I don't actually know who ours was, my boyfriend saw a post on ocuk asking if anyone wanted to go. There's a load of them that go regularly together. The guy who organised it for us knows the guys over there that organise it (if that makes sense). So we went through him. Ours covered all travel except flights, 3 full days in the zone, 4 nights in slavutich (breakfast and dinner included, with lunch one day too), one night in Kiev on the way home (with breakfast next day) and a night out just outside slavutich at a place called gut hut. There was only our group there and they cooked us Ukrainian food and gave us home brew vodka - as much as we could drink! All included. We had a party and it was awesome fun! I went outside and looked up - OMG the stars! Like nothing I've ever seen! I've never been so far away from cities.

That was £430, then you pay for your flights and one evening meal in Kiev. And drinks (except at gut hut!) but they are so cheap. We bought lots of snacks too!

Oh and it was £25 for the shooting range but that was optional

Thats quite a reasonable cost for everything really, does the price fluctuate if there are more or less people in the group?

 

Can I ask how much flights where to Kiev?

 

Again good pictures, I did wonder if they were HDR

Amazing photos - thanks for sharing. Its on my list of places to visit in the future and those photos make me want to go even sooner rather than later!

I'm not sure how much the flights were, think they were quite expensive as not much choice when flying from Manchester. My bf booked them.

Edited 6 November, 201411 yr by Loz

I can see a Briskoda trip to Chernobyl developing

I can see a Briskoda trip to Chernobyl developing

 

I'll take the wife, the radiation will do her good......Hopefully     :evil:

I can see a Briskoda trip to Chernobyl developing

I for one would probably be interested!

I'll take the wife, the radiation will do her good......Hopefully     :evil:

 

You are so lovely Auric!! lol

Sign me up for a trip

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of people working in the zone day after day. As mentioned, the background radiation is for the most part pretty low. Those working in higher radiation areas, such as the dome for reactor 4 have work schedules so they only have 'x' amount of radiation. Everyone who leaves the zone is scanned with a dosimeter to check they haven't been contaminated. In fact, we had to go through two of them! This is one of them:

(Photo shamelessly stolen from my friends facebook - my camera was all packed away once we got back to the station!)

I was one of the worriers about radiation, and even I was disappointed by the background levels! Ha!

It was the dust that worried me.

They are very old IPMs. Did you wear a personal dosimeter while you were in the active areas or just scanned for contamination when leaving?

I'd like to go over there and see the old site. The Mrs wouldn't go in a million years though.

There were several dosimeters with us, I'm sure I already said this lol

And lots of people who went had other halves who didn't go, it's not an excuse only 2 couples went, the rest mostly went completely on their own!

There were several dosimeters with us, I'm sure I already said this lol

Yeah I read that, I just didn't know if you'd got confused as the picture of the people being monitored aren't dosimeters, they are installed personal monitors to check for fixed contamination on your clothes or hands. As long as you had dosimeters attached to your body reading the radiation dose you were receiving.

Hopefully I'll manage to convince some mates to come with me as I'd love to see abandoned town.

It's just what we had to do to leave the zone. I didn't have my own, but there were several among the group, hence I knew what the background levels were etc. They were not very high. We also were moving constantly so you wouldn't spend more than a minute in a hot spot. As I've said, to me the dust is far more of a danger than radiation exposure. The radiation on the flight over is far higher than 90% of the zone. Yet people who fly regularly never even consider it.

Amazing :-)

Thanks and it was

I liked your thread, not only due to the amazing photos but because I learned about Duga 3. I have never heard about it before.

I hadn't either, it's pretty cool

No I've not seen it, wouldn't have dared watch it before going haha!

You just organise it through the people who do the tours. They sort everything including putting you on the authorisation list for the zone and flat rentals. We were with a brill bunch of people!

They also organised visiting a shooting range on the way back so I got to shoot an AK47 and a Dragunov sniper.

 

Was this trip organised by Dylan at Lupine travel? I went there about this time last year with Lupine, but sadly I didn't get to see half the stuff you saw...I was massively jealous when he put up pictures from Duga-3, I wanted to go there as much as Prypyat!

 

I'm currently in discussions with him to get out to another ghost town I've found in eastern Russia if you're interested...

I don't think it was them, no. But I didn't organise it, the boyfriend sorted it all for us

We did three days in the zone tues-fri, as most tours just do weekends.

Was yours a similar structure then? Stay in slavutich and get the train? I can't see how else it could be done without a massive car ride. Though I believe there is a small hotel in chernobyl town.

Epic photos.... great colouring....

 

I think you went somewhere far "hotter" than the Maldives....... hope you haven't come back with a long lasting glow....

I hadn't either, it's pretty cool

 

Indeed! Now it is also homework for my students.

I don't think it was them, no. But I didn't organise it, the boyfriend sorted it all for us

We did three days in the zone tues-fri, as most tours just do weekends.

Was yours a similar structure then? Stay in slavutich and get the train? I can't see how else it could be done without a massive car ride. Though I believe there is a small hotel in chernobyl town.

 

The original plan was to travel out from Kiev in a minibus, do a bit of a tour around the outlying villages in the exclusion zone, on to Prypyat, then a night at a guest house in the exclusion zone, next day was a quick look at the reactor then on to more exploring in Prypyat and a drive back to Kiev.

 

As it turns out though, it's super cheap to get drunk in the Ukraine, so myself and the two friends I went with ended up having a night that was way too reminiscent of the film The Hangover (Complete with lost phones, lost hours, 3 course meals at 3am and a midget in a ringmasters uniform) so we ended up only doing the second day of the tour sadly.

That seems rather a waste! I definitely wouldn't do a tour that involved a mini bus from Kiev as part of the actual day. That is a VERY long journey and would waste a good 2-3 hours of your tour day. We travelled to slavutich from Kiev the night before our 3 days in the zone, then travelled back the day after the last tour day. The train journey to the zone is then only 40-45 mins each way so you get from 8am-4:45 in the zone each day.

Plus the roads are in terrible condition out there!

We still had plenty of time to get drunk on the cheap booze each night!

Edited 13 November, 201411 yr by Loz

It does seem like your tour was more well thought out and generous time wise than the one I went on...I'm intending to go back at some point in the future and I'll make sure it's something more along the lines of what you did!

Wow some really nice work here. Are you using HDR?

 

But yeah hats off to you Always wanted to go to Chernobyl, I have a strange desire to go to abandoned and untouched places, like to feel the history I guess. I don't know just like eerie places haha.

 

Can you just wonder into Chernobyl? do you have to have permission or be accompanied? otherwise i would imagine it would be packed and being looted all the time by all the scrap merchants.

 

-Leif