When we have decided to visit Chernobyl's exclusion zone, I would never expect to have such a warm feeling as we had at the end of this day.

To visit Chernobyl's exclusion zone, you have to book a tour guide through the travel agency. There is no other way! Well, legally...Luckily there are quite a few good ones, so you can check their packages/offers and choose the one wich would fit your needs. We went with a company called "Solo East Travel." As you would imagine I usually spend a lot of time taking pictures, so it could be difficult to travel with the group, so we have decided to book a private tour.

Our guide Igor has picked us up in Kyiv. He didn’t waste much time with chitchat and handed over the dosimeter. “Look, this is the level of radiation in Kyiv” (0.18 µSv/h)...well, to be honest, at that time, we didn’t know if it’s low or high, so we just stared and nod. On our way to the exclusion zone (2.5 hours), we discussed many topics related to Chernobyl and general historical facts, which are important to fully understand some events that are directly or indirectly connected with this infamous catastrophe. Igor has a specific type of humor (a good one), so it took us a while to recognize if he is joking or if he is serious.

Anyway, before our trip, I read a few articles about the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and one particular topic got stuck in my head “resettlers.” Those are people who came back (illegally) shortly after the evacuation in 1986. Even though the exclusion zone is the most contaminated place in the world, they never left again. I was very interested to hear the story of those people, so we asked Igor if it would be possible to visit one of them. Luckily as we had a private tour, this was not an issue at all.