Chernobyl open for tourists in 2011 (13/12/2010)

Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry plans to organize from 2011 tourist routes to Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, Ukrainian news agency UNIAN quoted Emergencies Minister Viktor Baloga as saying on Sunday.

Baloga said the ministry was carrying out a large amount of work and planned to report on its results by the end of the year so that visits to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster site, so far referred to extreme tourism, "should become systematic in January."

An explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 resulted in a highly radioactive fallout in the atmosphere over an extensive area. A 30-kilometer (19-mile) exclusion zone was introduced following the accident.

Vast areas, mainly in the three then-Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, were contaminated by the fallout from the major nuclear meltdown. Some 200,000 people were relocated after the accident.

Russia also offers extreme tours, such as ones to the most infamous prison camps, Josef Stalin's Gulags. Tourists may spend their "holiday" in the Soviet prison camp and feel the experience of being a prisoner.