Ukraine To Open Chernobyl Area To Tourists 207
Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that Ukraine plans to open up the sealed zone around the Chernobyl reactor to visitors who wish to learn more about the tragedy that occurred nearly a quarter of a century ago. Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yulia Yershova says experts are developing travel routes that will be both medically safe and informative. 'There are things to see there if one follows the official route and doesn't stray away from the group,' says Yershova. Though it is a very sad story.' The ministry also says it hopes to finish building a new safer shell for the exploded reactor by 2015 that will cover the original iron-and-concrete structure hastily built over the reactor that has been leaking radiation, cracking and threatening to collapse. About 2,500 employees maintain the remains of the now-closed nuclear plant, working in shifts to minimize their exposure to radiation and several hundred evacuees have returned to their villages in the area despite a government ban."
What method of transport? (Score:4, Interesting)
Will motorcycle tours [kiddofspeed.com] be offered?
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to visit the place, mind you. I hear that their restaurants serve a lovely leg of fish.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
When we got to the ferris wheel the guides stired up places where dust had collected due to rain water and that gave alarms of around 18x normal levels.
If you go by what we were told the amount of extra radiation we got from the day there was less then the amount of extra radiation a flight from NYC to Paris would of given.
Interesting preservation question (Score:5, Interesting)
You hope that tourists don't wreck "it".
The problem I think is deciding what "it" is. The state of the area on 13 December 2010? What happens if a tourist breaks off a piece of something / steals something? do you put a replica in its place? What happens if there is heavy snowfall this year or rainstorms and these threaten to damage the soviet murals in the buildings or even collapse a roof of a building. Do you let them collapse, rebuild them, actively preserve them in some state?
This is the dilemma - what is the state you want to keep things in? Clearly the place has been touched by people, weather, and wildlife since (1986 was it?) - there's decay, graffitti, some stuff has been moved or stolen. What are your feelings? is it a tourist park, or a memorial, or other? Historians and cultural experts all have opinions about this.
Close to home, in the town I live in, Bletchley Park also has this issue to a small degree. They are always struggling for money but one question they have to think about is what state to preserve the place. A lot of the the famous codebreaking huts are in really poor condition - but then they were only designed as temporary wooden buildings to last a few years in the war. Now 70 years on their cheap constructions are falling apart. Do we freeze them somehow? tear them down and build replicas (but maybe to higher quality so they last longer and can survive tourists)? Do we save what is left and incorporate some of that original material alongside new material (replacing rotten wood, etc?
A big challenge for cultural preservation everywhere. What is the purpose of the Chernobyl area? What do you do when the buildings become unsafe because the weather has got in and they are in danger of falling down?
Read _Wolves Eat Dogs_ by M. C. Smith (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Caution: car analogy follows: (Score:3, Interesting)
Touring Chernobyl is like walking across a freeway blindfolded, because it's okay, you can't hear any cars.
You see:
(1) The "Quiet Prius" prob: You basic inexpensive Geiger counter, for durability, has a thickish diaphragm over its sensor, which blocks alpha and beta radiation. The element of most concern is Plutonium, which is an Alpha emitter. So, as listening for traffic is not very efficacious at discerning quiet cars, a geiger counter is of no help, indeed, it's less than helpful.
(2) The "Quiet on the average" prob: It does not help that traffic sounds quiet. All it takes is one car to send you flying. Similarly, it does not matter that the radiation level is, on the average, low. All it takes is one particle of Plutonium, nestled against a lung cell, to start a cancer. The cell does not care that averaged over a day, over your whole body, you just picked up a millirad. All it knows is that an alpha particle just smashed into its DNA and caused a mutation. Yes, DNA has some self-repair mechanisms but they're not foolproof.
(3) The "Ivana made it okay" prob-- it does not matter that some dame allegedly snapped some pics years ago. She may be dead or dying now. Plus we will never know how many folks took a similar trip but are now too sick or too dead to post their pics.
(4) The "But Ivan made it across" prob-- It does not matter that your tour guide has been there a dozen times-- You don't know how many other guides are now in the Kiev Home for Comrades With Bad Coughs Who Eventually Keel Over.
Maybe the analogy isn't so bad. Think about whether you'd walk across a quiet freeway before you sign up for this trip.
Re:wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) the (too huge) number of dead people is comparable to the number of people dead in car accidents
2) the nasty effects on the ecosystem are inferior to the positive effect of the departure of humans.
If we care mostly on ecosystem, Chernobyl is far from the top list of ecological catastrophes.
The consequences are mostly on humans that had to leave or that have been killed or injured.
Re:wait, what? (Score:3, Interesting)
A good point, except that incidence of cancer or birth deformities did not sky-rocket.
You are aware that the most contaminated areas were all evacuated? Might as well make the argument that poisoning a river isn't harmful because people have to go and drink from a different river. Even so, there are estimates of around 4,000 people dying from cancers caused by the fallout.
And I love the traditional "more people die on the roads" variant. Really? Thousands die on the stretch of road outside your window each year? What - do you room mate with Godzilla or something?
Re:wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact the their government decided to open Chernobyl for tourism is not surprising to me. I moved to from Ukraine in late 80s when I was still a teenager. We lived approximately 300 miles away from Chernobyl. Without any history of cancer in my family... a few years later... I was diagnosed with cancer, having gone through number of surgeries and treatments I'm now cancer free. I have to see my doctor every 6 months to make sure cancer is not back. My friend`s girlfriend was a dancer from one of those dance groups/bands in Ukraine, she came to visit in US. One day she wasn't feeling good and went to the doctor... needless to say, she was diagnosed with the latest stage of cancer- untreatable and died a couple of weeks later. She was 25 and guess what, nobody in her family had a history of cancer until after Chernobyl disaster.
What do I think about Chernobyl ? I think former Soviet government F***ed-UP big time prior to the disaster as it was preventable. People that worked for the government at the time that were honest and spoke up, well, the government sent those people to Chernobyl for cleanup, most if not All of those people are dead now. Hundreds of thousands of people that live in Ukraine and Russia are diagnosed with cancer and hundreds of thousands of people have already died.
This wasn't anything that would have an afteraffects of a nuke, this was much greater. So, what do i think about people that decide to visit Chernobyl ? I think that they are nothing short of Idiots. Hopefully people that are considering to visit Chernobyl will wake up one day and decide to stop taking the Stupid Pills.