What It’s Like to Visit the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

My journey into Zombieland

picture by author

We are standing 50 meters away from the most radioactive place on earth. The guide’s frightening words reminded everyone that this was no ordinary location. This was Chernobyl.

Welcome to the Most Radioactive Place on Earth

You don’t need to be a nuclear physicist or Cold War historian to know about Chernobyl. The name alone signifies disaster, and the last Soviet Premier Gorbachov once called it “ the main reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union. “

Chernobyl is today an eerie location. After the accident, the government defined an “Exclusion Zone,” stretching 30 kilometers into each direction from the former power plant. In the aftermath of the disaster, over 50k people abandoned their houses in a matter of hours, and the once flourishing Soviet model city of Pripyat gradually fell into decay.

The zone (with a few exceptions) is completely uninhabitable, and you need a special permit to enter. In short, it looks like the set of a zombie movie.

For many years, it was utterly impossible to enter the Exclusion Zone as a tourist. However, in the last decade, many novel safety measures — including a 105m (334 ft) arch over the former reactor — contained…