Chernobyl home

Special Christmas trip

An eye-opening experience.

                   Marylyn, US, Ohio

Thank you for all of your hard work, you were an amazing tour guide and your guidance is on an important topic all human beings living in this global society should know about.

                   Elise, Fulbright scholar, US

  HOME.

  This short simple word denotes something important for each human being.

  You idea and your perception of your home and, perhaps many other things which matter in your life, will be different after this one day special trip devoted to Chernobyl homes.

  The homes were abandoned because of the explosion of the nuclear reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. More than three hundred thousand people lost their homes in the adjacent area.

  Now these empty homes welcome only those few human beings who come to this abandoned space.

  Empty cottages in the empty village of Zalissja.

  Missing cottages in the bulldozed and buried village of Kopachi.

  The decaying 5-story apartment buildings and cottages along the asphalt streets of the small provincial town of Chernobyl, now sparsely populated by a handful of shift-workers.

  The thousands of homes in (then-brand-new) 16-, 9- and 5-story apartment buildings, once assembled in the neat and beautiful town of Pripyat, surrounded by the pine forest. Forty-five thousand Pripyat residents were evacuated during three hours, one and a half days after the explosion. They were told – “temporarily, just for 3 days.” As it turned out, it is for eternity! In this town the clock still shows the year of 1986, in the country of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

  You will be guests at all of these homes.

  And you will also see the reason for these abandoned buildings – the ruins of the exploded Chernobyl reactor #4, now housed in a reinforced concrete Sarcophagus.

  And, at the site of a field military camp, the remnants of field casernes which sheltered the men – the Chernobyl heroes – the disaster’s mitigation workers, "liquidators", those who risked their lives to clean up the debris from the explosion. More than half a million of them made it possible for the zone of the disaster to be visited.

  With good luck, we will be guests in a home, - a simple traditional Ukrainian Polissya village cottage, - warmed by the work and soul of its owners, so-called "self-settlers" (samosely), who, in spite of the ban, returned to their generations-old homestead in the village of Paryshiv, on the other bank of the Pripyat river.

  After this trip, you may return to your home with totally different feelings.

  This special trip was designed and will be guided by Sergii Mirnyi, an ex-officer of the Chernobyl radiation surveillance group, who monitored the core of the Zone and the affected settlements in 1986. Now he is an author, screenplay-writer, scholar of Chernobyl and contemporary disasters and expert in their mitigation.

IMPORTANT TRIP INFORMATION

We meet from 7.00 to 7.30 a.m. in Kyiv, near Kyiv main railway station. (map)

We depart from Kyiv at 7.30 a.m. SHARP.

In case of your absence at the meeting place at the time of departure the payment for the trip won’t be refunded.

You should have with you your passport. WITHOUT PASSPORT NO ONE WILL BE LET IN THE ZONE!

Before the departure, you will be requested to sign two documents, which confirm that you won't blame the Chernobyl zone administration and trip organizers for any possible health states, which may or may not occur during the trip or in the future.

We will travel by comfortable bus (DVD, condition).

We will see (There can be some changes due to weather conditions!):

– the amateur museum of local lore at the recreation camp "Ecopolis"
– the field camp of the 25^th brigade of radiation, chemical and bacteriological protection
– the zone checkpoint "Dytjatki"
– the abandoned village of Zalissja
– the town of Chornobyl
– the eliminated village of Kopachi
– the abandoned town of Pripyat
– the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the Sarcophagus
– the village of Paryshiv, inhabited by self-settlers.

See these objects on the Zone map

Dinner at approx 6 p.m. Hearty and ecologically clean meals. UAH 78 (approx $10) per person, paid prior to departure as they are not included into the cost of the trip. Vegetarians should advise in advance when making the payment.

Arrival to Kiev around 9 pm. (depends on the weather!)

To make your trip really comfortable and enjoyable, we advice you to:

- have some sandwiches, snacks and bottled water with you to have a bite on the route

- have hiking clothes and boots (for the walks on the stops), an extra pair of socks, additional warm clothes.

Your passport data is required to get entry to the Zone.

Send us your passport info (citizenship, full name and family name. date of birth in format DD.MM.YYYY, passport series and number) IN TEXT FORMAT.

Please DO NOT forward scans of your passports – just send the info AS TEXT!

TO BOOK THE TRIP click here. 

For get more detailed info - WRITE TO     admin"chernobyl-tour.com