Visit sunny Pripyat for that lovely radioactive sunburn

[Smeghead]

So the Ukranian government has decided to turn the town of Pripyat into a tourist attraction. The town right next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20110228-a-day-trip-to-chernobyl

Sure it isn't gonna kill you or shorten your life or anything, but I'm still not sure if turning the most radioactive town in the world into a tourist attraction is the best idea.

[Lyinginbedmon]

There are certainly worse places to visit.

Detroit, for example.

[Elomin Sha]

I'd visit Chernobyl.

[Spatial Coffee]

So would I. I may have been playing too much Stalker, but I think it looks like an interesting place to visit.

[madrak_the_red]

I would also visit Pripyat, just because abandoned places look totally freaking rad

[Elomin Sha]

LRR Forum Trip anyone?

[Smeghead]

I would also visit Pripyat, just because abandoned places look totally freaking rad

Was that pun intentional?

[Metcarfre]

I hear it's had glowing reviews.

Positively radiates with energy.

[empath]

I've got such a sense of deja vu about this.

I thought it already WAS a tourist destination?

EDIT: it has been since at least 2008...

[Lyinginbedmon]

Hmm...a thought occurs...

Say a few thousand years down the line, some archaeologist stumbles upon the exclusion zone area. Chernobyl is the first area of its kind in human history, what would he think had happened?

[Smeghead]

empath: yeah but my title was snappier... sort of.

Yeah didn't remember that thread, but then that was 2 years ago so

[empath]

No, no - no diss or blame; I was just recalling this and wanted to add more info to it (including a couple of really moving photo blogs).

[Elomin Sha]

Hmm...a thought occurs...

Say a few thousand years down the line, some archaeologist stumbles upon the exclusion zone area. Chernobyl is the first area of its kind in human history, what would he think had happened?

Well if all the documentary evidence for the events were lost I'm sure some maniac will come to the conclusion that the Jews did it. But realistically I think they'll detect the elevated radiation levels and make an educated guess and say an atomic wedgie.

[GreigKM]

There are certainly worse places to visit.

Detroit, for example.

Oh, you have no idea. Give me Pripyat over Detroit any day, and anyone else from Michigan would agree with you, even people living in Detroit.

[empath]

Hmm...a thought occurs...

Say a few thousand years down the line, some archaeologist stumbles upon the exclusion zone area. Chernobyl is the first area of its kind in human history, what would he think had happened?

Well if all the documentary evidence for the events were lost I'm sure some maniac will come to the conclusion that the Jews did it. But realistically I think they'll detect the elevated radiation levels and make an educated guess and say an atomic wedgie.

Ah, but let's say in, oh, four thousand years, mankind moves on and explores and settles the universe beyond Earth. Out of a sense of nostalgia for 'the cradle of life', we leave the Earth completely.

And then, maybe another ten or twenty millenia down the road, some other species stops by the third planet orbiting a yellow main sequence star, and explores this abandoned world - signs of settlement and civilization, but no habitation.

By that time, even the most stable isotope of Americium would have faded away.


So with no radiological evidence what would someone make of the still-sealed sarcophagus?

[SilPho]

Not to poke holes in your cultural query, but since the sarcophagus is already starting to fall apart, after another few millenia the majority of the earth as we know it will all have fallen into a similar state of disrepair.

[Master Gunner]

After even just a few hundred years of no habitation, most signs of civilization will have being reclaimed by nature. By one or two thousand years without upkeep, it would take serious archeological work to piece together that humans had even advanced to our current technological and industrial level.

[EikoandMog]

I'd totally visit Chernobyl. It'd be interesting.

[Master Gunner]

As would I, as soon as I get enough time off to make the trip.

[empath]

Not to poke holes in your cultural query, but since the sarcophagus is already starting to fall apart, after another few millenia the majority of the earth as we know it will all have fallen into a similar state of disrepair.

Already checked out that and just two more years and it'll be moot:

The Chernobyl Shelter Fund was established in 1997 at the Denver 23rd G8 summit to finance the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP). The plan calls for transforming the site into an ecologically safe condition by means of stabilization of the Sarcophagus followed by construction of a New Safe Confinement (NSC). While the original cost estimate for the SIP was US$768 million, the 2006 estimate was $1.2 billion. The SIP is being managed by a consortium of Bechtel, Battelle, and Electricité de France, and conceptual design for the NSC consists of a movable arch, constructed away from the shelter to avoid high radiation, to be slid over the sarcophagus. The NSC is expected to be completed in 2013, and will be the largest movable structure ever built.

[Dutch guy]

Yeah, not so much, actual construction on the NSC has barely started due to corruption issues and general lack of management. It's going to be a lot longer than 2 years.

[Lord Chrusher]

I would go but I would bring my own dosimeter with me.