It has been a bucket-list item of mine for about 10 years to pay a visit to Chernobyl. Furthermore, I wanted to visit the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. Honestly, I had felt both excited to finally get the opportunity to visit and nervous because I had never traveled past the western side of Europe. I was a child of the 80s and 90s so I got to see the effects of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But, having never been there, I only had the American side of the story.
In 2007 I had the pleasure of playing a PC Game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: The Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter based on a fictional representation of the Zone, an area surrounding the original power plant. Here is a trailer to get a feeling for it.
This trip came about because I had another journey to the UK and simply piggy-backed this one. Using Delta airlines I had to fly to Amsterdam, then I switched to Ukrainian airlines.
Tomorrow, I will go exploring near my hotel to get a feel for the main part of the city and to learn the mass transit system. In a few days, I will take a tour of Chernobyl, 134km to the north. To be continued…
