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Preparation:
The journey to North Ukraine was going to take a few days driving. The plan was to take the Euro Tunnel to a first stop in Hannover, Germany, then stop in Krackow, Poland for a few days. Then decrease the mileage requirements the further East we went. We stopped at Rivne town and then the next night would be at a village 5 miles south of the first Zone Checkpoint called Orane. The same situation coming back but stopping in Nowy Sacz, Poland instead of Krackow.
The car I would be taking is my 1.1litre 1991 Peugeot 205. The natural things like bags of clothes, a gallon of oil, as well as tools and water (for the car if necessary). Tyres were fine, brakes were recently totally replaced (including the outer drum rotors). The car would be great, it had driven to Belgrade in Serbia before now which in the end was just as equal a journey distance. I did however have winter tyres on even though it was July. A new sealed battery was put on the car last month. I also made a ‘mix tape’ CD to counteract the lack of radio.
The Journey:
First stop was Folkstone in England for the night. A visually pretty town that’s sole purpose seems to be to provide a place of stop for those intending to cross the English Channel/La Mange. A late arrival and an early start of 6:30 meant a very sleepless night with perhaps only two hours of sleep. But on the train we went without issue.
I like taking the train. To me it is very much worth the price of the ticket for the ease and quickness. It was expensive at £150 there and back but there was no time to mess around when it comes to travelling lost distances. We got to Hannover at mid-afternoon. We explored a little but Hannover is a very uninteresting city. We were so tired we fell asleep for two hours after checking into our rooms, then went out for something to eat and drink and to find a shop for water and food the next morning. Nimm2’s are very nice sweets too!
Each morning we would check the car’s water and oil and both would be perfectly fine. We headed off to Krackow and then spent three nights in our accommodation there. We were about a 7 mile drive to the old centre. The new outer town was very Eastern European in layout and reminded me much of any other modern Slavic city. One day we went to the aero museum for a small cost and we were there all day. There were many planes from the 14-18 war and 2nd world war as well as soviet era planes and propaganda. We were pondering about visiting Auscwitsz and Schindler’s own factory but we did not have the time. The old centre is very wonderful though getting about was a little bit of a hassle with people trying to entice you to their establishment.
Ukraine:
Using the new and empty motorway heading to Ukraine was fraught with lightning and thunder and terrible downpour of rain and hail. It was a wonderful experience, I really like thunder and lightening.
Entering the border into Ukraine is a very drawn out process. The act of driving into Ukraine requires your car to be recognised as being ‘temporarily imported’. Your vehicle documents are required, and a slip of paper is given to you with your registration on it. Your passport, logbook and slip of paper is constantly being taken for each process of the import procedure. Your paper has to be stamped twice and passport too and upon exiting border patrol you give your paper to the guard. This meant that getting into Ukraine took three hours. Getting out came to five hours. It was a good thing I decreased the distance to travel to account for the poorer roads.
We didn’t actually stay in Rivne (Рівненський) itself, but on a drive in motel type place on the side of the dual carriageway. I had no want to visit Rivne nor Kiev. The accommodation cost Ј9 a night for two, and three course meal and two beers each cost the same. Chris then drove from this location to Orane which little to our knowledge would be over extremely poor public roads that no more than 20mph was advisable. It took us 1.5 hours to travel 60 miles. Huge pot holed roads and gravel/mud/sand roads where there was no rules. If the other side of the road had no pot holes you drove there instead. Cars would criss-cross and undertake/overtake like snakes. It was exciting.
Orane (Оране): Pronounced Oranye
We found the village alright but it was more difficult finding the ‘cottage’. After a few circles around the village and a poor attempt at asking two gold filled grinned elderly women sitting on a log for directions we eventually meandered down a lane to find what would be our home for at least two nights. After motioning (I can’t talk Ukranian or Russian and no one speaks English (why would they need to?)) the house was opened up and the night was spent. It was handy enough that I learned the majority of the Cyrillic Alphabet (or at least, the Serbian and some Russian) so I would read and pronounce Russian but of course I could not know what it meant unless it was a place name or a word that translated nicely into English automatically (as it was obviously a borrowed word).
A beautiful accommodation obviously owned by a man who liked his toys too. A manmade pond with carp, and a hanger with plane and his own airstrip out the back too! We went out later that evening to find a shop for food and drink. We ended up driving to the first checkpoint into the ‘Controlled Zone’ to be turned away and pointed in the direction of the next village for a very sparse ‘shop’. Bread and butter and left over salami slices was our meal for that night.
Chernobyl/Pripyat:
On the first day of the tour the mini-bus collected us at our Orane Cottage. I paid there and then the 800 dollars (including the accommodation for two nights at the cottage) and we loaded our bags and headed to Chernobyl.
We arrived at the first checkpoint. The checkpoint that I was not allowed to pass through the day before. We had to give our passport and state our name as the uniformed guards cross referenced with the paperwork. Once everyone was processed we carried onwards to the town of Chernobyl. Surprisingly a busy little town considering the situation it is in. Chernobyl town has apparently been a place of civilisation since the middle ages and although looks like a fairly old town, there isn’t much in the way other than the absolutely amazing Church (though there is more than one) and a couple of houses; lots of them abandoned. Blocks of flats seem the most used.
The fire station was one of the first sites visited. A monument, although unofficial, stands in front of the compound proudly. Not the only monument to praise those firemen who died, in the area. There were a lot of firemen in the station not doing much and I doubt they get a lot of work but they are definitely a necessity if ever future problems occur. The reactors are no longer in operation (the last one shut down in 2000) and the fire engines themselves look just the same design (maybe even actual age) of those used in the 70’s that have been abandoned.
After lunch at the Chernobyl hotel, which looks just like a very large porta-cabin, we carried on to Pripyat itself. Two (more) checkpoints were to be passed before we arrived there. The main square is one of the first attractions and first impressions are to observe how overgrown the whole city in general had become. Trees 18 feet high already were emerging from the concrete slabs. Four laned roads had become a single lane tree lined roads where you could still see the pedestrian crossing signs amongst the jungle of the upper eyeline.
Pripyat itself wasn’t all that quiet either. The amount of large vegetation meant you often heard birds chirping away in them. Everybody was talking a lot of photographs of each building we visited, extending the tight timescale. The tour guide would later (by tomorrow evening) be visibly frustrated at this fact.
By 7pm we got back to the Chernobyl Hotel for tea. Once again a very filling and multi-dished meal with a kind of boiled pork that had the strangest but not at all offensive taste, similar to Gammon. The bar was only open from 7-9 so I got three pints in on that time and re-discovered a drink I had had in Serbia called KVAS (KBAC in Cyrillic form). An alcoholic free type drink that tasted very similar to Dandelion and Burdock. The particular make was on tap in the local shop in Orane and also in bottled form throughout Ukraine and Belarus as I would later find.
When organising rooms, much eruption of laughter befell me in reference to one room which had a single double bed. Two people (who didn’t know eachother) would have to share a two bedded room and a third would have a double size bed to himself this night. A fellow Cardiffian asked the third what they should do. The third said “I think I will have the double size”, much to Lee’s bafflement and my audible outburst. And that was the end of that.
The second day:
Breakfast was of course up to the standard that has been set the last few included meals on this trip (that of a tastily high standard) and much conversation was had as to the human like scream that was heard by most in the night. I could tell it was a cat scream/fighting but just like a Vixen in the night it can be difficult to tell apart what happens in the night and the imagination becomes its own being.
All day today we would spend in Pripyat. We visited sites as one of the Schools, hospital, the nuclear reactor itself (and associated monument to the disaster), The ‘CLAW’, children’s Summer camp, Juniper plant and of course the infamous ‘Woodpecker’ and the Swimming pool and others. I will list each. We also visited a ‘re-settler’ on this day that we would find is the Ukrainian holiday to celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
Re-settler: In the morning we visited the local Chernobyl shop before we drove to Pripyat in order to pick up some items to give to the Re-settlers. 20 Hryvnia (гривня) was taken from everybody (about 60 new pence). We then drove to what was essentially modern-day Belarusian territory. We passed a little checkpoint (no passports shown) and drove through the overgrown fields.
As I said above, today happened to be the Ukrainian holiday for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul and therefore the lady (who was 61 as it turns out) was more welcoming than one would expect. At this stage the other mini-bus (also containing seven) joined us and we were invited to see her crops and her cats and the inside of her house. Now imagine the scene: An old decrepit lady who is talking to fifteen random tourists standing around in her bedroom and doorways in Ukranian like we understood.
Because it was the holiday it was standard practice to drink a shot of spirit and eat pork fat. It was 9am and we did just that. The spirit was her own home made moonshine that was quite strong and the fork fat itself was stringy and chewy. Not something I would jump at the chance to have again.
Juniper plant: A factory that was officially making cassette tapes and other items of socially acceptable interest. The reality was quite possibly weaponry. Pretty much all machinery was removed and little remained other than paperwork and posters concerning employee safety. I will tell you now that although Pripyat is sacredly cordoned off, a lot of looting has happened over the years, especially after the fall of the ‘old system’ in 1991 and there was no one to stop the process of entry and removal of items. The city has no value in it to find anymore and in reality, the whole area is just a forest containing shells of buildings.
School: This particular school was quite large and of strange design. One where the corridors back on themselves in a square but do not actually join at the end. Perhaps they wanted students to keep healthy and walk the extra distance to navigate around a brick wall that would otherwise have only been a pace or two. It was explained to us that much cleaning had been done since the nuclear accident. Lots of the soil had been dug up and buried elsewhere, and had been replaced with fresh soil. The roads were re-paved and are washed and the new vegetation therefore is completely safe. In areas such as where the diggers could not reach, like within the grass courtyard of the school it is still extremely radioactive. A normal everyday safe reading to be exposed to in the short term is 0.5 millisievert (mSv) maximum, but we were finding readings of 80 in such cases as the school grounds. There were a lot of books strewn around the place and the wooden floor of the gymnasium hall was bowed and broken.
Swimming Pool: The swimming pool is just as famous as the ferris wheel by all accounts. It’s interesting to note that up until 1996 it was still being used by workers for recreational use and it wasn’t until after that time it declined into the state it is in now. Unfortunately all the windows are smashed now but I did climb to the top diving ‘board’. It made one giddy.
The Woodpecker: The woodpecker as it is known is a Soviet missile detection system that started in the early 70’s. It is a fair distance away from the towns of Pripyat and of Chernobyl but definitely not a disguised item in the skyline. Who would have known what the people actually thought it might be.
After a delicious four course meal: insert picture: at the official power plant cafe, we went sent back on our way. Chris and I were dropped off back in Orane. On that night we encountered the owner of the property who soon arrived not long after ourselves. He, unbeknownst to us also owns the Solo East company. He shows us his aeroplanes in his hanger and all his toys like his Lada and quad bike and gardening implements. It is interesting to note that on this enclosed land of his is a small house where two of his ‘workers’ who are essentially groundskeepers who stay in this house and get paid by the gentleman to look after his grounds. Later that evening he cooked us a steak dinner and lots of vodka was consumed. So much of generous host was he, that after the course was caviar. I had never had caviar before. I thought it wasn’t half bad! After an extensive hangover we made a late start back to Britain.
The next few days of travel aren’t much to talk about. We stayed in a few of the same places but in Poland we went to Nowy Sacz which I thought was a very nice looking town indeed! It was just unfortunate that there was a push bike race and trying to find an alternative route was interesting, but completed non-the-less.
We arrived home on Sunday the 17th and I took Monday off to help recuperate from the long trip. The car was spectacular and did not burn any oil or consume any water. I praise it for that. Nothing went wrong in the slightest. It appears one illumination bulb had blown at some point but as there are 4 single filament illumination bulbs (2 each side) it was still legal and happy. As always, my opinion of the majority of the European countries making the use of headlamps in the day mandatory is one I quite despise. Mainly because the lenses get tainted and the lights go so dim you cannot even see when someone brakes. When we got back, the sense of everyone driving too slow at 70mph once we got to British soil was a big annoyance to me after driving at 80mph everywhere with good mpg return.
The trip was a success and I had finally done what I had wanted to for a very long time. I could have waited longer seeing as the European funds were low for the new Sarcophagus, but I think the sooner anybody goes the better! I welcome you to challenge that thought but only once you have experienced it yourself.
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