 1 day tour through the exclusion zone with a guy from work. It worked out reasonably priced and gave us the freedom to go inside buildings and wherever we wanted. We sort of did the tourist tour backwards so whenever we were at location it wasn't busy and it worked really well.
I stayed outside Kyiv and the tour company were awesome at picking us up!
Got really wasted the other few nights in the Ukraine.
Photos:
We started like everyone else inside the Kindergarten outside chernobyl, this is where you really notice the raditation levels increasing a bit from background, quite an eerie location but there's quite clearly a lot of new props set up there for tourists.
Next was outside the reactor itself, the size of this building is unreal, we went here early to "beat the crowd". Theres quite a few dogs in the zone and this guy was chilling nicely.
Next we went inside the police station and there were some absolute weapons grade toilets in there, surprisingly still intact after all these years. There was some cells we explored but noticed a few photos of these.
Outside the station is the vehicle garage, and workshop. Around this time we noticed military patrolling to keep people out of buildings but the guide made us hide a bit for 10 mins while they passed, they didn't check too intensely.
Tipped over bus just outside, there were loads of vehicles and plenty on the roof of the station which was quite weird. Didn't make it up there.
Vehicles on roof ^
Next was the sports stadium that never actually opened, I beleive it was due to open within a week or 2 of the meltdown. This place was the hardest to get my head round, the field which used to be a football pitch was basically just a forest, mother nature had quite literally taken this back.
View of the reactor from the roof of the apartment blocks, this was pretty interesting again seeing all the trees which had taken back and flourished.
Gimey swimming poor just near the ferris wheel, not seen as many photos of this one and it still had gross water inside, pretty run down area.
Forgotten memories of chernobyl??
We visited the gymnasium which was near the ferris wheel area. This had quite a bit of equipment left and to the left you can see a boxing ring, no floor on it though.
Inside the concert gall, the lights had fallen and the roof was collapsing, probably quite dangerous in there with so many suspending lights and fittings.
Little hut, just outside the Duga-2 radar array. We walked quite a bit away from the array, exploring the military part of the base which was cool. It was still manned by active military and had a checkpoint.
Just a view up the side of the radar array. We did a full lap around it, the scale of this needs to be seen to really appreciated.
Nice bit of graffiti under the array.
Finally on the way out and near the town of Chernobyl, there is a memorial. Each of these signs highlights a village or town that was evacuated as part of the exclusion zone, you typically on think of Pripyat.
Great trip, would definitely go again and highly recommend a private tour, not sure i'd have the minerals to sneak in myself. Heard some pretty crappy stories of the military demanding money for passports etc.
Kyiv is great too.
For a day, you can really get a lot of ground covered, we went in tons of buildings, see most of the tourist spots and did lots of building exploration.
