August 7, 2021
After the half-night bus to Riga, I took a taxi to the airport. This was a little bit weird to schedule, but it worked out well. At that hour I would have had a tough time ordering a taxi. I waited at the airport for several hours, and then boarded my flight to Kyiv.
I got some cash at the airport and walked the short distance to the bus stop where I and several other passengers squished ourselves onto an already small and mostly full bus. I observed that you must pay in cash, but it doesn’t have to be perfect change. The bus driver will make change for you and the other people on the bus will help pass it back to you.
After taking the bus for a while, I got off and walked a few blocks to my hostel, which wasn’t bad. Dream Hostel Kyiv is a decent hostel, but it has horrible WiFi. It’s in a decent area but it’s by no means in the center of the city, so it’s convenient that there’s also a café connected. It’s a short enough walk to the metro that you can still get around the city. It’s difficult to tell, but it does appear that while the hostel isn’t located in the city center, it is located in a good neighborhood that is walking distance from some important sites.
For lunch I head to Musafir, which is a good Turkish restaurant, but I don’t like lamb so the pide wasn’t my favorite. The workers are super kind and the rest of the dish was good, so I’ll give it a positive review.
Then I head to Petrovka Flea Market, which is supposed to be a huge market. I couldn’t find jewelry so it was a flop for me, but there were indeed many different offerings and it was easy to reach by metro.
I’m a bit exhausted by my journey here, so I rest for a while and then head out one last time for the day. I stop at the nearby church, St. Andrews, to take pictures and then go to City Zen for dinner. They have good vibes but bad WiFi (sensing a pattern here). I order a sandwich which was tasty, but the portion was somewhat small. I made up for that with dessert.
August 8, 2021
Today I’m doing something super exciting, and something that I can hardly believe I’m actually accomplishing this early in my travels. I am visiting Chernobyl.
I booked a standard day long visit to the site for around $100 on GetYourGuide, but the company itself is Gamma Travel. We met early in the morning at a hotel in the city center, and once everyone was accounted for, we set off. Chernobyl is not too far from Kyiv, so it’s an easy day trip. About halfway there, they played a movie on the TVs to give us some context. There were about 15 people in our tour group, as well as the driver and our guide.
This is hands down the most interesting thing I’ve done in my travels, so I totally recommend it. I also consider it to be safe based on my research and experience. Make sure to do your own research, however, because things can change. I’ll give you a bit more detail about what actually happened.
The exclusion zone is actually made up of two parts, one smaller than the other. It’s not recommended for people with certain health conditions to come here, like pregnant women, but at the same time, workers come here in shifts of 15 days, and it’s not considered a huge risk. Guides also come frequently and are not concerned for their health.
When we arrive in the outer zone, there’s a map on the ground where our guide explains all of the important things to us. Then we have a short break where we have the chance to buy snacks from the shop, which of course I take advantage of and buy myself a Chernobyl Coke.
Then we moved on to the more critical parts of the exclusion zone. At several points during the tour you will have to pass through radiation control. I’m not sure how these machines work, but they are supposed to check for radiation levels in your body. I also don’t know what would happen if you didn’t pass, although I suspect that in most cases discarding your clothes would do the trick. This didn’t happen to anyone in our group and I think it’s rare, so not to worry. The precautions you will need to take are covering as much of your body as possible and kicking the dirt off your shoes as you get in and out of the van.
We got to see a lot of cool things throughout the day, so I’ll just do a quick recap. We stopped at Duga Radar which is somewhat unrelated to Chernobyl, but it’s nearby so it’s worth stopping. This will be deemed unsafe in the coming years, so it’s cool to see it before tour groups will no longer be permitted nearby. Then we drove to the reactor, stopping at various points to take pictures. I thought because we were stopping that meant we wouldn’t get any closer, but suddenly we were literally AT the reactor. We came here because there is a memorial for those who sacrificed their lives and health to help solve the problem. We also saw the Red Forest at this point, which is an area where the soil has a ton of radiation. We weren’t supposed to stay here for long, but aside from the soil the radiation is not that high.
Then we got to eat lunch in the same cafeteria that the workers eat in, which was super cool. The food was obviously traditional Ukrainian food, and was quite good.
The last part of the day was what you probably think of when you imagine a visit to Chernobyl. We go to tour of the nearby town of Pripyat. We got to see all the famous sites like the ferris wheel and bumper cars, schools, apartment buildings, and more. Our tour guide was fabulous at explaining the history and telling us stories.
We also stopped throughout the day at several little “museums.” These were basically fields of tools and machines that were used to handle the disaster. Sometimes we just read about it and other times our tour guide told us more stories.
At the end of the day, the tour guide and anyone who had rented a Geiger Counter got to see how much radiation their body had encountered. Mine was really not more than the normal values that we experience, because I didn’t feel the need to push any limits here. The tour guide’s was about 4 times that, but still much less than any level to be concerned about. Hers was higher because throughout the day she put her meter closer to different materials that had absorbed the radiation.
The New Safe Confinement has done a really great job at making the area safe for workers and visitors. You need to avoid touching things as you tour the area because radiation has not been removed from the materials that remain. The soil and the buildings still contain radiation, but the air is safe. Keeping your body covered is enough to protect you because particles won’t come in direct contact with your skin.
That being said, the situation is always changing, and while the New Safe Confinement is meant to last at least 100 years, there are plans to further improve conditions before then. We don’t know how safe the area will remain or what will be left of it for visitors to see, so if you have a chance to visit while it remains in the state, you absolutely should.
They dropped us off back at the meeting point, so I walked around a bit and saw Khreshchatyk and Independence Square. Then, I was hungry for dinner so I went to Mama Hanana for Georgian food. It’s really good and not the cheapest in Kyiv, but they offer good portions. I used their WiFi to call myself an Uber home because it’s really inexpensive here and I was exhausted after a long day.
August 9, 2021
I have some work to do and I’m tired from yesterday so I get a slow start. I eat a late breakfast/early lunch at Druzi Café (next door to the hostel). I order traditional Chicken Kiev. I still don’t really know how this is supposed to be eaten because when you cut into it the juices completely spill out, but nonetheless it was good.
After that I have some time to explore so I head downtown to St. Sophie’s Cathedral, Golden Gate Park, and the National Opera.
I take a break at Blur Coffee, which has great vibes and tons of seating. It also has decent WiFi, so I’ll be back to work here.
I make one final stop at Mariyinsky Palace and Gardens before heading back home. There’s a traditional restaurant right near our metro stop that I want to stop at for dinner.
Puzata Hata is like a traditional fast-food Ukranian cafeteria. I try several things and I can’t really say I know what I was eating or truly enjoyed any of them. I recommend coming with others to try more things or maybe even asking someone to tell you their recommendations (instead I just observed). I did try a crepe-like dessert which wasn’t bad at all.
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