In a vacuum no one can hear you scream!

It’s 6.30AM and the dorm room is literally a sauna…. must be 30 degrees in here and a ilm of sweat has covered me. I Haven’t even moved yet!

Today is important cause for 13 years I have always wanted to visit Chernobyl, and i cant wait to get there!

The Ride will take approximately 2 hours, although it is only 120KM away the roaring in the Ukraine is nothing short of a corrugated piece of concrete. Ukraine might have some of the worst divers and roads in the world.

As i wait on the road for my vehicle to arrive i cant help but smile, within about 5 minutes a white Renault Van pulls up and a Russian man rolls the window down, Squints at sheet of paper and say Andre?, i reply yes and hop in, the driver does not speak a lot of english and i wonder how this tour of Chernobyl will go….

We pull out into the quiet Sunday streets of Kiev and start navigating out way to the city limits, as we hit the last mile marker for the city we swing off a back street and pull up outside an old Soviet Union Apartment complex, on the front is the classic sickle and Hammer with a dirty slabs of concrete encasing the surrounding windows and doorways.

The drive honks the horn twice and out of the doorway appears a Late 50’s woman called Lena, she will be my guide for the day and she speaks perfect english and Russian. With a screech of wheels the van takes off down the street and i exchange light communications with Lena about where she is from and what to expect for today.

The trip to the Dead zone or Exclusion zone from the city limits is about 1 hour and 15 minutes this was done with me and my asshole puckered up on the back seat as the drive tried every dangerous passing manoeuvre under the Sun!

We got to the DZ at around 10AM, there are 2 gates that are closed and armed military men, there job is to make sure all my passports and documentation check out to be Legit, each guard has an Assault rifle and a pistol… which looked to be a Glock,

I got out and stretched my legs and pulled my new camera out. I’m not allowed to photograph the guards however i can photo graph the Gates, after about 4 photos Lena orders me back in the Van and we pull through… this is the beginning.

The Tour Guide had given me a Geiger Counter when she entered the van and i turned it on, as we started to get closer to the the city of Pripyat the radiation levels started to fluctuate when i started out it was at about 0.9 Micro Sieverts(MS) and steadily increased to around .70MS

Double the level of what was considered normal background radiation.

We stopped just outside the city limits of Pripyat and took a coupe of quick photos of the towns 1970’s style Soviet welcome sign, to see the full town of Pripyat you would need about a week there so Lina asked me what i wanted to see, i replied with the town ship, government buildings and then the new Sarcophagus that was recently placed over the tomb of reactor number 4.

We headed for the town and pulled off a side street and stoped out side a 16 story Apartment building, Lena hopped out and asked me to be very quiet as we weren’t technically allowed in the apartment block due to there strict regulations on visitors.

We quietly made our was up floor by floor, each apartment was very small and would normally house a family of 4, there was usually one 1 kitchen , 1 bathroom , 1 bed room and a living area,The children would usually sleep in the living rooms on couches or pull out beds.

The building are a soviet communist design with large concrete slabs, as you go inside there is stale air mixed and there is just shit everywhere, Pripyat has been the victims to a lot of looters over the years, there are holes in walls where switchboards have been removed to sell for scrap, metal pipes hanging out of walls with burn marks from where angle grinders have tried to chop them into smaller pieces, while you navigate these halls you have to be mindful not to brush up against items as there can be radioactive fallout on the surfaces, they wont do a lot o damage to your health… but what they will do is set off the checkpoints on the way out, when you leave Chernobyl you have to pass a radiation screening process and if it triggers… kiss your clothes goodbye, they will literally destroy them in front of you!

When we got to the top of the 16th floor we exited out onto the roof, from up there you can see all the way to reactor number 4, its in the distance about 3KM away and it looks massive from where we are standing.

Lena points out some highlights of the city and explains that the it is split up into 5 Districts we will spend most of our time around the 2nd district as it is the least contaminated of the 5.

We descend the building and make our way through the overgrown woodlands and forest to a small pre-school , this was quite a hard image to look at as there were children’s toys just left in the play ground, when You go inside its a surreal experience and you don’t quite know how to feel about it… part of you knows some of these children would have died as it took them 3 days after the accident to announce a disaster, and more importantly when the reactor core blew back in 1986 it blasted Isotope 131 into the atmosphere

Isotope 131 has a Half-life of 8.02 Days…. not long when you consider that some nuclear fallout will last Millenia, however for humans this is not a good one, because it decays at such a rapid rate it basically means its Spewing out Gamma Radiation left right an centre!

Back to the Kindergarten, we walked in side and it was much the same as the apartment complex but with a Airy sadness about it, there was one room that gave me chills and it was what appeared to be the Nap room for young children and all the best were lined up in rows, the mattresses were decaying and the pillow lied there with rusty water on the, it was literally like being in a horror film!

As we walked out side i made comment to Lena that I couldn’t hear any birds or crickets….. actually you cant hear anything…. like nothing at all… like the place is stuck in a vacuum

You could scream but no one would hear you.

Lena said because the birds fly around they quite often come across highly radioactive areas and then with a blunt Russian tone said “they gone, Dead!”

We pushed on thought another few buildings then made out way to the town centre and had a look though the music school, it was filled with grand rooms along with pianos and staged, there was water leaking through roof’s and puddles in corridors had rotted the floor, Lena was very cautious and said it wouldn’t be advised to enter some of the rooms as i would end up in the auditorium below.

We navigated to the top of the music school and looked out across the wasteland of buildings and radioactive signs scattered throughout the Forrest, Lena took the opportunity to ask me about NZ and our way of life there , i explained our average way of living and she couldn’t believe we don’t lock our doors in smaller rural areas.

I took the opportunity to ask Lena where her favourite spot was in the city of Chernobyl and she described to me a lake that was created for the people and was fed by the Pripyat River, she then said “i take you”, i replies with my lazy Kiwi Accent “i would love to see it”

We walked down the Music school and out into the quiet deserted streets of Pripyat City and strolled down to where our drive had parked, as we walked down the we past the famous Pripyat Ferris which has its photographs plastered all over the internet, Lena said I wasn’t to touch any thing there as it was very “dirty” (Radioactive) so i took some photos from a distance,

I noticed there were some tourists leaning up against the structure and taking photos sitting in one of the decommissioned Booths, i asked Lena if that was a good idea…..

She laughed and said “very Bad!, They get stopped at decontamination on way out” i shrugged and said “not our problem”.

We got back to the van and traveled up to the man made lake, as we got out the Geiger counter i had strapped to my Backpack started to make its scratching noise and the Micro sieverts started to increase , .60…0.80…..350… then it jumped to as we approached the the water , at the waters edge we were taking about 1 Chest X Ray Per- Minute so we only stayed there for 3 minutes , this was the most radioactive place Lena would agree to take me otherwise we would need a clean suit, we took a couple of quick photos and quickly made our exit back to the van.

Kevin the Chernobyl Fox!^^… not sure if he was Kevin but it seemed fitting!

Lena said we not get to go to the power plant, the trip was 2KM and took about 15 minuted to navigate the damaged street, when we arrived the original Sarcophagus has since been replace by a freshly build stainless steel shell, the shell contains 98% of all the radiation now emitted from the decaying core and the Ukrainians have agreed to have all nuclear ruminants removed within 100 Years.

After we had visited the plant we took a trip to the radio antenna which is another big site about 5 KM out of the city, it was a huge antenna used throughout the Cold War and gave jobs to about 2000 workers within Pripyat, the Antenna is massive it spans about 800 Meters Long and rises 150 Meters into the sky, the scale of this monstrosity was enormous almost Incomprehensible and would make most other buildings in Eastern Europe look like dwarfs!

How it works, the Duga Radar could use 10 Megawatts of power to create a radio signal up to the ionosphere (about 50KM – 1000 Km in the earths Atmosphere) the signal would then bounce about 9000 kilometres towards America and then back again to its receiver located near by.

It was used in experiments for weather control, but its main purpose was to detect ICBM’s throughout the Cold War with America, if a missile was launched with would then pass through the radio waves and bounce a signal back to the Russians and they could then prepare counter measures to the attack.

One thing you have to give the soviets, they weren’t afraid about spending money, they invested Billions on the town of Pripyat all focused around the production of power…. and this was sadly put to rest in 1986 when reactor 4 blew its lid.

It’s was bridging onto 4.30 PM and it was time to start exiting the town, i had thoroughly enjoyed my tour and experience and nothing else on earth will compare to what i have seen and experienced today

My tour had a free lunch included but we decided to eat it at the end of the day so we could see more of the town with less interruptions, as we exited Pripyat there is a small village of about 500 people that live just within the Dead zone, Lena took me to a local eating hall there and pointed to a seat with a meal prepared and a glass of juice.

The meal was simple , a hot soup which i might as well call a peasant Broth followed by 2 pieces of bread, after i had finished that a young Girl of about 6-7 whisked my plate away and then brought me a huge plate of Boiled potato’s and a Steak of Pork…. there was no sauces or seasoning as i said it was simple, I devoured this an just as i was finishing Lena appeared and told me it was time to go.

We took of at warp speed and headed for the checkpoint, on the way out the vehicle has to pass through a special scanner to make sure the van hasn’t picked up any contaminated Soil, we have to unload and proceed to a special room, you stand on metal platform and put your hands on special pads, it makes 2 loud bangs and detects your radiation levels against the the background radiation of the Area…. if your reading is higher than the given background reading…. guess what your getting naked for a cold shower by a fire hose and most likely having all your clothes destroyed…

Nervously i step into the machine praying that it will go green… one click…. two clicks…..annnddd Green!… PHEW i can leave

We pile back in the van for our 2 hour return back to Kiev, the journey goes quite quickly but as we drift up the long vast straights of traffic i ask if we can get a photo of the lovely Sunflower fields that i saw coming is, Lena asks the driver ad he knows a “good Spot”

We pull over and i get a few snaps and then go warp speed back on the highway.

i feel my eyes getting heavier and heavier and as you try and fight the sleep you just feel worse and worse… i let my eyes drop for no less than 15 seconds for a micro sleep and as i reopen them there is the sound of a horn and “spok” Our Russian driver has started to brake hard1 as i look up and realised what is going on there is a Shit banger Lada on the wrong side of the road making a classic Russian Dash cam Passing manoeuvre!

I jolt awake and tense up as everything happens in slow motion and miraculously we scrape past with inches to spare!….. well good news is I’m awake now!

We get back to the city and the driver drops me back at my hostel, i thank him for his troubles today and i make straight to a pub… i need a beer!