---
title: "Daring Tourists Can Now Visit Chernobyl’s Control Room"
description: "The Chernobyl disaster control room is now open to visits of five minutes. Tourists can relive the night of the nuclear power plant disaster."
date: "2019-10-10"
modified: "2019-10-18"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/chernobyl-tourists-control-room"
categories:
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "chernobyl"
  - "nuclear power"
  - "the digest"
  - "ukraine"
---

# Daring Tourists Can Now Visit Chernobyl’s Control Room

![You can now visit the control room where the decisions leading up to the Chernobyl disaster were made. But only for five minutes.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/chernobyl-tourists-control-room.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Carl A. Willis via Wikimedia Commons/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

It's been more than 33 years since the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in present-day Ukraine, experienced a critical failure that resulted in the worst nuclear disaster in history.

As time has passed, the area around the power plant has become a grisly tourist attraction, drawing visitors who want to experience the eeriness of a place that has remained largely untouched for decades.

Previously, visitors were only able to see the exterior of the plant and visit the abandoned nearby village of Pripyat, with its [now-iconic amusement park](<https://hackaday.com/2019/08/07/fail-of-the-week-spinning-the-pripyat-ferris-wheel/>).

But things have changed. The plant itself is getting a [tourism makeover](<https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/chernobyl-control-room-tours-scli-intl/index.html>), including a giant protective steel dome, new waterways, and updates to radiation checkpoints.

Most intriguing of all: you can now visit the control room where the decisions leading up to the disaster were made.

Visitors have to wear protective gear to get inside the control room and can only stay inside for five minutes as radiation levels in the room are [40,000 times higher](<https://www.businessinsider.co.za/chernobyl-control-room-tours-radiation-still-high-2019-10>) than normal. They even have to be tested twice to make sure they weren't exposed to too much radiation, as [*CNN* reports](<https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/chernobyl-control-room-tours-scli-intl/index.html>).

But the reactor itself is still not accessible to visitors — and likely won't be for a very long time. It was buried less than a month after the disaster in a now-deteriorating "[sarcophagus](<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/01/ukraine-opens-chernobyl-reactor-four-control-room-tourists/>)" of concrete and steel to stop about 200 tons of radioactive material from leaking out.

The reason why the reactor was opened was to attract more visitors to Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky declared the site a tourist attraction at an event back in July.

"We must give this territory of Ukraine a new life," [he said](<https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/chernobyl-control-room-tours-scli-intl/index.html>) at the time. "Until now, Chernobyl was a negative part of Ukraine's brand. It's time to change it."

**READ MORE:** [Chernobyl’s Control Room Is Now Open to Tourists … for 5 Minutes](<https://www.livescience.com/chernobyl-radioactive-control-room-open-to-tourists.html>) \[*Live Science*\]

**More on Chernobyl:** *[Scientists Brewed Vodka With Grain From Chernobyl](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/vodka-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-grains>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)