Location: Kiev oblast
Chernobyl founded: 1193
Pripyat founded: 4 February 1970
Chernobyl (Чернобыль) is an old Medieval Russian/ Ukrainian town in modern day north Ukraine. However it is most famous for its Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant that became a witness of the Chernobyl disaster on the afternoon of April 27, 1986. While the city itself is fairly modest, its neigbour, Pripyat, became the face of the tragedy. Founded just few years before the disaster, Pripyat was the face of progress in urban architecture and engineering of the future.
Revelation 8:11 "And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became bitter; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."
At first glance it looks like a stretch: linking the 1986
explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to a visionary
imprisoned on the Aegean island of Patmos almost two thousand years
earlier. The thread that keeps drawing people back to that
comparison is the name itself.
Chernobyl (Чернобыль in Russian,
Чорнобиль / Chornobyl in Ukrainian) is not an invented Soviet label.
It comes from the local plant known as chernobylnik or chornobyl -
mugwort, common wormwood, Artemisia vulgaris. The word is older
still: a Slavic compound of “black” and “stalk/grass,” used for the
dark-stemmed wormwood that grows easily on the sandy soils of
Polissia. True absinthe wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is a close
cousin; in folk speech the names sometimes overlap. Both plants are
bitter, hardy, and common around the medieval town that later gave
its name to the nuclear station a few miles away.
That botanical
name is what makes Revelation 8:10-11 hard to ignore for some
readers. John of Patmos, writing in exile on the rocky island of
Patmos in the late first century, describes the third trumpet: a
great star blazing like a torch falls from the sky onto a third of
the rivers and springs. Its name is Wormwood. The waters become
bitter, and many die from drinking them. Whether one treats the
passage as prophecy, poetry, or coincidence, the verbal echo is
real.
The modern event that carries the name happened in the
early hours of 26 April 1986. During a poorly designed low-power
safety test, reactor Unit 4 of the RBMK plant went out of control.
Two explosions tore the reactor building apart and started a
graphite fire that sent a plume of radioactive material high into
the atmosphere. Iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90 and other
radionuclides drifted with the wind. Moscow was slow to admit what
had happened. Only after Swedish monitors recorded abnormal
radiation, and then stations across Western Europe, did the scale
become impossible to hide.
Pripyat, the purpose-built city three
kilometres from the plant and home to nearly 50,000 plant workers
and their families, heard no public alarm in those first hours.
Officials blocked roads, held emergency meetings, and delayed.
Evacuation began only on the afternoon of 27 April - roughly 36
hours after the explosion. Residents were told the move was
temporary, two or three days at most. They were instructed to pack
documents, a little food, and almost nothing else. Most left
apartments, toys, clothes and photographs exactly where they stood.
The Ferris wheel in the new amusement park, scheduled to open for
May Day, never turned with passengers. In the following days and
weeks the 30-kilometre exclusion zone was drawn, then expanded. Tens
of thousands more were relocated from villages across northern
Ukraine and southern Belarus.
Decades later the human city is
still a ghost. A few dozen self-settlers, mostly elderly, quietly
returned to their villages against official advice. Scientists,
liquidators’ memorials, and tightly controlled tourist groups come
and go. What filled the empty streets and fields was not people but
wildlife. European bison (zubr), wolves, lynx, deer, wild boar, elk,
and later introduced Przewalski’s horses now move through abandoned
orchards and the Red Forest. Radiation remains in soil and some food
chains, yet large mammals have recolonised ground that had been
farmed and settled for centuries. The accident emptied the map of
people and, in a bitter irony, handed the landscape back to nature.
The plant still stands under its later New Safe Confinement arch.
The name on the map is still the name of a bitter weed. And the old
text from Patmos still sits on the shelf, waiting for anyone who
wants to draw the line between a star called Wormwood and a town
called Chernobyl.
Monument to the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident
At the
entrance to the plant complex, roughly 270-300 m from Unit 4 and the
New Safe Confinement arch, stands a memorial to the firefighters,
engineers, miners, and other liquidators who worked the first days
and years after 26 April 1986. The sculpture shows palms lifting the
fourth power unit above a bell struck by lightning. Nearby plaques
and a cross honor those who died in the fire and from acute
radiation sickness. This is one of the closest public viewpoints of
the plant. Guides often quote about 400 μR/h (roughly 4 μSv/h) here
- many times higher than Kyiv background, but brief. Flowers are
still laid on anniversary dates.
Red Forest
West of the
station, a belt of pine took the heaviest load of radioactive dust
in the first hours. Needles browned within about half an hour; most
trees died. Liquidators later felled and buried them in sand-covered
trenches, which later raised groundwater concerns. What you see now
is second-growth woodland - more deciduous than the original pine
stand - plus deer, wild boar, Przewalski’s horses, wolves, and other
animals that returned once people left. Hotspots remain among the
highest outside the industrial site. A large fire in 2016 and
trench-digging during the 2022 occupation disturbed buried material;
official groups keep to the road.
St. Elias Church in
Chernobyl
In the town of Chernobyl itself (the working base for
zone staff, not the ghost city of Pripyat) stands the only
functioning Orthodox church in the Zone. The present brick church
was consecrated in 1878 after earlier wooden churches burned.
Soviets closed it and used it as a grain store; it reopened during
the war and stayed open until the 1986 evacuation. Services resumed
for plant workers and commemorations. It is linked to the locally
venerated “Chernobyl Savior” icon and to accounts of a 1970s
apparition of the Virgin over the church. Radiation in town is
usually close to ordinary Ukrainian background.
Chernobyl bus
station
The station in Chernobyl town is a remnant of ordinary
Soviet civic life. The town was emptied, then partly reused as a
dormitory and service hub for liquidators and later for plant and
reserve staff. Unlike Pripyat, streets here are still maintained.
The station building is a short, photogenic stop on the way in or
out of the inner zone.
Cooling pond of the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant
The large artificial pond and canals that cooled the
reactors became famous for oversized wels catfish. Size came from no
commercial fishing and years of bread tossed by staff and visitors,
not from “mutant” growth. Measured fish reached about 1.65 m;
internet photos often exaggerate. Feeding from the bridge was a
standard tour moment in warmer months (the fish stay deep in
winter). After water levels and feeding patterns changed, the
biggest specimens became rarer. Do not eat anything from these
waters.
Kindergarten in the village of Kopachi
Kopachi, a
few kilometers from the plant, was so contaminated that almost every
wooden house was bulldozed and buried under mounds marked with
radiation signs. The brick kindergarten and a couple of other
masonry buildings were left. Inside: small beds, lockers, books, and
toys. Some objects later read well over 500 μR/h; hotspots on the
grounds can be higher still. Do not pick anything up. Some dolls and
toys have been rearranged by later visitors - the rooms are still
among the strongest images of the evacuation.
Amusement park
in Pripyat
Behind the Palace of Culture “Energetik” stands the
park that never had an official opening. The yellow Ferris wheel
(“Circular Overview”), about 26 m high with 16 cabins, plus bumper
cars, the “Chamomile” paratrooper ride, and swing boats were
assembled for May Day 1986. The explosion on 26 April and the
evacuation on 27 April cancelled the launch. Claims that the wheel
ran briefly to distract residents are unproven. The rusted wheel is
now one of the main visual symbols of Pripyat. Moss and soil around
the rides can be hot; stay on the pavement.
Zalesie (Zalissya
/ Zalesye)
Once the largest village in what became the Zone
(around 3,000 people) and a settlement centuries older than Pripyat.
After May 1986 it emptied. Wooden cottages, a shop, and side streets
are now half-swallowed by trees and tall grass. It is often the
first village on a one-day itinerary. Background here is usually
lower than in the 10 km inner zone. A few elderly self-settlers
lived on in similar villages for years; Zalissya itself is
abandoned. Look through windows rather than entering unstable
houses.
The first mention of Chernobyl refers to the
events of 1193. It is listed in the annalistic "List of Russian
cities near and far" (end of the 14th century).
In 1541, when these lands were controlled by the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania, a castle was built in the vicinity of Chernobyl by Prince
Friedrich Pronsky, separated from the settlement by a deep moat that
has survived to this day. At the beginning of the XVII century, the
castle was reconstructed and turned into a well-fortified and
inaccessible fortress, and the city of Chernobyl became a district
center.
In 1793 it became part of the Russian Empire. In 1898, the
population of Chernobyl was 10,800, of which 7,200 were Jews.
Jews were resettled in Chernobyl by Philo Kmita as part of Polish
colonization. After joining the Kingdom of Poland in 1596, the
traditional Orthodox peasantry was forced to convert to Catholicism.
Orthodoxy was restored only after the conquest of the Russian
kingdom.
In the second half of the 18th century, Chernobyl became one of the
main centers of Hasidism. The Chernobyl Hasidic dynasty was formed
by Rabbi Menachem Nakhum of Tver.
Until the end of the XIX century. Chernobyl was a privately owned
city that belonged to the counts of Khodkevich. In 1896, they sold
the city to the state, but until 1910 they owned a castle and a
house in the city.
The Jewish population was severely affected by the pogroms in
October 1905 and March-April 1919, when many Jews were robbed and
killed by the Black Hundreds and Petliurists. In 1920, the Tver
dynasty left the city and Chernobyl ceased to be an important center
of Hasidism.
During World War I was occupied. During the Civil War, the city and
county were controlled by the "green" chieftain Struk, whom the Reds
repeatedly tried to expel, but he invariably returned with the
detachment. During the Soviet-Polish war, Chernobyl was first
occupied by the Polish army (in fact, the same Struk, which this
time offered its services to Pilsudski), and then was recaptured by
the cavalry of the Red Army. In 1921 it was included in the
Ukrainian SSR. The last Jewish pogrom in the vicinity of the city of
Struck was organized in 1922.
The Polish Chernobyl community was deported to Kazakhstan in 1936.
The small Jewish community remaining in the city after 1919 was
completely destroyed during the German occupation in 1941-1944.
Liberation Day - November 17, 1943.
In the 1970s, the first nuclear power plant in Ukraine was built 10
km from Chernobyl.
In 1985, the over-the-horizon Duga radar, the Chernobyl-2 object,
was put into operation.
On April 26, 1986, an accident occurred at the fourth unit of the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which became the largest disaster in
the history of nuclear energy. All residents of the city were then
evacuated, but some subsequently returned to their homes and now
live in the infected area.
In 2006, the Blacksmith Institute, an American non-profit research
organization, published a list of the most polluted cities in the
world, in which Chernobyl was in the top ten.
The Hero of the Soviet Union was born in the city, the head of the
guard of HPV-2 for the protection of the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant, and the lieutenant of the internal service, Vladimir
Pavlovich Pravik (1962-1986).
In the center of Chernobyl in 2010-2011 a memorial complex was built
to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. The author
of the project is the People's Artist of Ukraine, Honored Art Worker
Anatoly Gaydamak. The presidents of Russia and Ukraine came to the
opening of the complex in April 2011.
In November 2014, a monument to the Chernobyl partisan Pasha
Osidach, who was killed by the Nazis in 1943, was moved to the
complex and solemnly opened. The monument was planned to be
installed back in 1986, but the accident prevented it. In the
post-accident years, the sculpture was stored on the territory of
the complex of construction and repair works (courtyard of secondary
school No. 2).
The complex also includes a museum opened in the former cinema
"Ukraine" (until 2011, this building housed a grocery store and
cafe-bar). The museum has collected things of residents of evacuated
villages, street signs and house numbers, children's toys, household
items, etc.
In spring 2011, the first stone of the future monument to the
liquidators of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident was laid
next to the museum.
Chernobyl is located 110 km from Kyiv and about 16 km from the border
with Belarus.
To access Pripyat, Chernobyl, or any of the
surrounding villages, you will need to enter the 30 km "Zone". To do
this, you need to get permission in advance - write a letter to the
chairman of the State Agency of Ukraine for the management of the
exclusion zone, which should indicate all members of the group, their
passport details and dates of birth, as well as the data of the driver
and transport. The price of such a trip on your own transport is 850
hryvnia for organizing a route from a group, 212 hryvnia per person (or
102 hryvnia for citizens of Ukraine) for escort, 85 hryvnia per person
(you must also include lunch for accompanying people and the driver) for
lunch in a city canteen of the city.
Another (but more expensive)
way to get to the "Zone" is to use the services of a tour operator,
which are many in Kyiv.
Chernobyl-Tour, Bastion Street, 1/36,
Kyiv. ☎ +380 44 383 4588. Mon-Fri, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Excursions based on
the latest knowledge about Chernobyl and radiation. Tours are
comfortable and enjoyable. Tours tell about the life of the people of
the exclusion zone and the history of the accident. 1-day trip -
$116-160, 2-day trip - $265-314 per person. The price includes an
official visit to the "Zone". English-speaking guide, souvenir,
transport, map of the route and the Zone. Possibility to rent a personal
dosimeter-radiometer.
Tours2Chernobyl, Obolonsky Prospekt, 68,
Kyiv. ☎ +380 50 217 3949. Mon-Fri, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Official group and
private excursions to Chernobyl and the ghost town of Pripyat according
to a unique author's program from professional guides who have
permission to organize excursions in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
Possibility of guided tours in English. The cost is $49 for Ukrainians
or $99 for foreigners.
"'Chernobylwel.com"'. These trips provide the
opportunity to see places that would normally go unseen, including
Cooling Towers 5 and 6, meetings with local citizens, and visits to the
Tech Graveyard. The tour also offers 2-day excursions from 270 euros for
tours from Kyiv.
'Pripyat.com',. Organized tours to the Chernobyl
"Zone" and Pripyat. The tour is conducted by former residents of Pripyat
and Chernobyl.
sputnik8.com. ✉ from $90 for a 1-day tour. all tours
from all companies - in one place. edit
Please note that only persons
over 18 years of age are allowed to visit the Chernobyl zone.
By
plane
The nearest airport is in Kyiv
By car
To travel to
Chernobyl by car, you need to move along the P-02 highway to the
intersection with the road to Pripyat.
By bus
To travel by
bus, you need to sign up for a tour. After booking, you will be taken
there by tourist bus. Regular buses don't go there.
There is no regular public transport for visitors inside the
Exclusion Zone. The only scheduled services that still operate are the
Kyiv–Chernobyl staff buses and the Slavutych–Semikhody electric train
used by nuclear-plant and zone employees.
The train is boarded in
Slavutych, the purpose-built town erected after 1986 for plant workers.
After crossing the Pripyat River the line used to cut briefly through
Belarusian territory and terminate at Semikhody station, right by the
plant. Leaving the train without a valid ChNPP or zone-employee pass is
not allowed; tourists cannot simply step off and wander. Since 2022 the
old rail route has been disrupted by destroyed bridges and the wartime
border situation, so workers now usually travel by longer road rotations
rather than the classic commuter train.
Independent travelers who
arrive in their own vehicle will not be waved through the Dytyatky (30
km) or Leliv (10 km) checkpoints unless they already hold an official
permit and are accompanied by an authorized escort. The car must have
several empty seats for that escort (and sometimes a second official).
Vehicles themselves undergo radiation control on exit. In practice
almost all civilian visitors enter on licensed tour minibuses that leave
Kyiv early in the morning, stop at Dytyatky for passport and permit
checks, and stay with a licensed guide the entire time. Hitchhiking or
hiring a random taxi to the zone is not realistic.
Always confirm the
current access regime before planning: tourist visits have been
restricted or suspended at various times since the 2022 invasion, and
only groups with approved paperwork are admitted.
Because of residual contamination (radioactive dust and “hot
particles”), eating and drinking in the open air is forbidden. That rule
applies on streets, in Pripyat, near the plant, and anywhere you might
sit on the ground or touch surfaces. If you bring snacks, keep them
sealed and consume them only inside the tour vehicle. Sandwiches and
bottled tea or water are the usual choice; never pick berries,
mushrooms, or fruit from the zone.
The practical option is the
workers’ canteen. One is in Chernobyl town (often used by overnight
groups); another, Canteen No. 19, sits near the power plant and is used
by plant staff. All food is trucked in from outside the zone. Portions
are large, typically a set Ukrainian lunch (borscht or soup, a main
course, bread, kompot). Before 2022 a tourist lunch was quoted around 85
UAH (2013 figure); later tours usually included the meal or charged a
modest extra. You pass a full-body radiation monitor to enter the
canteen. Eating on the street or while touring the plant grounds remains
strictly prohibited.
Bottled water from the tour bus or the official
water supply is fine. Do not drink from wells, rivers, or open sources.
Day-trippers return to Kyiv the same evening. Groups staying several
days are housed in Chernobyl town (the inhabited administrative
settlement, not the abandoned city of Pripyat). The usual addresses are
the old Pripyat Hotel (triple or quadruple rooms originally built for
plant-shift workers), Hotel 10 / Desyatka, or similar basic Soviet-era
blocks used by InterInform and tour operators.
Rooms are simple:
shared or modest private bathrooms, little luxury, sometimes a kitchen
or small bar nearby. Indoor radiation levels in these buildings are
comparable to a large city and well below outdoor hotspots. Dinner and
breakfast are taken in the attached or nearby canteen. A 22:00 curfew is
common; hotel doors are locked after that hour.
Bookings are made
only through licensed operators as part of the official permit.
Independent walk-up stays are not possible. Some multi-day programs have
also used hotels in Slavutych (outside the zone) so that groups can ride
with plant workers, but that option depends on the rail link and current
security rules.
Follow every instruction from the escort: closed
clothing and shoes, no souvenirs from the ground, no sitting on soil,
compulsory dosimetry checks on the way out. A short official visit, if
it is permitted at all, still delivers a lower external dose than a
long-haul flight when you stay on the approved routes.
The Exclusion Zone feels almost empty of ordinary life, yet it is not cut off from the outside world. The main Ukrainian mobile operators - Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine, and lifecell - keep working coverage in Chernobyl town, Pripyat, and many of the nearby villages. Signal is strongest along the official tour routes, near checkpoints, and in the administrative center of Chernobyl. In forested pockets and inside abandoned buildings it can drop or disappear. Bring a power bank: phones spend a lot of time searching for a tower and drain faster than usual. Do not count on public Wi-Fi. For photos, maps, and emergency contact, local 4G is usually enough on the paved itinerary.
A licensed guide walks you through the rules before you enter, and
you sign them. The points that matter most are simple and
non-negotiable.
Do not touch objects, rusted metal, moss, mushrooms,
or plants. Dust and soil can hold radioactive particles even on routes
that look clean. Do not sit on the ground, put bags on grass, or pick up
“souvenirs.” Do not go inside buildings. Pripyat apartment blocks,
schools, and the amusement park structures are structurally unsafe after
decades of freeze-thaw and neglect; floors and roofs have collapsed.
Official tours stay on approved paths. Only a handful of rooms in
central Chernobyl have been repaired for staff and visitors. Wear closed
shoes, long sleeves, and long trousers. At the exit checkpoint you pass
through radiation-control portals. If contamination is found on clothes
or shoes, you will be asked to clean or change before leaving.
Pregnant visitors and young children are generally advised not to join.
Follow the guide’s timing: official routes keep cumulative dose low,
typically comparable to a short intercontinental flight for a one-day
visit.
On a standard guided day trip you are taken into Pripyat and to a
safe viewing distance of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, including
the New Safe Confinement over Reactor 4. Stops often include the Duga
radar, checkpoints, and selected streets of the abandoned city. You stay
with the group.
Slavutych is worth a separate look if your itinerary
allows it. Built after 1986 for plant workers evacuated from Pripyat, it
is a living town of numbered quarters designed by different Soviet
republics - Armenian tuff in Yerevan quarter, Georgian motifs in Tbilisi
quarter, Baltic timber details in Tallinn and Riga quarters. The Local
History Museum of Slavutych and the Chornobyl NPP holds documents,
models, and everyday objects from pre-accident Pripyat. There is a
memorial to liquidators and firefighters, a central square with a clock
tower, and quiet residential streets. Beyond that, Slavutych is an
ordinary small city: shops, schools, commuters. It is useful as context
- the place people rebuilt after the disaster - not as a second Pripyat.
Access to the Exclusion Zone itself depends on official permits and
current security conditions. Book only through licensed operators, carry
your passport, and check the latest entry rules before you travel.