Sometime in June of the last year, we decided with our friends that it is high time we finally visited Chernobyl and Pripyat. I was a fan since the Call Of Duty 4 epic Pripyat mission and I only fed my lust for radioactivity by playing way too much S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout over the span of last 7 years. And then we just did it. Each packed only 1 small backpack - minimalist style, and on the adventure we went. And now I am here to describe the awesomeness that ensued, personally, to you.
First we booked the Chernobyl tour, the flight tickets on kiwi.com and a hostel on booking.com. It is called Hostel Podolskij and it was awesome. We paid about 80 grivnas ($3) per night, and the quality of the rooms was way waay better that you could ever expect from the images of the exterior building. But everything is like that in Ukraine ;) We were really pleasantly surprised when we arrived.
We took a bus from our czech Brno, to Budapest, Hungary - with us went a really attractive Slovak girl - that means conversations the whole way :D At the airport we slept on the ground, waiting for the flight in the morning. We saw only very small portion of Budapest, so we cannot judge here. From Budapest we flew to Kiev with WizzAir. (photo - my 3 friends, Stano, Jirka and Jan [John] - on Budapest airport)
This photo is our first contact with Ukraine's soil. Interesting was, that not even the "Info" lady on the airport did not know more than 3 words in English - later we found that absolutely nobody talks English in Ukraine :D We had better conversations in plain old slovan Czech (Czech and Russian languages are both slovan).
Then came a culture shock, when a marshrutka arrived. It is a small and very old bus, almost falling apart. And there is no electronics at all, so of course no ticket machines. When the bus was full, people in the back passed hard paper cash by other people's hands to the front shoe box, which acted as a payment gate for the driver. A lot of trust involved.
The ride was also ridiculously cheap (22 cents intra-city)
Next stop was our hostel. We slept over, I think maybe visited a pub (Porter Pub) close-by and like real czech people we got drunk. The beer was INSANELY cheap!! And that is coming from Czechs from Czech Republic where beer is cheaper than water in restaurants. The beer was 30 cents per glass. 4 guys drinking all night, and we paid only $15. If you are a tourist in Ukraine, even from Western countries in Europe, you can live a like a king (Eurotrip was no joke in this, even tho Slovakia is alright in reality :D)
The van from our tour agency arrived in the morning, and after short instruction of an angry looking young guide Ivan, the driver took us to small village, where we picked our real, old and experienced, tour guide in camo clothing and with thick Russian accent. In about an hour or two (fuzzy memory) we were at the ZONE CHECKPOINT. White vans everywhere. Souvenir shop with magnets for grandmas and parents. Radioactive symbols. Get out of here, Stalker!
Our first stop was some kind of Chernobyl monument. Radioactive stray dogs showed up and we played with them and fed them. They were scattered everywhere we went in our journey.
Our second stop was Kopachi village (it is even a mission location in Call of Pripyat!). It was creepy, like the Outlast game.
And our guide showed us a very radioactive place near the ground. If you ingested the soil and sand, you would die. But the radiation was weak enough that it could not penetrate your skin. And it is like that in whole Pripyat and Chernobyl, so no worries :) I think you gain more radioactivity if you eat cashew and banana joghurt than by merely walking around the city (both the nuts and fruit are radioactive to some extent).
I don't remember the chronology exactly, because I was too busy taking loads of images with my camera. I should have enjoyed the moment and take only a few photos. Do you ever regret not enjoying the experience and taking pictures of it instead?
First we went to Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. What surprised us the most was the fact that there were people. And I mean walking and working in an office building 300m next to the nuclear plant! They were put there to clean up the mess and do the paperwork. Lots of stray dogs showed up again, we cuddled with some of those poor hungry guys. Here we pose at the front of the Sarcophagus, unfortunately the iconic Chernobyl Tower was taken apart around 2 years before we went. Damn you laws of causality!
Who's a good booy!
Poor doggies :/ Have some love.
Next we passed the Pripyat momument. If you remember you were crawling next to it in the stealth mission in CoD 4 :)
Oh yeeees, and now for the best part. PRIPYAT itself. It was absolutely amazing. The dead car park. Ferris wheel. We walked next to the hospital. And we also saw the HOTEL from which Captain McMillan shoots Imrain Zakhaev!!
(my friend John likes to pose for my photos :D)
The Ferris wheel, under which Cpt. McMillan and you fought for your lives.
WE ARE FINALLY HERE. I thought I will never make it. But now I can die a bit more peacefully, LIVING through this :)
Hotel Polisja ("And don't forget the Coriolis effect!")
In the middle of Pripyat. You can buy a sleepover in those places! Like the movie "Chernobyl diaries", haha.
Then we got finally to the swimming pool, the place I was attracted to the most. Quite moving photo.
The last place we visited was the Brain Scorcher, DUGA ("Ark") in reality.
After all that we got checked at the radioactivity checking gates (all clear) and ate a lunch at Desiatka restaurant.
The food was not radioactive, unfortunately :(
And that was the whole trip, condensed. We returned to the city of Kiev and started enjoying the stay. We saturated it a bit with alcohol and lived the night life. We got very interesting interactions, at one time we met a 3 guys in Morpheus/Macklemore coats and one hot Ukrainian girl, and when we asked them for help, that we are lost, they led us to our hostel and joked the whole way! (John can be seen, doing a Gopnik dance :D The thugs joined him with laughter. I cannot believe how fun that night, and the whole stay, was).
So, it was a very interesting trip and I would certainly go again immediately after!!
And if you plan to do it, do NOT take a flight with switch in Budapest, not recommended.
Which photos do you like the most?
Have you been there, have your experience differed?
Or if you have any questions or want to help with the planning, just leave a comment and I will be happy to help :)
Ogdoad.
For some reason I found myself attracted most to your photo of the nuclear sign next to the miniature lorry. Had quite a sad abandoned feeling to it that struck me more than the others.
I was very disappointed to not see the dogs with two heads and tails :P
Looks like you had a great time. Certainly an interesting destination for a short break.
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