Hey guys, since I last checked in with you, I have traveled from Rivne to Kiev and made an excursion to Chernobyl.

On Monday morning, I left my Airbnb in Rivne and went around town to check out a few monuments in the city before getting on the road to Kiev. The sites were very interesting, including an old cemetery where I saw some Soviet graves By dumb luck, there happened to be a display of Ukrainian military equipment going on in the main square as well. I think it had to do with the Defender of Ukraine holiday that was on Monday.

After spending a couple of hours checking out Rivne, I got on the road for the 3 1/2 hour drive to Kiev. The route was pretty uninteresting compared to some of the other scenery I’ve seen, and the traffic entering into the city was brutal. But I finally got to my hostel late in the evening and settled in for the night, with plans to check out some of the places that I’d need the car to get to in the morning.

On Tuesday, I started the day by going to the Babi Yar site. Babi Yar is a ravine out the outskirts of Kiev where 33,000 Jews were massacred over 2 days in September of 1941 by shots to the back of the neck. Over the course of the war, another 100,000 people were killed at the site. It was a sad thing to see, but after having read about it for years in my studies of WW2, I had to go and see it for myself. While there were some markers there, I think there should be more done to commemorate the significance of what happened there.

There were a few more markers across the road at a park:

After Babi Yar, I set out to go all the way across the city to some other sites that were on the outskirts. They were all relatively close together, but far from the city center where I’d be staying that night, so I wanted to get to everything I could before parking for the night. My first stop was to the park containing the monument to the unknown soldier. This park contained some other interesting statues as well and had some decent views of the city.

After the park, I went over to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and explored the gold domed buildings of the monastery there.

After about an hour at the monastery, I made my way to the Motherland monument and the Great Patriotic War (WW2) Museum that is underneath it.

The entrance hall of the WW2 museum has been converted into a display concerning the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which was very interesting to see. The rest of the museum contained artifacts from WW2, which I never tire of seeing and learning about.

Below are some of the interesting WW2 artifacts I saw:

After the museum, I headed into the city center to find my home for the next two nights called “Magic Bus Hostel”. The hostel was ok, but not much atmosphere. After checking in, I went to a cafeteria chain I’d read about to sample some of the local fare. I’d only eaten a croissant the whole day, so I kinda pigged out there! Afterwards, I shut it down for the evening early in anticipation of the Chernobyl excursion I had booked for the next morning.

The next morning, Wednesday, I got up at 6am to make my way to the pickup point for my tour to the Chernobyl exclusion zone. You might think I’m crazy for wanting to go there, but I did exhaustive research before booking the trip and found out that it is actually quite safe. The place definitely still has some hotspots of radioactivity, but they are identified and avoided and most of the rest of the area has been decontaminated. The amount of radiation received by the body on a one day tour is about the same as flying in a commerical airliner for 3 hours!

After meeting up with the guide and hopping on the bus, it was a 2 hr drive to our first stop of the ghost city Pripyat – which was the main city of residence for the workers of the Chernobyl plant.

After the apartment building, the next stop was the kindergarten, probably one of the most moving buildings we saw the whole day:

After the kindergarten, the next stop was the police station:

After the police station, the next stop was the fire station. This was the place that the first responders to the explosion came from. Almost all were dead of radiation poisoning within 30 days.

After the fire station, we went to the amusement park. It had been set to open on May 1, 1986 – but the disaster occured on April 26.

After the amusement park, we walked around to some other various buildings in Pripyat:

After wrapping up the touring of the city of Pripyat, we went over to the actual reactor and saw the sarcophagus up close – along with a memorial marker for the victims of the disaster. After that, it was time to go to the cafeteria for the lunch break.

After lunch, the guide took us to the secret Soviet miliary base called Chernobyl 2, located 6 km from the nuclear plant. It was home to the top secret radar installation called Duga.

After looking at the radar, we walked around and saw some of the other buildings at Chernobyl 2 military base. The most interesting was a school with many artifacts just the way they were left in 1986.

Pictures from the school:

The last stop of the tour was the actual city of Chernobyl. There are still about 2000 people living there.

Today, Thursday, I got up and set out to see some actual sites in the city of Kiev. I must have walked about 10 miles today checking out the various churches, squares, and monuments! Here are some scenes from the Kiev city center:

Tomorrow, I’m going to make the 5 1/2 drive to the Black Sea city of Odessa – where I will be for at least the next 3 nights. I hate to drive that far in one day, but there is really nothing of interest along the way and it will be nice to get to Odessa by Friday night for whatever festivities there will be to partake in there.

Talk to you guys again soon!