Chernobyl

April 26th 1986 at approximately 1:23 am, there was a powerful explosion that destroyed the 4th power block of a very large nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. This small town is located on the river Pripyat, which is approximately 140km from Kiev. I was elected to do a school research paper on what was known as the Chernobyl accident a few years back and ever since then I have had a great interest in learning more about it., so me and a few friends decided to rent an apartment in Kiev and go check it out for ourselves.

The small town of Chernobyl is first of known for its nuclear power plant and the 1986 accident, which became the most terrible nuclear accident in the history of the world. Known for the economic problems of the population of the former Soviet Republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. In total about 2,000,000 people were evacuated from their homes of the surrounding small towns and villages. Today Chernobyl power station is still very dangerous yet still attracts many, many people like me and my friends. While visiting we got to see lots of Chernobyl disaster pictures, photos, and videos, which kinda helped us to understand and realize the Chernobyl disaster a lot better. Before being elected to do my research paper on this topic, I knew nothing about the topic at all.

Visiting Chernobyl was a very un-nerving, yet strangely beautiful experience. We ended up booking a tour to visit and we were picked up in Kiev and then later dropped off in Kiev. This made it very convenient for us because that is where our kiev apartment was located.

On our tour we got to visit the Chernobyl reactor 4, but just from afar. The nearest observation for this was about 200m from the reactor Sarcophagus. I guess the only way to get inside is if you are a photographer or film maker and even then you must have a letter requesting to do so faxed to the plants general director and even then it is not guaranteed. So unfortunately we were not able to go inside. We did get to stop and feed a few of the very large sized catfish that were under the railroad bridge. It was pretty cool, because these were the biggest catfish I have ever seen. One site that I was looking forward to seeing was Rossokha Village, which is a cemetery for military machinery, unfortunately in 2008 the government prohibited access to this site and it still remained closed to visitors. It would have been neat to see all the emergency vehicles that tended the disaster but instead we were taken to a collection of abandoned ships on a lake by the city. This was pretty cool to see as well. The tour we took of the Chernobyl disaster was a great life time experience. It was nice to be able to learn a lot more and to actually be able to see parts of it with my own eyes was extraordinary. I would definitely recommend taking this tour if you are ever in Kiev or any other surrounding area.


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