Taking a Tour of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

UPDATE: Can you visit Chernobyl in 2025? No. As of March 2023, Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone and Nuclear Power Plant is closed to visitors, due to the ongoing war between the Ukraine and Russia.

A once-in-a-lifetime experience. Exploring a place few other visitors to Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone get to see. Taking a Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant tour was truly fascinating and unforgettable.

The Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant (known to most of us as the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant) began construction in 1970, and the first reactor was commissioned and the power plant opened in 1977. Three more reactors followed, imaginatively named reactors 2, 3 and 4, with two further reactors (you guessed it, 5 and 6) due to follow – and a further six planned across the river. At the time of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the power plant produced around 10% of the Ukraine’s energy supply.

The city of Pripyat housed the power plant workers and their families, with around 50,000 people living there. Each day, the power plant saw around 6,000 employees through the building’s doors.

Of course, everything changed on the 26th April 1986. During a safety test, unstable conditions caused a chain of events leading to an explosion and fire in the reactor. 31 people are recorded to have died immediately or imminently as a direct result of the explosion. In the years and decades that followed, deaths related to the disaster estimated to be anywhere up to 4,000.

After the Chernobyl disaster, a 10km ‘exclusion zone’ was set up around the plant – expanded to 30km shortly after. Surprisingly, the power plant’s remaining three reactors were left operational, as the Soviet government couldn’t afford to shut it down. Gradually from 1996, the reactors were shut down, with Reactor No.3 being taken out of action in 2000. The power plant is still in stages of decommission, and the reactors are expected to be finally dismantled between 2046 and 2064.

Our tour of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant begins outside, where two wild dogs give us a nod of attention against the backdrop of a large, colourful scientific mural. Signing our waivers with promises to behave, our guide takes us through security controls and we’re instructed to wait.

Eventually, she returns to guide us through the first areas of our power plant tour. One room contains a model of the plant, and an informative display details the plant’s history. While a couple of members of the group head off for a quick loo run, I check out the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows.

Outside one window, a view across the plant’s outer courtyard area reveals more dogs. It’s estimated that over 200 dogs make their homes in and around the power plant, descended from those left behind after the disaster. Some of the workers in the zone care for and feed the dogs, but they’re often left to fend for themselves. The charity Clean Futures also work to improve the lives of the strays.

As we enter the main communications room, with full-on-Seventies interior design, our guide tells us more about the evening of the disaster – something I’ll explore a little later on. This room is where word of the explosion would have first been communicated to the Soviet government, and surrounding countries likely to be affected.

Before commencing our tour of the main power plant building, we assemble in a rather small room to don our gowns, protective headgear and boot covers. These aren’t necessarily to protect against radiation, but dust. Alongside our outfits, we’re given gloves and masks for a later point in the tour.

We’re ushered down a seemingly never-ending corridor, with industrial-looking walls and a laminate, pattered floor that encapsulates the 1970s, the decade in which the power plant was built. Occasionally, employees stride past, ignoring our presence.

Each RBMK-1000 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant was controlled by the SKALA computer system, which monitored and recorded reactor conditions. In 1995, the system was replaced, and the machinery sent to storage.

On our first stop-off, we explore a room used as a storage space for the old SKALA equipment. I have to admit, I don’t know what any of it actually is, but it’s looks just as you’d expect – lots of machinery with colourful buttons and dials.

One of perhaps the most-anticipated parts of our Chernobyl Power Plant tour waits for us after another burst of pacing the corridors. Our guide opens the door that leads us into the Reactor 3 Control Room, which mirrors that of the infamous Reactor 4.

Walls are lined with technical equipment, behind desks of brightly coloured buttons and dials. Our guide draws our attention to the notable AZ-5 button, disconnecting the power to the control rods and shutting down the reactor.

On the 26th April 1986, in a very similar room, unit shift chief Aleksandr Akimov pressed the AZ-5 button to shut down Reactor No.4. Originally, Akimov wanted to abort the test due to a major drop in reactor power, but deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov overrode his wishes, and the test continued.

Shortly after Akimov pressed the AZ-5 button, ending the test, at the explosion in Reactor No.4 occurred. The time was 1.23am. Power to the lights quickly went out, the air filled with dust, and the reactor collapse and a fire in the turbine room were reported by two plant workers, Valery Perevozchenko and Vyacheslav Brazhnik.

Heading underground towards the main circulating pumps, we’re informed by our guide that we need to be wearing our masks and gloves. Descending the stairs into near darkness, it’s not a big step to conjure the feelings of panic and confusion of the power plant workers in the early hours of the morning.

As we step into a room containing the giant yellow circulating pumps of Reactor No.3, a doseometer in the group begins to beep more frantically, indicating an increased level of radiation. A quiet descends on the group – despite being informed we’re perfectly safe to visit, the incessant beeping reminds us of the dangerous potential of the plant.

After we explore the underbelly of the plant, making our way down dimly lit corridors that wouldn’t look out of place in a horror movie, it’s time to return to the surface, and take our final glimpses of Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant.

Handing back our gowns, boot covers, masks and hats, we make our way towards the plant exit, with a wholly newfound understanding of the events of April 26th, 1986. Being that close to the centre of one of humanity’s most devastating nuclear disasters really made the history hit home. The events of Chernobyl felt truly real in those moments – more so than a TV show (albeit a very good one) could ever do.