Go Niche

TWO THINGS have risen from the radioactive ashes of Chernobyl: wildlife and, even more amazingly, tourism. Each year travellers from around the world tour the region,

turning the world’s worst environmental disaster into the world’s most voyeuristic tourist attraction.

The power plant exploded on April 26th, 1986, causing a radioactive cloud to spread across Europe and the Soviet authorities to evacuate cities, towns and villages in the immediate area.

In all, a third of a million people were displaced. Many came from the city of Pripyat, built to house nuclear-plant workers; it’s now not unlike a modern-day Pompeii. A wander around yields up newspapers dating from the day of the explosion, art on school walls and toddlers’ shoes left in kindergarten.

Yet while in some ways the city is suspended forever in time, in others it is the signs of time passing that are most evident. In a triumph of nature over mankind, everywhere you look trees, bushes and weeds push through the walls of buildings, with a power that can reclaim even a 15-storey apartment block.

Equally, the vanished human population has been replaced by an even bigger animal one, including wolves, boar and deer, all of which would be safari-park lovely if it weren’t for the Geiger counter screaming on the dashboard.

A day tour of Chernobyl costs $310 (about €240) per person, based on two sharing, with the Ukrainian agency Solo East Travel.

www.soloeast.com