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СORONAVIRUS: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM CHERNOBYL?

In 2020, the attention of the whole world is riveted on the theme of Coronavirus. All festivals, parades, concerts are canceled, and many countries have quarantine and people working from home. For a second, it reminds me of Chernobyl. As a guide for Chernobylwel.come, I get to see the day-to-day results of the disaster thirty years later, and then, I thought: What can we learn from Chernobyl?

Comparing all safety measures which we have now and then, I noticed a few similarities between Chernobyl and the current Coronavirus epidemic. You might say to yourself, “What nonsense!” But hold on, there are many comparisons, believe me. More than you think.

1. Decontamination

Browsing through COVID-19 and methods to prevent the spread of the virus, the first word that you’ll find is decontamination. But what does it mean?

Cambridge Dictionary defines Decontamination as:

“The action of removing dangerous substances such as micro-organisms or hazardous materials, including chemicals, radioactive substances, and infectious diseases”.

Simply saying — disinfection.

Looking back at the year 1986, post-Chernobyl NPP explosions, the government of the Soviet Union decided to start the process of decontamination and bring in safety precautions. Work on decontamination of the territories around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant mainly included dust suppression, cleaning up all objects from radioactive dust and removing contaminated soil. To achieve this ‘cleaning’ technique, they used a lot of military cars, helicopters and fire engines. The last provided washing of buildings with jets of decontamination solution (water with boric acid) under high pressure.

AN UNFORGETTABLE UNDERGROUND EXPERIENCE

We continue to publish our customer experience. This time we decided to publish a unique experience of our customer who, in addition to the Chernobyl experience, decided to enhance his trip to Ukraine with an Urbex experience in underground sewers under Kiev.

"This was easily the most adventurous trip of the year for me! Adrenaline, mystery, adventure! This trip had it all! The journey started really low profile. We met our guide, Max, at an almost empty metro station and basically went down in the nearest sewers entrance, just behind a corner or two, right after we changed to an overall rubber suit that Max prepared for us. The first shock came already as we climbed down the shaft. There was a plush toy next to the entrance. Max explained us the story why there are such toys sometimes.

He was an awesome guide during the whole tour. The sewers were amazing. We explored various routes of Kiev’s underground system, some were wide, some really narrow and at a point we even had to crawl through a tunnel like a dog. During the tour we heard many stories about the history of the sewers and bunkers of the region. Max also shown to be a hobby photographer and had some extra lights on him, so we created some really cool pictures on the tour. The tour also included optional climbing on rusty ladders to other levels of the underground. At a point, Max told us to stand still and turn off the torches so we can experience pure darkness and embrace it. It was almost poetic! Words can’t really describe it, you’ll understand what I mean once you experience it!

PLANNING YOUR VISIT? IS SPRING BETTER? OR RATHER SUMMER?

You can continue in this site: Click There isn't a specific date when visiting Chernobyl is not worth it. Whether you are planning your trip in cold and calm winter, peaceful spring, hot summer or rainy autumn, there is always something magical about the Zone itself.

Why spring? In spring nature is slowly waking up and the whole Zone is blooming into one gigantic and beautiful nature park for you to explore. The trees are turning green and the leaves are starting to grow, slowly overlaying the scenery of abandoned town and villages. The wildlife is waking up from long winter sleep, so it's a better chance to feed the giant catfish or meet the Przewalski wild horses or the legendary Simon - the fox.

Why summer? Summer's the best, right? The weather is beautiful, perfect time to get out of the city and relax. So how about a relaxing walk in Chernobyl Exclusion Zone? During the hottest months the zone itself looks like a giant jungle, everything is overgrown by trees and bushes. During this time you can merely see that you are standing on the ex main square of the Pripyat city centre with huge buildings around you. Fascinating how nature took everything back. People love to travel to Chernobyl and explore Pripyat's surroundings in summer. Also, there is one big benefit - the longest days, so you can actually spend more time in the zone than in winter time.

WE LOVE YOUR (RADIO)ACTIVE FEEDBACK!

CHERNOBYLwel.come operates in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for more than 10 years. In these (almost) 11 years we guided countless tours, bringing thousands of people to Ukraine and sharing with them this unique place and all the stories.

Each and every customer is given a questionnaire immediately after the tour. More than 1 700 customers also left us their feedback on Tripadvisor (you can do that also, if you still didn't). And hundreds of you are tagging us on their photos from Chernobyl. And you know what? We ABSO-LUTELY LOVE IT!

In our Bratislava (Slovakia - marketing/sales) & Kiev (Ukraine - operations) offices we are reading every feedback you give us. From the questionnaires, trough the reviews on Tripadvisor, Facebook or Google to all those photos you are uploading and tagging with #CHERNOBYLwelcome tag or sending directly to us.

WE TOOK OUR FAMILY TO CHERNOBYL AND THEY LOVED IT!

It’s not easy to explain to your loved ones what you are doing. Usually, it’s like this: “Eh… err… You know, we’re doing these tours… To Chernobyl. Yes, to that place. No, it’s safe. And yes, people are going there in thousands…” Well, it’s not super-easy to understand that doing tours to Chernobyl is practically a regular job like other ones.

So, instead of explaining, we took our loved ones to Chernobyl, so they can see, what we do, how we work and why we fell in love with the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Because a picture is worth 1000 words, right?

#chernobyl

8TH WONDER OF THE WORLD - THE DUGA RADAR

In the woods about 10 kilometres south of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant there is a top-secret object, Chernobyl-2, also called Duga. It’s one of the three Soviet ‘over the horizon’ radar stations of the early detection system against attacks of ballistic rockets.

This system began to be developed in the Soviet Union in the 1950’s during the cold war. The first experimental devices of this originated in the Soviet Union during the 1960’s, however, they skirmished with a number of technical problems and were not able to really capture the danger, therefore, questions of their ability to operate in enemy areas were not solved. The first really functional systems were successfully designed at the end of the 1960’s.

The first experimental system DUGA was constructed near the town of Mikolaiv in Ukraine and was able to successfully discover rocket launches from the cosmodrome Bajkonur, over 2500 km away. This system was followed by a second prototype DUGA-2, which was built in the same place. It was possible to monitor the launch of the rockets from the Far East and a movement of submarines in the Pacific Ocean. Both systems were directed to the East and had only limited results. However, works on operation system DUGA-3 had started with a proven concept, which was directed to the West and was also called The Moscow.

#dugaradar

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