Ukraine Offers New Tourist Draw - Chernobyl - NYT

[hatrack]

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"For nearly 20 years it has been a dark symbol of Soviet rule. Its name conjures memories of incompetence, horror, contamination, escape and sickness, as well as the party elite's disdain for Soviet citizens, who were called to parade in fallout on May Day while the leaders' families secretly fled. Now it is a destination, luring people in. "It is amazing," said Ilkka Jahnukainen, 22, as he wandered the empty city here that housed the plant's workers and families, roughly 45,000 people in all. "So dreamlike and silent."

The word Chernobyl also long ago became a dreary, shopworn joke, shorthand for contaminated wasteland. But Chernobylinterinform, the zone's information agency, says its chaperoned tours do not carry health risks. This is because, the agency says, radiation levels here have always been uneven. And most of the zone is far cleaner than it was in 1986, when radiation levels were strong enough in places to kill even trees.

A lethal exposure of radiation ranges from 300 to 500 roentgens an hour; levels in the tour areas vary from 15 to several hundred microroentgens an hour. A microroentgen is one-millionth of a roentgen. Dangers at these levels, the agency says, lie in long-term exposure. Still, the zone in northern Ukraine has much more radioactive spots than those where tourists typically go. So there are rules, which Yuriy Tatarchuk, a government interpreter who served as the Finns' guide, listed.

Don't stray. Stay on concrete and asphalt, where exposure risks are lower than on soil. Don't touch anything. (This one proved impossible. Tours involve climbing cluttered staircases and stepping through debris. Handholds are inevitable.) No matter its inconveniences or potential for medical worry, the zone possesses the allure of the forbidden and a promise of rare, personal insights into history. Its popularity as a destination is increasing. Few tourists came in 2002, the year it opened for such visits, according to Marina Polyakova, of Chernobylinterinform. In 2004 about 870 arrived, she said, a pace tourists are matching this year."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/international/europe/15chernobyl.html?hp&ex=1118894400&en=ab04734f04de082f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Dr.Phool]

1. Gee, what's next?

Maybe week-end camping trips on 3 Mile Island.