Inside The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone | Full Tour

Описание: Take a tour through the abandoned world inside the chernobyl exclusion zone. on April 26th 1986 a reactor inside the chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded exposing the highly radioactive core. In the days and weeks following, highly radioactive material was released and carried over the surrounding area. As a result an area of 2600km2 was evacuated. Now almost 40 years later this area remains (mostly) uninhabited. Close to the power plant was the city of Pripyat, home to 40,000 people featuring hospitals, schools, swimming pools and sports centres which has since stood frozen in time. With special permission it is possible to visit this zone in what is now Northern Ukraine.

The tour begins at Diyatki entrance checkpoint where permits and ID are checked by Ukranian military. Driving into the zone we arrive at the first location, Zalissya Village, a small village of wooden houses almost completly overrun by nature. Zalissya palace of culture is a large community building featuring a Soviet Union era banner that reads "Long Live Communism, The future of all mankind!". We also explore the inside of a particularly well preserved traditional Soviet country home.

Next we travel to the military facility that was home to one of the most important pieces of cold war technology in the soviet union. The facility was kept completly secret, hidden deep in the forest and signposted as a summer camp for children. Notice the concrete road leading to the facility; concrete roads were only used for military facilities to accommodate heavy military vehicles such as tanks. Upon arriving you can see another checkpoint which is still manned by Ukranian military even deep inside the exclusion zone. Soaring above the treeline of the forest is the 150m tall DUGA-1 Over the Horizon Radar array. This Radar was used to inform the Soviet Union of an incoming ICBM attack. Although the physical radar was kept secret, the radiowaves it produced could be heard in media broadcasts all over the world giving it the nickname "Russian Woodpecker". I also walked through the communications buildings which would have been filled with soviet era computer technology but now just the skeletal structures remain. Also part of the facility is a vehicle maintenance workshop.

Next we arrive at Kopachi village. Unlike Zalissya, Kopachi was almost completly demolished in the cleanup operation following the accident due to the much higher radiation which can be heard by the dosimeter alarms evryone in the zone must carry. One building that remains is the kindergarten, with childrens toys littered around the building and playground. A hotspot of radiation remains close to the entrance and plastic sheeting can be seen covering the floors inside. An eerie atmosphere awaits inside with peeling paint, abandoned childrens cots and dolls.

As we approach the epi-centre of the exclusion zone we can see the building of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. As we drive alongside the cooling lake we can see the unfinished cooling towers and reactor buildings of reactors 5 & 6 which were under construction at the time of the explosion and subsequently never completed. Next can be seen the main building with each smoke stack marking reactors 1, 2 & 3 with reactor 4 now covered by the giant steel arch of the new safe confinement which was completed in 2017 to replace the previous containment structure which was built immediatley following the disaster to contain the radioactive material within. The new confinement should last 100 years.

Although the reactors have all ceased generation, Chernobyl maintains a large workforce as the ongoing decommissioning process requires constant management. We have lunch in one of the power plants canteens after being checked for radioactive contamination.

After lunch, we arrived at Pripyat city. We first visited the riverfront cafe with a beautiful stained glass windows. We walked through the forest catching glimpses of buildings through the trees. A hospital with medical equipment dumped outside, A collapsed high school and the music school with an impressive mosaic mural. We also walked through the main square of Pripyat with the hotel Polissya and Palace of Culture Energetik. We visited the supermarket with abandoned aisles of food and rusty shopping carts strewn over the floor. We also visited the Amusement park and stadium before driving through the highly radioactive red forest.

Finally, we stopped at Chornobyl town which is still inhabited by self-settlers. We saw some of the cleanup robots used to remove radioactive debris from the rooftops.


00:00 Intro
00:48 Dityatki Checkpoint
01:49 Zalissya Village
07:08 DUGA1 Radar
11:47 Kopachi Kindergarten
13:43 Power Plant
16:21 River Catfish
20:27 Cafe Pripyat
23:02 Hospital & Schools
24:32 Pripyat
27:15 Supermarket
29:39 Amusement Park
31:54 Stadium
33:14 Red Forest
34:38 Cleanup Robots
35:22 Chornobyl Town