3-Day Tour from Kyiv to Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Day 1:

A visit to the Chernobyl zone with an experienced guide and along the tourist routes is safe; the radiation level in tourist places is not higher than in Kyiv.

Meet your guide and driver in Kyiv and travel to Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on a comfortable vehicle. After passing through Dytyatky checkpoint, you’ll enter the 30-km exclusion zone and visit the first deserted village on our way – Zalissya. The guide will tell you some facts about the village and show abandoned houses and barns. The next stop will be in the almost fully buried village of Kopachi, located 4 km far from the Nuclear Power Plant. You’ll observe the only one unburied building of the village – a kindergarten.

Moving forward, you see one of the most interesting sights of the Exclusion Zone – a decontaminated «Red Forest», that surrounds the Nuclear Power Plant and known as a place of the first and worst radioactive fall-out.

After that, you’ll travel to Pripyat, where the main tourist attraction of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – the Nuclear Power Plant (NNP) – is placed. Pripyat was a successful Soviet town with a population of 50 thousand before the evacuation. Now it’s a ghost town visited only by tourists and the staff of the plant. Nowadays the 4^th reactor of NNP where the disaster happened is covered with metal and concrete Sarcophagus and newly constructed Safe Confinement(“Arch”). Tourists can observe it from 300 m distance and/or see this construction at a pavilion.

Nearby the NPP placed a fire station, which crew arrived the first to extinguish a fire at the NPP after the explosion. In front of the administrative building “Life for Life” monument is located. In 1986 there used to be an enormous parking lot: thousands of people arrived there daily for NPP decontamination, the Sarcophagus construction, etc.

You’ll have lunch (vegetarian meal available upon request) and have a short walk around the town of Pripyat. After that, you’ll move to Chernobyl town .

In the evening you’ll have dinner (vegetarian meal available upon request).

Day 2:

After breakfast in Chernobyl-town (vegetarian meal available upon request), you’ll pass through10-km-zone checkpoint “Lelev” and discover the top-secret soviet object Chernobyl – 2(radar“DUGA-1”).  The guide will tell you a lot of interesting facts about giant radar antenna “DUGA-1” (also known as “Russian Woodpecker”), secret town of Chernobyl-2 which provided the efficiency of antennas and horizon tracking of the launching of ballistic missiles.

Lunch (vegetarian meal available upon request);

During the second half of this day, you’ll have an extended acquaintance with the town of Pripyat and will be able to take photos of the most interesting sights. You’ll visit the main bus station; the hospital that received the firefighters and NPP workers, badly affected by the accident; a river port and the most prestigious Pripyat café at the embankment. You’ll discover the Town Hall – the first headquarters for mitigation of the accident consequences; Polissya hotel, a correction point for helicopters dropping lead bags over the 4th reactor ruins; Prometheus cinema with a moving monument; the Lenin square with a Palace of culture, soviet supermarket, restaurant. One of the most popular tourist spots of Pripyat is the amusement park, which was never open, and its famous Ferris wheel.

The guide will tell you about a unique natural phenomenon – moss as a radiation collector and debunk some of the most popular radiation myths including a mutated pine tree.

Other must-see places in Pripyat are a football stadium which has turned into a forest in just 20-something years; a fire station which crew was the second to extinguish the fire at the NPP at night of the disaster on April 26, 1986; and a police station with cells and interrogation room.

In the evening you’ll travel back to the hotel and have dinner at the cafeteria in Chernobyl town (vegetarian meal available upon request).

Day 3:

Following breakfast in Chernobyl-town (vegetarian meal available upon request), you’ll visit a deserted village of Krasne placed 7 kilometers from Pripyat, explore its abandoned school, houses and a vandalized St. Michael Orthodox Christian church.

It is prohibited to live in the Exclusion Zone; however, it is not entirely abandoned. Some families returned to the Chernobyl Zone soon after the disaster and nowadays there are about 150 inhabitants, mainly elderly people. You’ll be able to get acquainted with so-called “self-settlers”, find out more about their life and have lunch cooked by self-settlers.

After the end of this unique tour, you’ll travel back to Kyiv. The estimated time of arrival is 6 – 7 p.m.