Kiev/Chernobyl trip report

To tour Chernobyl you book an official tour?

Yep, there are a few companies doing the tours. I booked a private one so that I could see more than with a bigger group, plus they're more relaxed with the rules.

I had the guide and a guide trainee with me. There was a loose russian group in Pripyat town square at the same time and suddenly the guide yelled "only Ukrainian women wear high heels in Pripyat". She didn't like the russians that much, and the trainee with us was wearing high heels :)

Obviously this was a too short visit to really learn anything about the country.
 
Last year I worked with a woman attorney who grew up about 50 miles from Chernobyl when it blew. She told me stories that made me shiver. No one in her village knew what had happened for a while. They kept seeing helicopters and army every day but had no clue and no one would say anything. One day all people in hazmat suits came to test them for radiation but she didn't what the test was for. They were then forcibly moved out and relocated. It was then that she found out about the accident. She came here to be educated. She has stories.
 
Petri, your photographs do indeed tell hundreds of haunting, sad and painful stories. Thank you for sharing.
 
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