Dark tourism takes to the skies over Chernobyl

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

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of the catastrophe this month, an air tour is offered that gives passengers the opportunity to look down at 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 Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4 exploded in 1986, sending a poisonous plume of radioactivity into the skies over Europe.

It’s a clear itinerary. For about $ 106 (2970 Ukrainian hryvnia), participants will get a seat on an Embraer 195 passenger jet that takes off from Boryspil Airport in Kiev and then flies north to Chernobyl, taking in panoramas of the exclusion zone around the power plant.

During the flight, organizers say the plane will stay above the minimum permitted height of 900 meters above Chernobyl and get as close to the nuclear power plant as possible without compromising safety.

Rave reviews

The flight is comparable to other creative pandemic-influenced travel companies.

And while it may seem strange to dispel a major disaster by contemplating another that happened three decades earlier, organizers say the trip wouldn’t have happened without Covid.

“To be fair, this tour was only made possible by the pandemic,” said Bohdan Skotnykov, UIA’s project leader for the flight. “An airplane is available and our team has some free time to do creative projects.”

Skotnykov says Covid-19 security measures will be taken in flight, in line with others being implemented by UIA. Passengers and crew will strictly adhere to quarantine regulations, both at the airport and on the plane.

It is not the first time that UIA has conducted this type of travel. Several previous flights sold out in two days and received rave reviews.

“I especially liked the ability to communicate freely with the pilots,” Vladimir Belenky, who took part in the third UIA flight over Kiev and Chernobyl, told CNN, adding that he was satisfied with both the service and the program.

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

While focused more on the aviation side, UIA’s excursion continues a popular dark tourism tradition that, prior to the Covid restrictions, saw tens of thousands of visitors explore the stark disaster site around Chernobyl and the abandoned city of Pripyat.

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

Creepy environment

Despite this, the pandemic has put a strain on dark tourism.

In 2020, only 32,000 people visited the Exclusion Zone, 72,000 fewer than in 2019.

International tourists, intrigued after watching HBO’s hit TV series “Chernobyl”, made up 80% of all visitors, but restrictions on global travel have led to a tidal wave of interest that has been reduced to a trickle.

But Yemelyanenko is positive about the future of Chernobyl tourism. His company is working on new creative offerings that cater to the creepy Exclusion Zone environment.

Recent tours include kayaking in Chernobyl, boat trips on the Pripyat River, and extreme off-road rides in the Zone. The company offers its own flying experience over Chernobyl, Pripyat and the Duga radar.

“When the full tourist connection between the countries is finally restored, we will have something to surprise even the tourists who have frequently visited the Chernobyl zone,” adds Yemelyanenko.

Certainly, the region’s stark history, ghost town, and sprawling 1,000-square-mile landscape of abandoned structures, not to mention ghost rumors, continue to lure many people.

Some participate in official tours after obtaining the mandatory permit to visit the area. Others enter illegally and roam radiation-contaminated places at the risk of incurring hefty fines.

‘Time machine’

“The idea of ​​creating museum rooms came about almost 10 years ago, when I first visited the Exclusion Zone and saw all the buildings left in Pripyat being looted,” Stanislav told CNN. He said he wanted to complete a few restoration projects to show people what the spaces looked like in the first days after the total evacuation of all the residents of Pripyat.

So far, they’ve brought to life a kitchen and a room in one of Pripyat’s flats, as well as a few kindergarten locations. However, their good intentions are illegal and the renovation sessions are regularly interrupted by the police.

It is estimated that nearly 30% of the zone’s tourist attractions have burned down, including the former Soviet youth camp Izumrudnoye and an abandoned village, Stara Markivka.

However, the Exclusion Zone appears to have a positive future.

In recent years, Ukraine has made an effort to rename Chernobyl 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 after the global man-made. disaster”.

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