My Chernobyl assignment would be different. I dedicated an entire afternoon to picking out a pair of chinos and a lens-friendly blue shirt. And then I bought three of each.
I’ll spare you the history of the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster. Unless you’re among the half-a-dozen people left on the planet who haven’t watched the HBO series, Chernobyl, you’re probably aware of the detail. You might, though, be less acquainted with the process required to get there. Especially as a journalist.
It begins with an application to the agency responsible for the management of the power plant at least ten days before the intended visit. Once permission is granted, a ticket is issued with a set of accompanying rules. Those include wearing clothes that fully cover the skin, not eating outside and not sitting down. And not smoking. And not touching anything.
I discovered later that those rules are often interpreted as a suggestion rather than an instruction – although that’s certainly not how they are intended. My guide, for example, assigned to me by the managing agency, smoked throughout our three-day visit. And he cracked his first beer at around 10am. He was one of the unhealthiest looking people I’d ever come across but, as I discovered when I offered to buy him dinner, he also ate like a horse.
My cameraman was equally indifferent. He avoided putting his tripod on the ground in the more contaminated areas of the 30km Exclusion Zone but insisted on wearing t-shirts and occasionally strayed off the designated paths. He was, though, very good at his job.
We travelled around “the zone” in a rickety van driven by my local “fixer”, Dima. Its aircon, unsurprisingly, was broken so we drove with the windows open. I couldn’t see a related regulation on my ticket, but I’m pretty sure that’s frowned upon. To say the least.
Dima carried a Geiger counter for two of the three days, having forgotten it on the first. It squawked incessantly. A reminder that, despite the thousands of tourists pouring past its security checkpoints each year, Chernobyl remains one of the most contaminated places on the planet. Stay on the designated routes, and the amount of radiation you’ll be exposed to in a short visit probably won’t exceed levels widely considered safe. There are, however, parts of the Exclusion Zone – within the 4th reactor structure, the hospital where the first responders were treated, the trench where emergency vehicles were abandoned – where radiation levels remain dangerously high.
The more conservative among the scientific community warn that danger lurks not in the average dose visitors are exposed to, but in the possible ingestion of radioactive dust. And that, I discovered, is a topic people making money from the place prefer to avoid. Besides, as my guide strongly argued, no matter what the ailment, there’s nothing a Russian steam-bath can’t cure.
It was, though, enough motivation for me to splash out on three versions of the same outfit. At the end of each day I returned to my hotel room, changed into jeans and a t-shirt and threw a pair of chinos and a lens-friendly blue shirt into the bin.
And, after three days, what were my impressions of Chernobyl? It is a haunting and morbidly fascinating place. Dare I say, oddly beautiful? It’s also a sad place. Depressing, even. It’s a monument – no, memorial – to our biggest failing: no matter how intricate the technology, how honourable the intention, ego so often trumps reason. As one of our interviewees argued, Chernobyl was a human failing, not a scientific one. Sadly, the worst of our legacy on this planet hasn’t always been accidental.