• What to know if you go

WAYNE SNOW/AJC (ENLARGE)

The Pripyat Ferris wheel stands as a symbol of what might have been. It was scheduled to open to the public on May 1, 1986; ChernobylÕs Reactor No. 4 blew on April 26.

WAYNE SNOW/AJC (ENLARGE)

Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear complex stands silent but still deadly after 20 years.

WAYNE SNOW/AJC (ENLARGE)

This water line was built above ground in Chernobyl because authorities did not want to risk disturbing contaminated soil. The town is the center of activity in the exclusion zone.

WAYNE SNOW/AJC (ENLARGE)

Nikolai, a driver for a Ukrainian travel agency, waits for clearance to enter the 30-kilometer exclusion zone that surrounds the abandoned nuclear plant and the ghost town of Pripyat.

WAYNE SNOW/AJC (ENLARGE)

Vacant buildings frame the central plaza of Pripyat, which would have been filled with people for the May Day celebration of 1986. Pripyat was evacuated on April 27, 1986 about 30 hours after the Chernobyl explosion.

Chernobyl, Ukraine — Bumping along the empty, pockmarked roads near the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, it was easy to be lulled into a false sense of security.

The willows already had come to life on this early spring day, and the chestnuts and birches weren't far behind. It was serenely quiet, except for the sound of our vehicles.

Our government tour guide and drivers showed us around with bored, polite nonchalance. They held out dosimeters periodically to check radiation levels but showed no concern, even when readings were elevated.

They said there was no problem as long as we stayed on the pavement, which had been washed clean by two decades of rain and snow. The higher readings were off in the underbrush, particularly in the moss, they said.

We were touring the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone a few days before the 20th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, explosion of Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Complex.

A couple of sobering thoughts penetrated the sense of security.

First, we knew that the damaged reactor building still contained most of its 200 tons of radioactive fuel. Second, we knew that the sarcophagus built over the reactor 20 years ago to contain the radiation was in danger of collapse.

The most chilling thought came a few days after the tour.

Back in my apartment in Kiev, I saw a story on Chernobyl tourism in the Kyiv Post, an English-language weekly. An executive from the travel agency I had used was quoted as saying his company might suspend the tours because of safety concerns. He said the recent death of a Chernobyl guide at age 45 had caught his attention.

That cautionary note aside, a tour of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is a strange, fascinating and thought-provoking adventure for people who want an out-of-the-ordinary vacation. This was my second trip to Ukraine in 10 months. I had returned in part to spend Orthodox Easter in Kiev and in part to write a news story about the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl for the Journal-Constitution.

When people refer to the exclusion zone, they generally mean the pair of concentric circles drawn around the nuclear complex and encompassing parts of Ukraine and Belarus. One circle has a 10-kilometer radius (about six miles), the other a 30-kilometer radius (about 19 miles).

The area was evacuated after the explosion, turning the city of Pripyat into a ghost town and leaving scores of villages to be reclaimed by nature or to be buried by emergency workers because of severe radiation.

In 2002, the Ukrainian government began to allow tourists inside. They can contact the government directly for permission, but it is quicker and easier to go through any of a number of Kiev-based travel agencies.

I used the SAM Travel Co., one of the largest and oldest agencies in Ukraine. I handled the transaction easily by e-mail with a minimum of red tape and confirmed the reservation by credit card.

Costs vary depending on the number of people taking part, ranging from a high of $344 for one person to a low of $68 per person for a group of seven or more. My cost was $360, or $180 each for me and a Ukrainian friend who helped me with the language.

For that fee, the company promised to have a driver pick me up at my apartment in Kiev, take me to the Chernobyl headquarters of the Ukrainian ministry responsible for the exclusion zone and bring me back that evening.

Touring Chernobyl

The driver, Nikolai, showed up promptly at 9 a.m. in a blue Russian Zhiguli with a broken spring in the back seat and a small icon of his patron saint on the driver's side windshield. He spoke no English and played pounding Russian techno music on the radio.

Chernobyl was a two-hour drive north through flat, isolated country few Westerners have ever seen. There was no traffic. Small villages periodically broke the monotony, their cemeteries elaborately decorated for Orthodox Easter, then only three days away.

We reached the 30K checkpoint late in the morning. A few other people were waiting there — a French television crew, a reporter for Agence France-Presse and two people from Greenpeace. We would tour together in a little caravan of three vehicles.

Things were noticeably different inside the 30K zone. Abandoned homes and farm buildings were overgrown after 20 years of neglect. The road was pocked with potholes.

Just when all seemed dead, we saw a farmer driving briskly along the lonely road in a horse-drawn cart. A second horse was tied to the cart, and a third scampered free behind. I thought it might be one of the rare Przewalski's horses, introduced into the exclusion zone in a successful breeding program but was told later it was only a farm horse.

Our first stop was in Chernobyl, the pretty little town just outside the 10K Zone that gave its name to the now-infamous nuclear complex. We met Dennis Zaburin, our government guide, who showed us maps of the places we would go.

Leaving Chernobyl en route to the nuclear complex, we saw one of the unique signs of the disaster — above-ground water lines forming a strange arch over the streets. Authorities deemed it inadvisable to disturb the radioactive soil to bury them.

Passing into the 10K Zone, we quickly approached the nuclear complex. On the right was a massive, rusting, red hulk that struck me as the epitome of evil. It did not look like pictures I had seen, but I thought that must be "it."

But it was the building for Reactors No. 5 and No. 6, under construction when No. 4 blew. Like all the other reactors in the complex, these two are idle, another casualty of the Chernobyl disaster.

In a matter of seconds, we skirted the cooling pond and turned toward another massive building, this one housing the other four reactors. It had a familiar look because of the many photographs taken of the site in the past two decades.

Zaburin showed us the spot where we were permitted to take photographs. Shooting the perimeter or other angles of the reactor was forbidden for security reasons, he said. We talked quietly among ourselves, stared at the ugly hulk and posed for pictures in front of it.

To see it in person gave me the same feeling I have experienced at criminal trials, seeing infamous murderers. It seemed so ordinary — yet it was a kind of mass murderer that will ultimately claim 4,000 lives by the most conservative estimate, 200,000-plus by other estimates.

After a few minutes, we went to an observation room in the administration building. As we looked out at the reactor, ministry spokeswoman Julia Marusich said stabilizing the old sarcophagus is the top priority at Chernobyl. It is so dangerous that some people work 15-minute shifts, she said.

The concrete-and-steel covering was built in extraordinarily dangerous conditions in the first seven months after the explosion; it is now in danger of collapse. The roughly 200,000 workers during that phase were among the most heavily contaminated victims of the disaster and its aftermath.

Securing Chernobyl is a costly and ongoing task. Eventually, an international consortium of companies will build a new, arch-shaped covering, slide it over the damaged reactor and then dismantle the main components of the old structure and dispose of the waste. The price tag for the covering alone approaches $1 billion.

What's left in Pripyat

Little more than a mile from the plant is Pripyat, built in the 1970s as home for the Chernobyl workers. It must have been a pretty town once. Large Soviet-style buildings frame a central plaza where bumper cars, carnival rides and a Ferris wheel were in place to entertain the people.

The Ferris wheel has become a poignant symbol of Pripyat. It was to have been unveiled for the May Day celebration in 1986, but tragedy intervened. It stands unused as a rusting monument to what might have been.

Perhaps more chilling is the thought that life went on largely as normal in Pripyat on that April 26, 1986, as Reactor No. 4 spewed its deadly poisons into the atmosphere. The evacuation order did not come until more than 30 hours after the blast.

When it did, Zaburin said, people were told to pack for three days and to be ready to leave that afternoon. They would never return. It was as if a city nearly the size of Marietta were evacuated in a matter of a few hours on a pretty Sunday in spring, the memories and possessions of thousands of lifetimes to be forever left behind.

Now Pripyat is silent, for 20 years the private domain of nature and looters. Stairways are covered in broken glass. Paper peels from the walls. Old notices on bulletin boards herald civic events that might have been important in 1986.

Moss and trees grow up through the broken glass on the upper floor of Pripyat's show-place hotel. The view today is a sweeping panorama of overgrown, tree-lined streets and decaying, abandoned buildings. On the horizon looms the nuclear plant.

I had read about Pripyat, but I was not prepared for the emotional impact of walking silent streets or peering into abandoned apartments, schools and lives, and knowing what a devastating impact this nuclear accident had on the people who had lived here.

Checks for radiation

After Pripyat, we went back to the ministry headquarters in the village of Chernobyl, in subdued moods. We checked ourselves on the dosimeters and had a nice meal of soup, bread, meat, potatoes, vegetables and dessert, all brought in from the outside.

We submitted to a final check as we exited the 30K zone. Everyone was ushered into a large guard house, where rows of dosimeters stood. I had no reason to think there would be a problem, but it was still a relief when the light flashed green.

As we drove back into Kiev, with its beautiful pre-Soviet architecture and magnificent gold-domed churches, I wondered if but for a different wind direction 20 years ago, Kiev — the parent city of all Slavic civilization — might have shared the fate of Pripyat.

IF YOU GO

The Chernobyl plant is in Ukraine but the exclusion zone covers parts of Ukraine and Belarus. Because Belarus is a Soviet-style state, access is through Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. British Airways, Air France, KLM and Delta Air Lines (starting Thursday) serve Kiev. Expect to pay around $1,200 round trip.

Where to stay

There are many hotels in downtown Kiev but most are overpriced. For a better deal, try the Sherborne Guest House, a 24-hour staffed apartment near the Ukrainian Parliament. A one-room apartment with a separate kitchen, Internet access and good service was $95 a night. www.sherbornehotel.com.ua.

Travel companies

SAM Travel Co. is one of the oldest and largest in Ukraine, www.ukrcam.com/tour/tour_3.html. Others conducting tours are New Logic (http://www.newlogic.com.ua/) and uatour.com (www.uatour.com).

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