When I was in Ukraine, I had the opportunity to visit the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Kiev… a museum dedicated to the events on April 26, 1986, and what has transpired since. My plan when heading to Ukraine was to actually visit Pripyat/Chernobyl itself, but the tours were shut down indefinitely so I had to settle for perusing around a museum instead. It was one of the more popular things to do in Kiev, so I was pretty excited.
I am not really an avid museum-goer, to say the least. But this museum was fascinating to me and was very well organized and put together and had everything (including audio sets and guides) in English. I had done a really long paper for my undergrad on the disaster, so I was super familiar with all aspects of the disaster and really found myself engaged in everything the museum had to offer.
If you’re unable to go and see Pripyat and Chernobyl in person, I would definitely recommend this museum. It was cheap and well worth the time I spent there.
To read more about the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum, click here.
Updated 7 September 2016: I have since been to Chernobyl and Pripyat. If you’d like to read about my experiences there, you can find them all here.
I’m really interested in Chernobyl..I’ve seen some documentaries on it before. Would love to visit the site someday too. The museum looks interesting!
This would be a must see for me. It’s great that you enjoyed the museum so much. There’s nothing quite like going to a museum and coming away feeling like you did. That’s an interesting contraption that you’re standing in front of!
I wasn’t born yet when this happened, but my mum tells me how her, my father and older sister went to the east for a bit when this disaster happened to try avoid any possible radiation poisoning (apparently it travelled quite far and we still lived in Poland at the time). That museum seems worth a visit.
wow, I’m sure that was intense.