Instagrammers Are Crowding Chernobyl After The Show, But Is It Safe To Visit For Everyone?
Pretty much everyone is watching HBO's Chernobyl right now. Unfortunately, that also goes for Instagram influencers looking for new glam shots.
After Game of Thrones has ended (anticlimactically as some feel) a lot of people have moved onto the next hit series 'Chernobyl'.
Pretty much everyone is watching it right now. Unfortunately, that also goes for Instagram influencers looking for likes.
The abandoned city of Pripyat, meant to house the Chernobyl workforce - Pixabay
The historical horror-drama from HBO has renewed the public's curiosity in the old nuclear disaster. It's also renewed interest in the site of the tragedy, which has seen Instagrammers flocking to irradiated Chernobyl and the nearby ghost town of Pripyat in order to get their commemorative shots
This photo has since been taken down - juliabaessler/Instagram
Some of them, like the one up there, aren't a problem at all. Others, not so much. And people probably wouldn't mind if they weren't being so damned offensive about it.
Meanwhile in Chernobyl: Instagram influencers flocking to the site of the disaster. pic.twitter.com/LnRukoLirQ
¡ª Bruno Zupan (@komacore) June 9, 2019
See, the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster caused anywhere between 4,000 to 200,000 deaths in the surrounding region. The empty shell of the (still irradiated) power plant is a somber reminder of all the lives lost. So it's infuriating when people click photos like this.
Don't misunderstand, the place is most certainly a tourist site, with guides even waiting with safety gear to take you around. But it's more of an experiential walk than a fun romp, similar to how you'd visit the Anne Frank museum for instance. But because of the show's popularity, now you have people glamming it up in the made-for-camera post-apocalyptic setting, pulling faces like they're posing for a music album cover.
Even the show's creator and writer Craig Mazin thinks this is kinda fucked up, and is asking influencers to knock it off. "Comport yourselves with respect,"he said on Twitter.
Is it even safe?
As for whether it's actually smart for all of these people to be at the site of a nuclear disaster? Well, it's not too bad. You see, parts of the 4,000 square kilometer "exclusion area" around the nuclear power plant are officially open for tourism, and have been since 2011. It's all government-sanctioned, because the radiation levels have decayed over time. That and the way fallout bathed the surroundings wasn't spread evenly.
Radiation in large doses can cause tissue damage and acute sickness, as well as increase the risk of cancer. However, what you might not realise is that you're being bathed in radiation everyday, from the cosmos, the sun, and even the Earth itself. What you're facing in Chernobyl isn't much more than that, and might in fact be less than what you're exposed to on an international flight.
The destroyed remains of the reactor now contained under the metal shell are still deathly radioactive. Other areas in the region are not however, aside from blocked off areas like the "machine cemetery" of Rossokha village. That's why the guided tours being offered are strictly regulated, and tourists have to pass through radiation control checkpoints.
Let's just hope then that none of these influencers try to sneak away from their guides for an isolated photoshoot, and they're not lucky enough to succeed.
