Visiting the Belarus Exclusion Zone
Visiting the Radioactive Disaster in the Belarus Exclusion Zone was originally published in 2025
Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster the world has seen, sits precariously just over the border from Belarus in modern-day Ukraine. On April 26, 1986, Reactor Number 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat exploded, sending a cloud of radiation into the atmosphere, much of which fell into Belarus owing to the wind blowing to the north.
In the weeks following the accident, numerous villages in the Gomel Region in the south of Belarus were evacuated. Finally, on July 18, 1988, the villages and their surrounding area were established into the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, an area where nearly 70% of the Chernobyl nuclear fallout dropped.
The Belarusian government designated the area known as the Belarus Exclusion Zone as the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve. At the time of its establishment, the entire area was closed off from the world and no one was allowed in, allowing for scientific research on radiation’s long-term effects on flora and fauna.
Until late 2018, Polesie State Radioecological Reserve was completely off-limits to the public. At that point, it was opened to select guided tours of the abandoned villages and nature in the reserve.
How to Visit the Belarus Exclusion Zone
I visited Belarus in December 2024 using the main border crossing between Vilnius and Minsk with my friends Bekah and Jolie to take advantage of visa-free access for EU and UK passport holders entering Belarus by its land borders.
Leading up, Bekah had been in contact with Peter of Exclusion Zone BY to arrange our visit in advance of us all arriving in Gomel.
Peter handled everything from transport to the necessary permits in order to visit the areas within the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve. It is only possible to visit the Belarus Exclusion Zone with an approved guide. Visiting independently is not permitted.
Starting from Gomel
Visiting as a day trip from Gomel, your day starts long before sunrise (at least if you’re visiting in winter, like us). Departing Gomel at 6 am, Peter drove us southward toward the border with Ukraine.
Just before sunrise, after about two hours we reached Khoiniki, the jumping-off point for exploring the Belarus Exclusion Zone.
In Khoiniki, we switched from Peter’s car to a UAZ-452, otherwise known as the buhanka (my dream car), in the administration parking lot that we’d be traveling around in for the day within the exclusion zone.
The UAZ-452 gained the nickname due to its likeness to a loaf of bread
Visiting the Polesie State Radioecological Museum
Arriving at the Polesie State Radioecological Museum, we first had to sign off on our permits to enter the Belarus Exclusion Zone and to acknowledge that it is still radioactive.
Inside, there are maps showing the nuclear fallout over the Belarus Exclusion Zone and the half-lives of some of the more prevalent isotopes that resulted from the Chernobyl Disaster.
Iodine-131, cesium-134, and cesium-137 were the isotopes that accounted for the majority of the radiation exposure received by the people in the Belarus Exclusion Zone and Pripyat. Iodine-131 has a relatively short half-life at about 8 days, cesium-134 has a half-life of about two years, whereas cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years. Other isotopes found in significant quantities following the Chernobyl explosion were strontium-90, plutonium-239, and plutonium-240.
The average person who lived in contaminated areas of Belarus and Ukraine on average received a dose of 30 mSv of radiation in 1986, whereas the average amount of background radiation received by each person globally is about 2.4 mSv per year.
Further on, there are displays of what the traditional homes looked like in the area, as well as taxidermied fauna displays of the wildlife that can be found scattered about the Polesie Reserve.
The Polesie Reserve is also home to a diverse array of flora, some of which is outlined at the museum, with 48 of Belarus’s 189 species of endangered plants being found within the reserve’s boundaries.
Entering the Belarus Exclusion Zone at Babchin
A bit further down the road is the abandoned village of Babchin, the once center of the Oktyabr Collective Farm. A bit further on we reached the KPP entry checkpoint to the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve.
Inside, the signed permits were shown, and we were given a Geiger unit to monitor radiation levels along the journey.
The gates to the reserve were unlocked, and we were then allowed to pass through (with a mandatory photo op, of course).
The Roaming Bison of the Belarus Exclusion Zone
Once on the brink of extinction, the European bison (Bison bonasus) has made an unexpected resurgence within the Belarus Exclusion Zone inside of the Polesie Reserve. Thriving in the dense forests and open meadows of the untouched reserve, the bison population has steadily increased, benefiting from the absence of human interference.
Scientists studying these bison have noted their adaptability, with herds roaming freely through areas that were once villages and farmlands. Despite the potential risks of radiation exposure, the bison appear to be healthy, and their numbers continue to grow. Their presence in the reserve highlights nature’s ability to reclaim and repopulate areas left untouched by human hands.
Efforts are being made to monitor and protect this growing population of bison with researchers tracking their movements using GPS collars and studying their migration patterns, diet, and behavior. Conservationists view the Polesie Reserve as a potential stronghold for European bison, which remain endangered in other parts of their natural range on the continent.
Their success, along with other fauna found in the area such as the Eurasian lynx, gray wolves, Przewalski’s horses, wild boars, moose, and red deer within this unique environment provides valuable insight into how larger mammals can survive and even thrive in post-human landscapes.
The Eerily Quiet Villages of Oravichi, Dronki, & Pogonnoye
The Belarusian villages of Oravichi, Dronki, and Pogonnoye have remained sealed off from the world for thirty-eight years. Nestled deep within the nuclear exclusion zone, these villages are ghosts of their former selves. No one has called this place home since the early hours of April 26, 1986, when Chernobyl’s reactor exploded and life here came to a sudden halt.
22,000 people spread between 96 Belarusian villages, including Dronki, Oravichi, and Pogonnoye, were alerted over the following weeks that they were being evacuated elsewhere
Dronki
Enveloped by the relentless march of nature and the silent grip of radiation, Dronki is a village frozen in time.
Dronki has a long history, having passed hands between numerous kingdoms, states, and nations including the Kyiv Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and Belarus.
The air around Dronki is heavy with an eerie stillness, disturbed only by the distant rustle of wind through the overgrown streets. The snow-covered streets are laced with weeds, faded murals of a bygone Soviet-era adorn crumbling walls, and decaying farm equipment left rusting in the field.
In 1929 as Stalin’s five year plan for collectivization was spread across the Soviet Union, the residents of Dronki formed a kolkhaz (collective farm).
In the schoolhouse, desks remain covered in a thick layer of dust, scattered textbooks left open on lessons that would never be completed.
Once home to generations of families, Dronki now sits deep within the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, abandoned since the Chernobyl disaster forced its evacuation in 1986. Roofs have collapsed under the weight of time, trees sprout from the remains of houses, and rusting Soviet-era signs still cling to leaning fences, warning of invisible dangers.
Doses of Lenin at Oravichi
Crumbling wooden houses sit hidden beneath a tangle of trees in the village of Oravichi, their doorways left open as if waiting for their owners to return to one the area’s largest villages. Peter got out the Geiger unit at a square in the middle of the Oravichi, once a gathering place for the community. The Geiger unit rang up at 11.8 μSv/h (0.0118mSv/h)- fairly low considering what had happened just over the border and safe enough for a day trip to the Exclusion Zone.
Oravichi was among the larger of the villages in the Polesie Reserve Region with over 900 residents back in 1959. Much like Dronki, Oravichi has a long-standing history as a part of numerous states.
The origins of Oravichi date back to the 16th century, though the village really began to develop in the 1930s as collectivism swept across the USSR. By 1931, there was an elementary school, a department of consumer cooperatives, a windmill, a blacksmith, among other infrastructure and business operated in Oravichi.
It was also in the 1930s that collective farms by the names of Kommunar and Victory of Socialism were functional.
During World War II, Oravichi found itself within the Partisan Struggle against Nazi occupation. Lives from Oravichi were lost in the struggle.
By 1959, Oravichi had become the center of the larger Oravichi State Farm and be this point in time there was a kindergarten and secondary school, library, a nursery, a hospital, a pharmacy, a post office, a shop, and a canteen.
Two weeks later following the Chernobyl Disaster, Oravichi was evacuated on May 4, 1986, with the village’s inhabitants ordered to leave everything and board vehicles out of what would become the Belarus Exclusion Zone. The village was left to be reclaimed by nature, remaining completely untouched since that fateful spring in 1986.
Inside the Oravichi Administrative Building
The Oravichi Secondary School
The Village of Pogonnoye
We arrived in the village of Pogonnoye, one of the largest in the exclusion zone.
Pogonnoye first appears in records in 1526, though named Zemlitsa Pogonnaya, a place for grazing cattle.
Fast forward to the 1930s and Pogonnoye was enveloped into the Victory of Socialism State Farm along with the village of Oravichi. During World War II, Pogonnoye was burned down completely in May 1943, killing 89 residents. In their memory, a sculpture was installed in 1971 in the center of the village.
Pogonnoye grew substantially in 1976 when residents of the neighboring village of Borovitsa were moved to Pogonnoye to work on the collective farm.
Inside the Pogonnoye School
By this point, there was a sawmill, a mill, a mechanical workshop, a pavilion of the district consumer services complex, a secondary school, a cultural center, a library, a nursery-kindergarten, a hospital, a post office, a canteen, and three shops.
At the time of its evacuation in May 1986, Pogonnoye was home to 1322 residents.
Back to Gomel
After exploring the remains of Pogonnoye, we headed back to Khoiniki to change cars once again and head back to Gomel, where we had based ourselves for a few night to explore this southern region of Belarus.
Needless to say, we’re all planning our next return to Gomel and the Belarus Exclusion Zone (plus there’s a Lenin statue Bekah missed for her collection on Khoiniki 😂.
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