At Home In The Wasteland Travel Blog

Ryan and Laura play with kittens after our tour of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Although they were incredibly cute, we did not take them home as souvenirs.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, July 2007 Since the Ukrainian government recently announced that the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl disaster site will be open for tours beginning in 2011, interest in touring the region has exploded (along with traffic to my blog). Media reports have been rather erroneous, however, as private companies have actually been [...]

Yesterday, news outlets reported that you would be allowed to tour the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant beginning in 2011. I was a bit surprised by this, considering I had done just that in 2006. According to the Ukrainian government, however, the tour I went on was “illegal” and a “threat to my [...]

This abandoned building was a restaurant until the city of Pripyat was evacuated following the accident at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The sign on top of the building, which reads PECTOPAH in Cyrillic, means “restoran” in Ukrainian and Russian (and “restaurant” in English).

Sculpture of Soviet World War II soldiers near the Rodina Mat monument in Kiev.

These decorations were hung on the lampposts in Pripyat in preparation for the 1986 May Day parade that never occurred due to the explosion at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

An abandoned apartment building in Pripyat, Ukraine, a deserted city located 3km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The city’s 50,000 residents were evacuated shortly after the Chernobyl disaster, and the city has been uninhabited since.

Tanks near the Rodina Mat statue in Kiev. I’m quiet certain this wasn’t the paint job they received at the factory.

The Kiev Monastery of the Caves is one of the most famous sights in Kiev, primarily due to its complex system of underground tunnels. Upon entering the tunnels, you are surrounded by worshipers prostrating themselves before icons, lighting candles, and kissing glass coffins that contain the remains of monks. Yeah, it’s pretty weird.

In the city of Chernobyl there stands a simple memorial to the liquidators who rushed to reactor number four in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. The firefighters who initially responded to the disaster on the morning of April 26, 1986 were unaware that they were entering a radioactive environment, and rushed to the plant [...]