Holiday in Chernobyl: Tourism in the Exclusion Zone

they keep increasing why'd you come to Chernobyl you know it's radioactive right the area is almost unique I mean Fukushima in time I suppose will potentially give the same sort of feel but though there will be nothing like Chernobyl and the exclusion zone here we're at the first checkpoint at the entry to the Chernobyl zone at the 30 kilometer point from the reactor once you go through here the area is contaminated April 26th is the 30th anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in history the disaster at the Soviet Union's tree noble nuclear power plant in 1986 contaminated large areas of Ukraine Belarus and Russia but three decades later somehow it's become a tourist attraction you need permission to get in but it's actually pretty easy to pay a guide to take you on a tour these three maps represent the contamination of the exclusion zone area by different isotopes this is where we are right now exactly seven so right now we are at one of the entrances to the exclusion zone altogether there are 12 checkpoint scattered everywhere do you think it's dangerous for us to go into here is it dangerous to smoke the tester s - I don't know drive the car yes it's a very relative question you know I can't really answer it got it okay well I guess we'll have to take a chance taking a chance with me we're Wilson a traveller from Hong Kong and Andrew but tourists from the UK they both paid a few hundred bucks to get a dose of Chernobyl 20 minutes later we were already at the epicenter of the exclusion zone increasing so as soon as we came up to the reactor everybody's Geiger counters started going crazy so that's reactor number 4 the one that was destroyed in the accident and it's covered with something called the sarcophagus that was put there in the 80s to keep all of the radioactive material inside but it started falling apart so they've built an even bigger cover called the arch at great cost with the help of the European Union that's gonna be rolled over to cover the entire sarcophagus it's gonna be rolled over on Rails when it's completed in 2017 why did you come to Chernobyl we're right next to the reactor which is the most radioactive area in the zone aren't you a little bit afraid of the radiation not that much by the meter is now still safe showing the meter yeah according to the - a guy she told me is okay well you can see all those people working inside without the protective coating or mask so I think he's safe and why did you decide to come to Chernobyl I think this is quite a special experience for me is not traveling by just a shopping or see the nice scenic spot but here I can really see something not coming for the other tourists I didn't tell my parents but my friends say that I met I'm crazy why you go there our next stop was the town of freaking the closest city to the reactor which have to be totally evacuated and it stood empty for thirty years parts of it were relatively clean but you never know when you've hit a bad patch so counts per minute that's aha yeah that's how many better particles basically we're having up to 50 yep and how many is that that's sixteen hundreds over 1700 so do you think it's dangerous for tourists to be coming here I think it's not dangerous for ordinary people to come here on one or short day trips because the radiation levels are not as high as people would presume before coming here but into statistics last year seventeen one seven thousand people visited the exclusion zone as travelers this room is the props for the concert halls you see back in the Soviet Union people when they worked at a plant or if they were teaching stuff or maybe doctors and nurses of a hospital in the free time they were kept busy they had to participate in some place maybe if they could sing well they would sing yeah in this way everyone will had fun people didn't take drugs didn't drink a lot Chernobyl is the site of the world's worst nuclear accident and people come here for a lot of different reasons I think one of the main ones though is that it's a time capsule for the Soviet Union of 1986 a country that doesn't exist anymore and apart from that it's also great for Instagram why'd you come to Chernobyl you know it's radioactive right the area is almost unique I mean Fukushima in time I suppose will potentially give the same sort of the same sort of feel but though there will be nothing like Chernobyl and the exclusion zone here after coming back from Chernobyl I wanted to double-check just how dumb a decision had been to go there so I visited Ukraine's main radiation research hospital Japan also kakushita a twist on this apartment yes deeds on Watchers Jania Chernobyl ah yes kshitij the turista Mergen is opening Kotori Hulett pootaroo name organism mushroom absolutely disap a sniper CJ Chernobyl - Rustam Kotori Patera buy cheap rajala yo pre demotic Akitas famous roti naruse a jobseeker of the cops will never wrote a Postma residues right I need the map associate me what's khadija what Tommy devotee shakyas honestly so she stood for pros natalka pallucci Geum the Grizz new year's day ruku no it was more than a suit a key if the huge atop will reject you know we had one person answers to us dunya stupid some problem of tongs to move it with the white motive cleared keep any party's name Bucheon for cosmos the mood was a wide scar intact Wally booster ear Azad Sookie valedictorian with Idris polonium not to his reward acaba what no score in history Union what a tollbooth Kotori yeah as you pursue any button you have I used most with another reason enough the system of the tech tyranny of the knocker I shouldn't have found rich tirupati material is the statistics extortion on it a go what is that they can they're sort of cheated upon Ostrovsky similar Amish here we go so they're putting me in here I'm gonna be laying here for 20 minutes apparently and they're gonna find out about every bit of radiation that's in my body fine chilly in here in the music now the moment of truth she needs me emotion ability digital who was the absolute no Jessica was not just my ask of Chernobyl Ebola bizarre past nine the number that is a person at the Muslims because I separated only special which is that over tens of thousands of people are believed to have died prematurely because of Chernobyl and even though my short clip there probably won't have any effects on my health the consequences for the people of Ukraine Belarus and Russia are still playing out a generation later it's surprising that there are so many kids here because the accident happened 30 years ago and none of them were even born but it turns out that it's not just the people who were directly affected by the radiation or suffering their kids have been affected to whether the clerk in the out a minuite Donita Kotori considered privileged cuzco a bruiser Vanya we would really suck them we witness to jay-z lose a adorable Chili's total straddle Tapajos me police in America digitally episode radius a and improv really probably ammo I see new prettily Toto's no Pallavi no no could you send a get on again entities come Romney and now the music we had the morning very cooler than period the Watson it did but do not choose a de líneas a good profit she tells HD recipes at DJ de cos the ggot practice amends the pavani Elia out immunity rigid illa wus Lavoie so is a at the premier autumn moon D'Souza preserve onion to anxiously no good that Wonka hola me llamo billion my children always go right here the moment average a part of all of Silesia peace coveted political support is Judith autism research yeah nichelle exceptional quality colitas the trap ELISA II pressure voila - told you needed to Chinook was Bullock agita problem is the Rogen my pristine Oprah who told upstairs Enya Medici schooling Kuroko bogus cava mmm talking about your problems double the witness dollars there was a pressure F pernicious pressure off loser accessibility problem never Chavarria was think our Miami a problem on a new policy so you should have eaten is always a emo straight education implode I imagine we latisha no parameters to the tostones pero busted up a silly rat themselves in reactive Tara who says delete a clue in Ibiza personal formal robot collect register data she tells of seemingly inertia Ismene alone nauseous but he would not sure who the holiday deceived by boost emotion F seats as Mowgli's rather sticky Morano if the whole original witnessed its problemo para selling of the highly adept at seen on movie Nunavut territory he shot some - Adams the more value 11 eternal as a cautionary simply too much of course nice EMU totally a Cheeto budget almighty really cool cause of water when Yamuna productive money premier bicycle with it one cause a hoarder one young 30 years after the Chernobyl disaster emptied this town and made large chunks of Ukraine Belarus and Russia uninhabitable nuclear energy is actually getting a new lease on life from people who think it might be the answer to climate change because it doesn't produce the greenhouse gases that are warming the earth but with everything that's happened here and more recently the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan it seems like people just haven't learned how to use nuclear energy safely yet

Channel: VICE News

Views: 1,208,087

Keywords: Exclusion Zone, vice chernobyl, exclusion zone chernobyl, Tourism, Ukraine, Chernobyl, Nuclear, Radiation, Fallout, Disaster, Nuclear Reactor, Health, Cancer, Thyroid, Europe, Environment, Tourists, VICE News, VICE, news, documentary, documentaries, interview, world news, breaking news, culture, wild, lifestyle, world, underground, videos, vice guide, chernobyl hbo, chernobyl nuclear power plant, chernobyl disaster, Chernobyl disaster, chernobyl aftermath, chernobyl today, simon ostrovsky

Id: ok9bPgKt_WI

Length: 13min 22sec (802 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 26 2016