Dark tourism reaches the sky over Chernobyl

(CNN) – If you’ve ever dreamed of seeing from the air the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, now may be your chance.

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of the catastrophe this month, an air tour is offered that will give passengers the opportunity to contemplate the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the abandoned city of Pripyat.

The tour, operated by Ukrainian International Airlines, will take place on April 25, the eve of the date when reactor no.

It is a simple itinerary. For about $ 106 (2,970 hryvnia from Ukraine), participants will get a seat on an Embraer 195 passenger plane that will take off from Boryspil airport in Kiev and then fly north to Chernobyl, contemplating panoramic views of the area. exclusion around the power plant.

During the flight, organizers say the plane will remain above the minimum allowable altitude of 900 meters above Chernobyl, getting as close as possible to the nuclear power plant without compromising safety.

Very favorable reviews

The flight is similar to other creative trips with pandemic influence.

And while it may seem strange to walk away from a major disaster when contemplating another that happened three decades earlier, organizers say the trip would not have happened without Covid.

“To be honest, this tour was only possible because of the pandemic,” says Bohdan Skotnykov, UIA project manager for the flight. “There’s a plane available and our team has free time to do creative projects.”

Skotnykov claims that Covid-19 safety precautions will be applied during the flight in line with others operated by UIA. Passengers and crew will strictly comply with quarantine rules at both the airport and the aircraft.

This is not the first time that UIA has made this type of trip. Several previous flights sold out in two days and got good reviews.

“I especially liked the opportunity to communicate freely with the pilots,” Vladimir Belenky, who took part in the UIA’s third flight over Kyiv and Chernobyl, told CNN, who was pleased with both the service and with the program.

“I always dreamed of walking right under the plane and sitting in the captain’s seat in a cabin of the Boeing 777. My dream came true.”

Although more focused on the aviation side, the UIA tour continues with a popular tradition of dark tourism that, before the coveted restrictions, saw tens of thousands of visitors explore the disastrous site around Chernobyl and the abandoned city of Pripyat.

“Chernobyl is the most successful tourist destination in Ukraine,” says Yaroslav Yemelyanenko, director of Chernobyl Tour. “Before the quarantine, the number of tourists has doubled every year.”

Disturbing atmosphere

Despite this, the pandemic has put pressure on dark tourism.

In 2020, only 32,000 people visited the exclusion zone, 72,000 less than in 2019.

International tourists, intrigued after watching HBO’s popular “Chernobyl” TV series, accounted for 80% of all visitors, but restrictions on world travel have seen a tide of interest reduced to a drip. .

But Yemelyanenko is positive about the future of Chernobyl tourism. His company is working on new creative offerings that take advantage of the disturbing exclusion zone.

Recent routes have included kayaking to Chernobyl, excursions by river boat Pripyat and extreme excursions with all-terrain vehicles in the area. The company offers its own flight experience on Chernobyl, Pripyat and Duga radar.

“When the complete tourist connection between the countries is finally restored, we will have something to surprise even those tourists who have been to the Chernobyl area many times,” adds Yemelyanenko.

Surely the sad history of the region, its ghost town and the vast landscape of abandoned 1,000-square-kilometer structures, not to mention rumors of unrest, continue to attract many people.

Some join official visits after obtaining mandatory permission to visit the area. Others enter illegally and travel to places contaminated by radiation at the risk of incurring huge fines.

‘Time machine’

“The idea of ​​making museum rooms came up almost ten years ago, when I first visited the exclusion zone and saw that all the remaining buildings in Pripyat were looted,” Stanislav told CNN. He said he wanted to complete some restoration projects to show people what the spaces were like in the first days after the total evacuation of all the inhabitants of Pripyat.

So far they have given life to a kitchen and a room on one of the floors of Pripyat, as well as in some places in the kindergarten. Still, his good intentions are illegal and police regularly interrupt renewal sessions.

It was estimated that almost 30% of the tourist attractions in the area were burned, including the former Soviet youth camp Izumrudnoye and an abandoned village, Stara Markivka.

However, the exclusion zone seems to have a positive future.

In recent years, Ukraine has been trying to change the Chernobyl mark from a shameful monument to incompetence and tragedy to what the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, called a “unique place on the planet where nature is reborn afterwards.” of the man-made world disaster. “

In 2019, Zelensky signed a 2019 decree on the development of tourism in the Chernobyl area. New infrastructure projects and tourist routes bring new hope to the abandoned territory.