Getting Tickets and Booking the Trip
Trying to Quell my nerves
So its fair to say, we embarked upon this trip with a fair amount of trepidation. How did it go?
Day 1 - Heading East
Day 2 - Leaping into UKraine
Day 3 - Eurovision
Day 4 - Trip to the Danger Zone
Then onto the Metro, a change to the M3 and then we got off at the Central Train Station, and walked across the central concourse from one side of it to the other (with me stopping briefly to take photos of the trains at the Railway Museum on some of the platforms) before finding our buses for our day tour to Chernobyl. There were three buses - two mini-buses for Russian Speakers, and a big bus for English speakers. We lined up for the English bus, and there was quite a queue but we got on, signed in, paid the rest of our tickets in Cash (in Euros - it was either that, UK£ or US$ but not UAH and they also told us the final amount according to the exchange rate a few days prior, which luckily for us meant a slight reduction in the amount we had been expecting to pay), picked up our maps and Geiger counters and sat down. The Geiger counters were an optional accessory that we had pre-booked - not only were we mindful of our own safety but also how cool would it be to play with your own Geiger counter for the day?.
On 26th April 1986 around 1am, Reactor No.4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant in the then-Soviet Union exploded after a test caused a runaway reaction in the Reactor, and proceeded into a meltdown and fire of the uranium reactor core. It spewed radiation across Europe, and highly irradiated the surrounding area causing an evacuation of nearby towns and areas. The initial reaction to the disaster on the part of the Soviets is generally characterized as inept. One of the documentaries we watched on the bus told us why it was inept thanks to an interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader at the time - he'd been told in the middle of the night there was an accident but nothing to worry about, the next day we was told the accident was bigger than they thought but still nothing to worry about - but Gorbachev sent Russian scientists to the zone to report back anyway. They didn't report back, and it wasn't until Gorbachev got a phonecall from Sweden on the 28th saying they'd detected large amounts of radiation coming from the USSR that the Soviet High Command understood the severity of the situation and threw everything they had at it - and appealed for International help since they realised their own scientists & resources clearly couldn't cope with how severe it was. All the people living in the area were evacuated and Exclusion Zones were set up.
One Chest X-Ray - 0.1 Millisieverts
One-Way flying between London and Christchurch - 0.2 Millisieverts
Our Chernobyl Day Trip Radiation exposure - 0.2 Millisieverts
One year of natural background Radiation exposure in Sydney, Australia - 2 Millisieverts
One year working in a Uranium mine in Australia - 4.4 Millisieverts
One Chest CT Scan - 5-6 Millisieverts
One Full Body CT Scan - 10 Millisieverts
Smoking 1.5 packs of Cigarettes a day for 1 year - 13 Millisieverts
Average dose of survivors with 2.6km of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki Atom Bombs - 200 Millisieverts (0.2 Sieverts)
Average dose of Pripyat Residents after evacuation - 350 Millisieverts (0.35 Sieverts)
Dosage of Chernobyl workers who recieved severe but survivable Radiation Poisoning - 2-4 Sieverts
Day 5 - Going Backwards to go Forwards
Summing Up
Lithuania - we only ever got to see Vilnius, the capital but I quite like what we saw. Lithuania is one of the 3 Baltic States along with Latvia (which we've been to) and Estonia (which we haven't). The easiest way I'd describe Lithuania is a blend of Poland and Latvia - which is probably stating the obvious since it borders both those countries. It seems a bit more polished and inviting than Latvia, but a bit more "Balkan" than Poland too. While some areas seemed a bit similar in feel to Romania, in general the vibe in Romania was quite different. Vilnius is a nice city, had we had a whole weekend there we probably would have been able to fill it in but I do feel like the day we had there was largely enough and that we did all the things we would have wanted to do in that time - I certainly don't feel like we rued not having those extra few hours in Vilnius on the way back from Kyiv instead of going to Sofia. We weren't rushed for anything in Lithuania, we did it at our own pace by and I did like it - possibly moreso than I liked Riga in Latvia, and so far if I were to recommend a Baltic state for someone to go to, I would be suggesting Lithuania so far. I could see it being a place that Denise & David might visit for a weekend for instance, since it seems to have a fairly sizeable beer scene. Is my impressions of it coloured by the fact we visited it not-in-winter like we did for Latvia, or Hungary? maybe but I still feel like it stands for itself regardless.
Our time in Ukraine was actually a lot of fun, I enjoyed it immensely and it was all over too soon. Kiev/Kyiv, this was definitely one city where Sasha and I both wish we had more time to explore it - when you boil it down we only had a half-day to explore it and clearly there is a lot more to go and see. I'm not even sure 1 extra day would have been enough - 2 probably at a minimum. While I was expecting a depressing post-Communist concrete jungle, which certainly seemed to be the impression as we drove in from the airport until we hit the Dnipro River and saw the actual inner city. It had a really nice, friendly feel to the city - a bit quaint, too particularly with the Metro system but Ukraine is a country which has unfortunately suffered from its currency dropping in value in a fairly big way in the last 10 years. Although I am certain we were well overpaying on accommodation compared to what would be the normal rate while we were there, and the Chernobyl trip was pricey too (it always is) everything else was surprisingly cheap. It helped us a lot too that a lot of the important signs were written in both Cyrillic and Latin characters and not just Cyrillic - and there was a bit more English language around than we had been led to expect, but maybe that was because of Eurovision at the time. Speaking of Eurovision - personally I think we had the best choice with the Dress Rehearsal vs the actual Final, as not only did we get all the atmosphere, get all the acts but it cost less and also, it didn't mean we were up all night and fighting to stay awake until 3am when the winner was announced - and then making our way back to our accommodation. I had a blast at Eurovision and am very glad we got to attend it, though I must say I'm not champing at the bit to go to Lisbon in Portugal to attend next year's Eurovision. Thats not to say I wouldn't - but the cost will surely be much higher than what we paid for Ukraine and I kind of don't know how we could top our Eurovision experience. As for my comment about the Eurovision songs not having any staying power, quite a few seem to feature on the radio over here in Germany even after the contest is over.
While you might get the impression that Eurovision was more of Sasha's thing and Chernobyl was more my thing, and you'd be right to an extent, we both really wanted to do both things and to draw the conclusion that I enjoyed Chernobyl more than Eurovision would not be correct - I enjoyed both equally and I honestly cannot tell you which of the two I enjoyed more. It does almost seem surreal to me that I actually got to visit Chernobyl though, and I learned even more about it when I thought I knew mostly everything there was to know. I am quite happy that I got to go now, just after the New Safe Confinement was put in place and the radiation has dropped as a result, but also before people realise that it is safer than ever to visit and before the Ukraine Government makes it much easier for tourists to visit which will surely lead to a rise in people visiting and probably making a bit more of the environment there less "raw" feeling. Also, visiting before more buildings crumble or collapse as they inevitably will in the years to come.
This is one country where for the first time in a long time I am quite happy to pose the question "Would I go back" and the answer would be a resounding yes - and following our trip, Sasha and I were contemplating the idea of a future return to Kyiv and the Ukraine because we had such a good time. To be honest though, I'm not sure how we would be able to fit such a trip in though we might still try - we'd probably also look at visiting Lviv as well if we could, but there is a barrier to conducting such a trip and that is it would cost us another €200 for another set of 15-day Visa's to get back in. That's a steep entry fee to a country where I feel like a week's worth of accommodation and food would probably only set us back €200. A longer trip making the most of those first 15 days that we had would have been ideal, but a) the Visa only cost €20 when we booked the trip which is not much of a hurdle and so it wasn't a consideration and b) I simply didn't have the leave up my sleeve due to all the situations with me getting a new German Visa. That's our loss, but that was simply what it was. If we don't get back to Ukraine during our "Extended OE", then it will surely feature on a future trip - but who knows what Ukraine might be like at that stage. After all, for such a lovely country it is embroiled in a conflict with Russia on multiple fronts. Before we went there, I did wonder if we were visiting a country which might eventually become part of Russia in future years but I don't think it will - it has its own very strong identity, it wants to be its own country and the EU is heavily supportive of Ukraine to the extent where it has "most favoured nation" status in terms of trade and (way in the future) eventual potential to becoming part of the EU. Ukraine being in the EU would not sit well with today's Russia, but who knows what will happen with Russia in the future either. Whether the whole of Ukraine will stay intact as it is now, or whether it will get Crimea back remains to be seen. However - it is another country we can tick off as having visited, and one which virtually no-one else we know has visited either.
Bulgaria - our time here was fleeting, we saw nothing more than inner-city Sofia but I enjoyed it. Visiting Sofia had been something I had been interested in doing ever since our Romanian visit, but it was never on our list of must-do countries (mind you - Ukraine wasn't either) and had this opportunity not arose, we probably would never have gotten there. I liked what I saw, it definitely felt more "Balkan" to me than Romania had - Romania definitely has a feel of its own, but both Bucharest and Sofia seem to have their own identities and give a sense of the economies doing fairly well compared to some of the other Eastern European countries, and nowhere seemed particularly run down although as I said, we only saw inner-city Sofia. Although we got a nice look at the city, unlike Kyiv as a prime example I was not left with a sense of "I wish I had more time here" or "this is a nice preview but we need to come back here". I don't know what else there is to do in or near Sofia or in Bulgaria in general - Varna on the Black Sea coast might have a completely different feel, but its not a place that comes up a lot as being a "hidden gem" or a "must-see destination" and I feel like that applies to Bulgaria in general. I think its safe to say we will not make a point of coming back to Bulgaria during our Extended OE, however its proximity to Greece, Turkey and other Balkan countries does mean that its always possible that it will be revisited as part of transit to and from some of these other countries. I guess only time will tell!
We didn't venture out much beyond the Capital cities on this trip, but we did travel over a fair distance of Eastern Europe so I will do one of the maps just to give it all a bit of context:
So that was our whirlwind trip to Ukraine, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Eurovision and Chernobyl - a lot of things in a short amount of time, but a lot of fun! At the time we took this trip, I'd only held my new German visa for 2 weeks and we didn't know for a long time before that whether I would be able to get another visa for Germany. Had I not been able to, this trip would have been our last holiday away while living in Germany before we'd have to leave at the end of May. If it had been that way, this would have been a fitting and adventurous trip to end with - no doubt we would have tried to do a bit of travelling on our way out of Europe and back to Oceania but the state of our finances would not have allowed for much, and we would have been leaving with still a lot unfinished but also having accomplished a lot. Luckily however this is not the case, and we have been able to stay on as we had hoped - and as a result there has been more trips since, and some more in the pipeline. What might they be? Well - you'll just have to read and find out!