Day 1 Arrival in Kiev
We meet at Helsinki Airport. Direct flight from Helsinki to Kiev. At Kiev airport, the group will be met by a driver and a bus. We will have a guided three-hour city tour. Kiev has many sights, massive monuments, impressive cathedrals, modern shops and a lot of Eastern European exoticism.
Stay in a prime location in Ukraine at a hotel in the heart of the city, at the end of the magnificent Maidan Square. Kiev is an absolutely incredible destination and every time it completely surprises first-timers and makes you fall genuinely in love with the city and its laid-back vibe. Kiev is full of greenery with stunning views, the buildings are beautiful and there are some really great street art displays. For church and monastery fans, there are more ornate boutiques than ever before, for shoppers, there are luxury brands lining the streets and an incredible network of small boutiques, several hundred shops where you can get everything and a little bit more.
The town is clean, with countless restaurants and cafés. Although Kiev’s cuisine is heavily meat-centric, vegetarians will find it easy to eat out, including vegan options.
Day 2 Chernobyl Alienation Zone
After a buffet breakfast, the driver and bus will pick us up from the hotel and we head into the Chernobyl exclusion zone, through three checkpoints to the chilling ghost town of Pripyat. Pripyat was the town worst affected by the explosion, as it is the closest town to Chernobyl reactor No 4, only 2 km away, where the devastating explosions occurred and the residents were forced to abandon their entire former lives within hours. Although the Lord of Creation has made the area uninhabitable, the rest of nature is reclaiming it.
Pripyat was a model town of Soviet communism, built for nuclear power plant workers and their families. Pripyat had all the amenities of a new and modern city: a train station, a harbour, a hospital and an amusement park that was never opened. Pripyat was a young town with an average age of only 25 years. Pripyat had many schools, play schools and play parks. You will experience a city where time has stood still and nothing has changed since April 27, 1986, three hours and 49 thousand inhabitants were evacuated. We will also visit the site of the nuclear power plant itself, a unique site that still speaks to people today – what caused the accident and what really happened on the day of the accident.
The drive and walk between the concrete blocks of buildings that nature has taken over is impressive. The local guide shows large old photographs of what certain areas and buildings looked like before the accident, giving a better idea of how nature has taken over the area.
The Chernobyl Shelter (extending some 30 km from the accident site) is still not suitable for permanent housing, but guided tours of the area do not expose you to dangerous levels of radiation. If the tour operators’ instructions are followed, tourists will not be harmed by the visit and no special protective equipment will be required.
The day includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The places to visit on the first day are:
- Zalissya village The last inhabitant of the village was still living in 2017, when this 80-year-old lady died and the village was left completely deserted. Nature has completely taken over the village days ago, and there are no signs of visitors for decades. The houses have been stripped of all materials of monetary value.
- Chernobyl’s central square, moss-covered in places. Slender trees are pushing through the asphalt surface. The square is surrounded by buildings: a hotel, a restaurant, a youth and cultural centre, apartment blocks.
- Fukushima memorial The city of Chernobyl is the site of a memorial to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. A tragic fate that unites the Japanese and the Ukrainians, two of the most devastating nuclear power plant accidents in the history of the world.
- Statue of Lenin
- The Holy Temple of Il’inskii
- Abandoned Synagogue
- Port The ships are badly corroded and some are already half submerged. There is also one younger-looking vessel, but it has also been abandoned.
- Shop A local Soviet-run shop. Chernobyl town has only this one small shop, with the only bar in the village.
- Firefighters’ memorial The brave firefighters who were the first to put out the fire died within hours of exposure.
- Extinguishing robots Small exhibition of machines and robots used in the clean-up operation
- Buried in the ground The hills of Kopachi village
- The toys and books littering the abandoned kindergarten are one of the most photographed objects in the Chernobyl area. It is in the kindergarten that one feels most touchingly and powerfully the stagnation of time in the 1980s.
- Panoramic view of the power plant site
- New sarcophagus on top of the quadrupole reactor The new shelter, which cost more than €2 billion, was completed in 2016. It is built to withstand strong earthquakes and storms. Builders say it should protect the reactor for the next 100 years. The shell is reportedly the largest mobile metal structure in the world.
- The legendary stone city sign of Pripyat
- Bridge of Death The bridge is located near the reactor, on the way to Pripyat. After the accident, the local population was not informed about the nuclear accident. People thought it was just some kind of fire. From the Bridge of Death, the 4th reactor is clearly visible, and children and adults gathered to admire the graphite fire burning in the air after the explosion and were exposed to lethal amounts of radiation.
- Lenin Street
- The central square of the ghost town of Pripyat The “Energetik” cultural centre and the “Polissia” hotel, familiar from photos and videos, were the absolute pioneers of their time and the pride of the town.
- Supermarket
- Amusement park The infamous amusement park is ghostly even in daylight. Indeed, one of the symbols of the disaster is a rusty Ferris wheel with a comfortless squeak and crash cars growing on the grass beside it. You can almost see with your soul’s eyes the children playing in a colourful park that was never officially opened.
- A school with a gas mask lying on the floor.
- Swimming pool A dilapidated swimming pool was built for the recreational use of the nuclear power plant workers. The diving tower still stands on the edge of the pool.
We stay in a hostel in Chernobyl in shared double or triple rooms.
Day 3 Chernobyl Alienation Zone
After breakfast, we set off. The filming locations are as follows:
- Duga 3 A radar system called Woodpecker, or stingray, which was intended to provide early warning of an intercontinental ballistic missile attack. The radar became famous as “The Dart” because of the strong clicky radio interference it caused across Europe. The equipment was tuned to its peak and the site was also earmarked for later destruction, but after the nuclear accident everything was left intact and unusable. The way in which an ‘antenna wall’ of absurd size has been hidden from the public is incomprehensible. The structure reaches tens of metres high, but cannot be seen by the casual passer-by from the ground. But when the nuclear power plant exploded and the road previously used in the area had to be closed due to the severely contaminated forest surrounding it, the possibility of seeing the structure from beyond its footprint opened up. On the new road, there is a point where the structure is visible for a few seconds until it disappears completely out of sight.
- Residential paraksis
- Cooling towers Cooling towers for reactors 5 and 6. The reactors were never completed.
- Fish hatchery There is an abandoned fish and mink hatchery near the power plant. The fish ponds are overgrown with vegetation, but the wetland attracts a wide range of birds
- The red forest The strongest fallout from the accident hit here and the radioactive radiation caused the trees to turn red. Although the forest has been cleaned up, it is still one of the most heavily contaminated areas and immediately makes the Geiger counter scream. Despite its contamination, the forest is home to an abundance of wildlife. More than 400 different species of animals have been counted in the Chernobyl area, some of which had disappeared before the accident. Due to a lack of human activity, the animals have returned to the area. Visitors can spot foxes, wolves, moose, bears, Przewalski’s wild horses and lynx, among others.
- Cultural Centre
- Jupiter factory According to official records, the factory produced tape recorders and small plastic parts, but in reality it was developing secret radio technology for the Soviet army. Now the huge factory is deserted.
- School no. 1 ruins
- Room
- Hospital The Pripyat hospital and morgue are the most emotional places in the region. The room with the small beds for newborn babies is particularly moving. There is also a lot of other equipment in the hospital, some of which unfortunately seems to have been brought in later. After the accident, sick workers from the nuclear power plant were brought to the hospital and their highly radiated clothes are buried in the hospital’s bowels.
- Cinema
- Music School
- Sports stadium
- Kindergarten laboratory
- Greenhouses
- Rejected checkpoint, i.e. a checkpoint
- Garages
- Tree of Friendship, Tree of Friendship
- Bus station
Day 4 Kiev panoramas
After breakfast, explore the city of Kiev. We will visit the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Located at the foot of the huge steel Soviet-era Motherland statue, the museum tells the story of the Second World War in Ukraine: the German invasion, life in occupied Kiev, the fate of the Jews, the Russian counter-attack, etc. For example, there is a room with photographs of some six thousand Ukrainians who fought in the war. Each of these rooms has a one-page summary in English of what is on display.
The museum and the statue are surrounded by a large open area with, among other things, communist-era statues and all kinds of military equipment: tanks, helicopters, tanks, planes, etc. Some of the equipment can be viewed free of charge, while some of the equipment is in the pay-per-view area. You can also visit the cockpit of one helicopter and one warplane for a small fee. A few pieces of military equipment confiscated from rebel-held areas during the conflict in eastern Ukraine are also on display.
Day 5 Return to Helsinki
After breakfast, check-out and transfer to the airport for a direct flight to Helsinki.
