Between Popularity and Safety. What Does Chornobyl Tourism Lack?

We prepared this piece before a large-scale forest fire in the Chornobyl zone in April 2020. Despite the fact that firefighters and volunteers were dedicated to its elimination, the firestorm devastated hectares of forests, fields and even villages. We hope that this disaster will not happen again. The facilities located in this area remained undamaged thanks to joint efforts and nature will be reborn with the help of people and its own resources.

Before the announcement of quarantine in Ukraine, the exclusion zone had been receiving visitors for many years and was preparing for the new season. Over recent years, there has been a stable trend on the increase of the number of people willing to visit the territory that was alienated after the Chornobyl disaster. However, the global COVID-19 pandemic has made its adjustments.

Such a situation poses additional challenges to this area, because it is not clear how to deal with the growing flow of visitors each year. Since the moment of establishment, the Chornobyl exclusion zone has not been intended to accept all people wishing to visit it. Its main goal, which still remains the same, is to be a barrier to the spread of radionuclides beyond the radioactively contaminated area. In addition, activities on decommissioning of Chornobyl NPP are underway, radioactive waste is stored and storage/disposal facilities for spent nuclear fuel of Ukrainian NPPs are being constructed here.

Uatom.org editorial board tried to figure out what could be improved in the field of Chornobyl tourism so that it would be safe and would not interfere with the industrial sector of the exclusion zone.

Tourism in Chornobyl Today: Different Views

A trip to the Chornobyl exclusion zone is not the same as going to a seaside resort or to Eiffel Tower in Paris. It attracts not by architectural masterpieces or museums rich in exhibits, but, on the contrary, people seek to get there to see the almost deserted territory, the empty and almost damaged city of Prypyat, which bears the imprint of the nuclear disaster that occurred in 1986.

“First, the exclusion zone is a radiation hazardous territory. Second, this is a place where radioactive waste management infrastructure is located. Third, this area is a research site and so-called open-air laboratory. Fourth, it is a reserve. Only then, the exclusion zone is a territory of interest as a tourist attraction”, explained Yuliia Balashevska, Head of Emergency Preparedness and Radiation Monitoring Department of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (SSTC NRS).

However, the impact of the series on the popularity of tours to Chornobyl NPP should not be overestimated. According to Yaroslav Yemelianenko, Head of the Association of Chornobyl Tour Operators, only 10-15 % of the tourist flow increase last year was due to viewers of the British series.

“Mainly, the number of visitors has increased due to the constant work of operators at international tourist exhibitions, generation of news items, involvement of foreign mass media in press tours to the Chornobyl zone”, Yaroslav Yemelianenko commented. 

Indeed, the flow of visitors is growing gradually: 36,780 people in 2016 and 71,860 people in 2018. However, the number of Chornobyl tourists was limited to 8,400 people in 2015.  

Accordingly, the load on the infrastructure of the exclusion zone, which no longer keeps pace with tourist flows, is increasing. Oleksandr Syrota, Chairman of the Public Council at the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management (SAUEZM), who was born in Prypyat, says that there is a number of problems with this.

“The current flows of visitors scares me a little, but not in the sense that they cause irreparable damage, but rather because this area cannot host everyone. When we speak about the expected 200 thousand and more, I am not sure that our infrastructure is ready for such a flow. After all, there were more than a thousand people in one day last year”, he said.

He explained that most tourists come to see the ghost town of Prypyat and are specially set to see the deserted streets. “How should it feel, when they meet in the central square or near the observation wheel and look at each other in surprise? The dead city without people with more people than near the Egyptian pyramids”, commented a former resident of the city. Under such conditions, people may remain dissatisfied, because they do not get exactly what they came for.

As a result, “the real situation in the exclusion zone is such that it is constantly occupied (people enter and leave) by a huge number of people, many of whom do not have even basic knowledge of radiation safety, not to mention the skills of using protective equipment, in which some visitors like to be photographed”, Yuliia Balashevska commented.

This state of affairs is formed due to the fact that Chornobyl tourism is an area that generates instant income for its beneficiaries.

In the first two months of 2020, more than 10,000 people visited the Chornobyl zone. However, due to the nationwide quarantine related to the global pandemic COVID-19, SAUEZM has temporary suspended the admission of tourists.

Tetiana Kutuzova, Head of Emergency Response and Radiation Protection Department – State Inspector of the SNRIU, thinks that activities on increasing the number of visitors to the exclusion zone for tourism purposes without taking into account the principles of safety culture do not meet the basic principles of radiation protection: justification, dose limitation and optimization.

She also draws attention to the fact that the Law “On the Legal Regime of the Territory Affected by Radioactive Contamination as a Result of the Chornobyl Disaster” envisages obligatory measures to prevent the release of radionuclides beyond the radioactively contaminated areas, monitoring of the environment, medical and biological monitoring, keeping of the territory in a proper safe state, fire safety, use of methods for recording radionuclides in the field.

All activities should be carried out with a limit on the total collective dose of radiation, as well as with a limit on the number of persons involved. Any other activities that do not provide radiation safety in the exclusion zone and zones of unconditional (obligatory) resettlement are prohibited.

“Changes in the legislation are needed. The territories shall be either officially designated at the state level as an “existing exposure situation”, a condition for activities on which is to perform detailed radiation monitoring or maintained in the modes established by law”, the State Inspector commented.

“Only tourism for scientific or professional purposes can be justified in the conditions of emergency radiation contamination of the territory (actually an unsealed radiation source in the absence of quality cartographic materials reflecting the nature of contamination of the dynamics of change”, she said and made an example of Fukushima-Daiichi NPP in Japan, where, by the way, there was no release of nuclear fuel beyond the facilities, but access to the controlled area is still limited to all, except for professional activities, including the mass media.  

The exclusion zone around Fukushima-Daiichi NPP has been significantly reduced in recent years, because it has not been contaminated with transuranic elements. People who had their homes there are permitted to return there first. The mentality of the Japanese does not allow showing the places of mass tragedies. There is a wide range of modern technologies and means of art to tell stories about and remember them.

 

Zone: Radiation, Animals and Emergency Architecture

Chornobyl tourism can be referred to extreme. After all, despite the fact that the level of radiation in the zone has decreased since 1986, the radiation background is still much higher than it was before the accident, especially in the 10-km zone around ChNPP.

The most popular “tourist” objects, visiting which is included in most standard tours are located there: the nuclear power plant itself, the Prypyat welcoming sign at the entrance to the town, Red Forest (Rudyi Lis), the village of Kopachi, kindergarten, and of course the city of Chornobyl and the huge radar station for detecting ballistic missile launches Chornobyl-2 (Duha) remained in a slightly cleaner 30-km zone.

However, there is also radiation and, therefore, there are risks to human health. Oleksandr Syrota also emphasizes this: “A trip to the zone has always been associated with certain risks. Always. When they say it is safe, it is incorrect and untrue”. Thus, all visitors agree to comply with a set of safety rules in the Chornobyl zone by signing them. The State Enterprise “Center for Organizational, Technical and Information Support” (COTIS) of SAUEZM provides admission and accompaniment of tourists. Kyrylo Harnyk, COTIS Assistant Director, reminds that the following is forbidden in the exclusion zone:

• eat outdoors;
• visit building, roofs and other structures;
• smoke in unauthorized places;
• lie down, put any things on the ground, as well as lift anything from the ground;
• separate from their group;
• drink any alcoholic beverages and psychotropic substances.

Visitors should wear clothing that covers the body as much as possible, follow the tour route only and listen to the requirements of the accompanying person.

All these prohibitions and restrictions are dictated by the real dangers that are likely to occur in the zone.

“Even if you do not take into account the radiation factor (although it cannot be ignored), here we speak about many wild animals. Having a walk in winter here, you can see two or three wolves following you. They keep a distance of 100 meters, follow you for a while, then they get bored and they leave. There are also many snakes, hornets in nests in abandoned houses”, Oleksandr Syrota told.

For example, a moose is a frequent visitor in Prypyat. Deer, foxes and wild boars may be found there. Oleksandr says that the chance to be attacked by wild animals is low, but you are very likely to meet them.

“These are risks associated with destroyed infrastructure. There are plenty of risks even on the streets. I mean overgrown open sewers, not to mention buildings, facilities, etc.”, he continued.

Oleksandr Syrota is convinced that the ban on entering absolutely all buildings and infrastructure objects that do not work is the most important for visitors: “You can go to the toilets, to specially designated places. All other places are taboo”. The reason is simple: all buildings in Prypyat, without exception, are in an emergency state. There are no non-emergency buildings. There are only those that may fall eventually.

Oleksandr puts the radiation factor in third place after the previous two. “Even if all the rules and radiation safety standards are met, the radiation factor is still present, and no one can and no one has the slightest right to guarantee 100 % that radiation will not enter the human body”, the expert commented. He considers incorrect to compare radiation doses in Prypyat and during flights, where the gamma background may be higher.

“We should not forget that when traveling by place, there are no long-lived radionuclides that will enter your body. However, such a probability, to put it mildly, may occur in the zone”, Oleksandr explained.

In addition, SNRIU experts believe that transuranic elements with high radiotoxicity and characteristics invisible to conventional dosimeters may be present in soils, air, water and on any surfaces in the exclusion zone.

The visitor must be aware of all these dangers and take responsibility for own health. In addition, Yuliia Balashevska explained that staying in the exclusion zone not only affects the visitor and creates certain risks to his/her health, but also vice versa: visitors can pose a danger to the exclusion zone, especially during the fire season.

By the way, if we speak about the large-scale fires of 2020, Tetiana Kutuzova warns that the activity covered/deposited by vegetation released to the air, settled with precipitation, ash and will be mobile for a long time as a result of the fire. Where the vegetation has burned to the sand, “hot particles” of emergency release have additionally risen into the air with dust, the dynamics of which are currently being studied by Ukrainian and Japanese scientists. 

70—80 % of tourists come to the exclusion zone from abroad. “According to the number of foreigners accepted by the exclusion zone, only the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can compete with it”, Denys Vyshnevskyi, Head of Scientific Department of the Chornobyl Radiation and Ecological Reserve, who has experience in accompanying groups of both visitors and specialists. 

It can be noted that the approaches of Ukrainian and foreign tourists to the Chornobyl phenomenon differ.

Yaroslav Yemelianenko considers that foreigners in general look at the zone more realistically and come much better prepared theoretically than our compatriots. He explains this by the fact that the attitude of Ukrainians to the zone as a legacy of Chornobyl is still dominated by emotions.

The operators of tour companies provides every visitor with the tour scenario and guides are trained to explain the safety rules required directly during the tour, as well as basic survival skills in the event of a nuclear accident based on experience of the Chornobyl accident. Safety instruction is provided at the Dytiatky checkpoint at the entrance to the zone. According to COTIS, there is a well-established procedure in case of emergencies with tourists.

Kyrylo Harnyk, COTIS representative, considers radiation contamination of tourists’ shoes the most frequent consequence of incompliance with the rules of conduct in the area. This means, that the visitor probably deviated from the main route of the tour and entered the radioactive spot. If it is not possible to decontaminate shoes after dosimetric monitoring, the tourist will have no choice but to leave it at the checkpoint.

“The last case was when a visitor was in shoes with a damaged sole and probably there was a radioactive particle that could not be washed. So the visitor was asked to leave these shoes in the exclusion zone, where they are disposed now. I think if these shoes were not damaged, then after processing and decontamination, this visitor will leave the zone in his shoes”, Kyrylo Harnyk said.

However, the Chairman of SAUEZM Public Council, health risks will be really minimized in the case of strict compliance with all rules.

 

Industrial Area and “Wild Polissia”

Most tourist routs run in the open air. In addition to the mentioned locations (Chornobyl-2, the city of Chornobyl and Prypyat), these are also the villages of the left bank of the river Prypyat. However, there are tours even to the places where it all began, namely to the facilities of the Chornobyl NPP.

Tour operators assure that these tours are in great demand among visitors. During the routes, the visitors can see the brain center, i.e. main control rooms (MCR) not only of ChNPP-1 and ChNPP-3, but also of the infamous ChNPP-4.

“Exposure levels at MCRs of ChNPP-1 and ChNPP-2 are approximately equal to the levels in the center of Kyiv. Back in 2000, people worked here every day. ChNPP-4 MCR has much more radiation. Visitors can stay here not longer than 15-20 minutes to avoid even theoretical damage”, told Yaroslav Yemelianenko.

He said that all these routes were checked by Chornobyl experts and approved by NPP administration.

However, ChNPP is not the only enterprise in the exclusion zone. The industrial part of the zone consists of a number of radioactive waste storage and disposal facilities included in the Vector Complex, radioactive waste disposal sites and interim radioactive waste storage facilities, as well as the almost completed Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility. Obviously, there are facilities where you should not let outsiders.

The Association of Chornobyl tour operators assures that tourism does not affect the work of the industrial segment of the exclusion zone. Routes were developed taking into account this factor. If any emergency or testing activities are underway, the enterprises should inform the tourist market agents, and they adjust the schedule of their tours. The visitors must be informed where to take photos and where taking photos is prohibited.

The Chairman of the Association highlights another factor why Chornobyl tourism coexists with industrial activities: “Apart from working directly with radioactive waste, all enterprises in the exclusion zone are obliged to inform the public. The best way to inform people is to demonstrate it”.  

Yaroslav Yemelianenko refers to the Law “On Nuclear Energy Use and Radiation Safety”, Article 10 of which envisages the right of citizens to visit a nuclear facility for educational purpose.

One of the interim radioactive waste storage facilities. Photo by Oleksandr Syrota

Yuliia Balashevska, Head of SSTC NRS Emergency Preparedness and Radiation Monitoring Department, considers such visits extremely positive.

“First, they are supervised by radiation safety experts. Second, they promote interest in technology, improve people’s understanding of the complexity of the industry, and allow assessing the scope of performed activities, in particular to overcome the consequences of the accident”, she commented.

Kyrylo Harnyk, who works at the enterprise that directly involved into management of the admission of visitors to the zone, confirms that there were no serious complaints about tourists from the ChNPP administration or other industrial facilities.

“We have a problem with garbage, but we are working on it. I do not think it is such a big deal. We are working on the organization of infrastructure, on garbage disposal. Therefore, we do not bring the situation to a critical level, but try to collect and transform this waste into secondary raw materials”, Harnyk said.

However, Chornobyl tourism does not radically affect the ecosystem of the exclusion zone due to the fact that the main tourist routes lead to a 10-km zone, said Denys Vyshnevskyi, Head of Scientific Department of the Chornobyl Radiation and Ecological Reserve. According to the scientist, only about 5 % of the total number of tourists travel on routes that run through some areas of the reserve during travels that last several days.

“They are driving on the Dytiatky-Chornobyl highway, they stopped somewhere, went 100-200 m to the location (a church in the village of Krasne or somewhere else) and that’s it. I do not see any problem at the moment. Tourists do not fish and cook food here. We do not have the problems that occur in national parks with the visiting areas”, he explained.

  

Fines will not save from radiation

The biggest trouble and danger comes from illegal visitors (stalkers). “They walk uncontrollably through the territory and mess around radiation burials, go to the Buriakivka, to storage places for machinery. They can mess around everywhere. They are proud of what they do, shoot videos of them in the Red Forest… If they are caught, the only control that takes place is the drawing up of a report on an administrative offence”, Oleksandr Syrota complained.

If we speak about radiation safety, this is essential lacking of control. There are dozens of confirmed cases when unauthorized people deliberately took radioactive objects outside the zone and then bragged about this on Internet blogs.

Yaroslav Yemelianenko is even more categorical in his assessment of this phenomenon: “De jure, they are terrorists who deliver radiation to settled areas in Ukraine and even around the world. Unfortunately, we have not received an adequate response from the state over all these years”.

Experts explained that the problem is that Ukrainian legislation on responsibility for illegal entry in the exclusion zone was adopted when the stalking phenomenon did not exist, except some individual cases. Therefore, this still qualifies as an administrative offense (Article 46 of the Code of Administrative Offences) with a fine of 340 to 510 UAH, which stalkers do not always pay.

There may be a countless number of such administrative protocols, but the law does not provide for increased liability for recurrences.

Oleksandr Syrota thinks that this is what should be emphasized in such situations. If the offenders were caught near the entrance to the zone, an administrative protocol would be enough. “But if you were caught in a 10-km zone, please go through everything prescribed to be able to establish where have you been and what did you take with you”, he offered.

He is referring to laboratory tests, in particular human spectrometric radiation (measuring cesium activity in the body) that stalkers would have to pay on their own: “Otherwise, how can we be sure that they did not get into the bus “Dytiatky-Kyiv” in the same clothing they were messing around in the Red Forest?”

However, there is some hope for improved legislation on liability for being a stalker. A draft law developed in 2017 with SAUEZM involvement and according to recommendations of the Public Council is in the parliament under the legal process.

It envisages a serious increase in the amount of fines and increased liability for recidivism: from administrative liability to criminal liability. However, Council Chairman said that an article that provided for public works for offenders by court decision was removed from the draft law body during the revision process.

“Because one thing is to pay even a thousand dollars. Money is not an issue for many people, especially if they are illegally bringing foreign tourists for money. It seems to me that fourteen days of painting fences in Ivankiv district would probably stop many of these people”, Oleksandr Syrota said.

 

Tourism and Overtourism: How to Make Visiting the Zone Comfortable?

The most significant problem for legal tourism is the underdeveloped infrastructure of the exclusion zone. Yaroslav Yemelianenko believes that the exclusion zone would not have withstood the expected flow of tourists, if there was not a situation with the global coronavirus pandemic and strict quarantine measures in Ukraine. “We felt even in 2019 the phenomenon of overtourism. Now we have time to properly prepare for the season after the crisis”, he said.

The Dytiatky checkpoint in the Ivankiv district of the Kyiv region is the only entrance to the Chornobyl zone for tourists today. This checkpoint is under the process of modernization recently. It is planned to build a hostel, a restaurant complex and Chornobyl visit hub. Nevertheless, one checkpoint, even a modern one, is unable to serve the current volume of visitors, especially if there are three, four or five thousand tourists a day.

According to Oleksandr Syrota, zone administration is aware of this problem and it working to set other checkpoints: “There is a prospect that Strakholissia checkpoint will be opened for entrance. This directly depends on the number of visitors who will go to the zone. Hotels are being built there, there is an interesting direction including Kupovate, Opachychi villages, where visitors go for multi-day programs. Now it is a detour on a low-quality road. It would be much easier to arrange it through Strakholissia”.

In addition, the Chairman of SAUEZM Public Council proposes to optimize the dosimetric monitoring for visitors. Now, tourists pass it twice” at the exit from the 10-km zone at Leliv checkpoint and at the exit from 30-km zone at Dytiatky checkpoint. “I think that dosimetric monitoring at Leliv checkpoint is not only ineffective, but also increases the risk of contamination of visitors”, Oleksandr Syrota said.

The thing is that the main function of dosimetric monitoring at Leliv checkpoint is the checking of contractors who worked on the construction of the New Safe Confinement (2012-2016). This is an internal barrier so that Chornobyl residents do not take radioactive contamination from the contaminated area into the residential area. Accordingly, it has higher measurement thresholds than those at the external Dytiatky checkpoint.

“Let us imagine a situation: the contractor involved in any rather dirty activities passes this control. Then, a visitor comes to the same screen and then during checking of the visitor at Dytiatky checkpoint the screen warns on the radioactive contamination, because this visitor soiled hands of what the contractor left there”, Oleksandr continued.

In his opinion, internal dosimetric monitoring of visitors is justified only during multi-day tours, so that tourists do not carry dirt from the industrial zone to the Chornobyl hotel. He proposes to put a separate screen for visitors, so as not to confuse them with contractors.

The expert also believes that the requirement to limit staying of tourists in the exclusion zone for five days can also be reduced: “In any case, even if they stay in the zone not during five days, but during six days and even during 12 days, even if they want, they will not receive doses at which it would be risky. Therefore, I am not sure that there is an urgent need for this, given that now all groups are subject to obligatory dosimetric monitoring and their doses are monitored”.

 He is opposed by Yuliia Balashevska, Radiation Safety Expert:

“I am not sure that tour operators can guarantee that there are no pregnant women or cancer patients in the visitor groups, or people who may have an epileptic seizure right in Prypyat. I consider unreasonable staying in the zone during several days for a visitor who came just for sightseeing”.

Yuliia Balashevska places the responsibility for the safety of visitors of the exclusion zone primarily on the authorities that allow such visits. Accordingly, in her opinion, they should control them. Reducing control to please visitors automatically means increasing risks.

Yuliia Balashevska considers information visits to the exclusion zone not entertainment, but rather an opportunity for education:

“Analyzing the posts of citizens on the social network in the light of recent fires in Chornobyl exclusion zone, for example that you should drink iodine, I can say that the vast majority of people do not have a clear picture of the processes taking place in the exclusion zone. That is why everything what brings knowledge is useful”, she said.

 Tetiana Kutuzova specified what this knowledge should be like: “Tourism, which is supported at the state level, should demonstrate success, inform about modern technologies and safety measures, cultivate respect for those who performed their duties to the end in the most difficult times of the accident and continue to do so now, introducing the same “safety culture” among the public and leaders of all levels. If there is no safety culture, a chain reaction of irresponsibility for the reputational losses of the state as a recipient of international assistance to deal with Chornobyl accident consequences will occur.

Yuliia Balashevska considers a set of conditions shall be met for the tourism to be truly beneficial:

• clear rules of attendance, requirements and restrictions on the amount of groups, the period and duration of their stay in the exclusion zone;
• 100 percent individual dosimetric monitoring of external irradiation;
• the briefing should not be a simple formality, but a comprehensive presentation of possible health risks;
• the number of people in the group should be small to allow the guide to keep them all in sight;
• availability of an efficient plan for evacuation of visitors, for example, in case of fire;
• ban on visiting the zone at certain times of the year;
• constant maintaining of safety culture and radiation protection.

“The justification principle can be implemented only on the example of such visits. I am very skeptical about the desire to see with my own eyes the consequences of wrong decisions as a justification for very entertaining trip to Prypyat, which is accompanied by hundreds of selfies. The alley with the names of the dead villages in Chornobyl: can there be something more telling about the consequences of wrong decisions?”

Chornobyl tourism can perform the educational function of sharing knowledge about the Chornobyl accident, measures to mitigate its consequences and the management of radioactive waste as a condition for the safe operation of nuclear industry in Ukraine in general. However, this will happen if visits to the exclusion zone will be in the right direction.

This should include safe compliance with physical and radiation safety of visitors, significant infrastructure improvements that will allow better control of the flow of tourists and ensure that their needs are met.

It is necessary to distinct functions of the national operator for radioactive waste management and exclusion zone management and visitor service functions. In such a way, tour operators will be able to work directly without intermediaries with business entities in the relevant areas.

“These entities, not officials, will be able to take care of the condition and attractiveness of tourist locations. Usually, licensees are responsible for the safety of their visitors, as well as for keeping proper records of the results of individual dosimetric monitoring”, Tetiana Kutuzova commented.

It should always be kept in mind that the areas in the immediate proximity to ChNPP are areas of special industrial use designed to improve the infrastructure for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel management. Remaining territories are a radiation biosphere reserve with limited human access. ChNPP site today is and should be developed in the future as a research and scientific center of high technologies in Ukraine.

The potential visitor should carefully weigh all the pros and cons of such a visit for him/her, since no commercial or government agency will care about the health of the visitor more than himself/herself. After all, the market for radiation risk insurance in Ukraine, in contrast to tourism, has not yet been created.

Read more about possible health risks and rules of conduct when visiting Chornobyl exclusion zone in the article:

Chornobyl of a Healthy Person: Exclusion Zone Guide by Radiation Protection Expert

Edited by Uatom.org.