Radioactive Heritage: The Universal Value of Chernobyl as a Dark Heritage Site

Chernobyl Tourism Today

The Exclusion Zone was established on May 2, 1986, when the Soviet government established an area of 30-km radius from Reactor 4 as the designated area for evacuation. In February 1991, newly independent Ukraine passed a law On the Legal Status of the Territory Exposed to the Radioactive Contamination Resulting From the ChNPP Accident that updated the borders of the Zone based on monitoring of radionuclides in soil. The last operating reactor in the Zone was shut down on December 15, 2000. In addition, approximately 200 former residents have returned to live in the Zone. The Zone is currently administered by the State Agency of Ukraine on the Exclusion Zone Management, which is within the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Until 2011, the Chernobyl Zone was accessible to only a limited number of outside visitors, primarily scientists, who required special permission to enter. Visitors also entered the area illegally. On November 18, 2011, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine approved a procedure proposed by the Ministry of Emergencies for visiting the exclusion zone and zone of unconditional resettlement that opened the Zone to tourism. The procedure required submission and approval of a written request and strict rules to be observed while within the Zone. Several tour companies were established that provided 1- to 3-day supervised visits. Costs of the group bus tours range from US$150 to US$200; the cost for an individual traveler is approximately US$300. Up to 10,000 visitors are estimated to have visited the Zone in 2012, largely spurred by the influx of tourists for the Eurocup. In recent years, visits to the nuclear explosion site have increased exponentially, with Kyiv based-tour company SoloEast, estimating that it takes approximately 10,000 tourists there each year (Amey, 2015).

UNESCO World Heritage Sites

The Fukushima disaster unearthed the buried memory of Chernobyl. A renewed interest in the world’s most significant nuclear disaster, particularly during a time of global nuclear expansion, brought varying questions to the forefront. The most important of which is consolidating a universal meaning and understanding to Chernobyl. This is a difficult task because of a politically and socially sensitive heritage. An adequate reference for such complicated mergers has been established by the United Nations through their World Heritage List. The World Heritage program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on November 16, 1972. The List is composed of sites the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value. This value is determined by a set of 10 criteria. A site must meet one or more of the criteria to be considered for designation (Table 1). Scholars argue these sites have advocated supremacy of a Eurocentric hegemonic heritage discourse. According to Schmitt (2009), “world heritage is ‘produced’ through the interplay of local, national and global actors and institutions. Europe’s quantitative dominance in respect of World Heritage Sites is at least partly a result of the different conditions of production on the national level” (p. 112). Meaning, the Heritage List is a reflection of an established administrative culture in economically strong, in most cases European, countries. On the contrary, the European dominance can in part be explained by the Eurocentric cultural concept of World Heritage List, which tend to attach most importance to architectural monuments. Not surprising, many of the World’s non-European sites are connected to European colonial history. Within UNESCO, in many of the (non-European) member states and in concerto in the debates of the World Heritage Committee, Europe’s quantitative dominance is perceived as a problem which needs to be corrected (Schmitt, 2009). An important argument, but what Schmitt and others fail to address, is that the majority of these sites focus only on man’s achievements despite general agreement that we often learn more from our mistakes. While Schmitt’s argument is important to the cultural diversity of the Heritage List and very much in line with UNESCO’s goals, adding darker sites, such as Chernobyl, would strengthen the list’s commitment to education. Both Auschwitz and Hiroshima, two of the darkest and most complicated sites in the world, have successfully established a consolidated meaning and understanding through UNESCO’s recognition and designation of their universal value. Of the roughly 1,000 UNESCO Heritage Sites worldwide, only Auschwitz and Hiroshima have been enlisted despite not strictly meeting one of UNESCO’s standardized criteria for universal heritage membership. Still, both sites have become major tourist attractions, and are widely considered to be the two most important heritage sites currently enlisted. Chernobyl has the potential to be listed on that short list of exceptions, as man’s greatest technological failure and a reminder of the threat of our increasing reliance on dangerous technology. The time is now to shape a universal understanding of Chernobyl’s radioactive heritage.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Criteria for Designation as a UNESCO Heritage Site.

1	Represents a masterpiece of human creative genius
2	Exhibits an important interchange of human values, over a span of time, or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning, or landscape design
3	Bears a unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared
4	Is an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural, or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates a significant stage in human history
5	Is an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture, or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change
6	Is directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance
7	Contains superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance
8	Is an outstanding example representing major stages of Earth’s history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features
9	Is an outstanding example representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems, and communities of plants and animals
10	Contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation

At first glance, Chernobyl does not meet any of the 10 criteria for designation as a UNESCO Heritage site. Quite the opposite, Chernobyl embodies the characteristics of a dark heritage site. A small number of academics have begun studying the appeal of death and disaster for tourists. Leading the field are Lennon and Foley who labeled it Dark Tourism; Seaton, who coined the term Thanatourism; and Rojek, who developed the concept of Black Spots (Yuill, 2003). The term “dark tourism” first coined by Foley and Lennon (1996) is defined as tourism involving travel to sites associated with death and suffering. Lennon and Foley identify degrees of darkness based on time. The more recent the death, the fresher the blood, the darker the site (Lennon & Foley, 2000). Sharpley (2005) also identifies intensity levels of dark tourism. He cites a distinction between dark and darker tourism based on the location of the site and attraction. Seaton (1996) identifies five purposes for dark travel: to witness reenactments of death, to see symbolic representations of death, witness public enactments of death, sites of individual or mass death, and memorials.

While dark tourism theory posits that the primary motivation for tourists visiting dark tourism sites is to link the living with the dead, empirical evidence suggests that the motivations are much more complex. Biran, Poria, and Oren (2011) surveyed visitors to Auschwitz, the epitome of European dark heritage sites, to ask about the motivations for their visit. Surprisingly, an “interest in death” was the least important reason for their visit. Tourists’ motives were varied and included “a desire to learn and understand the history presented, a sense of ‘see it to believe it,’ and interest in having an emotional heritage experience.” The findings suggest that visits to dark tourism sites should be viewed more through the lens of heritage experience than through thanatourism.

Dark tourism lends itself well to the contemporary tourists’ inclination for authentic travel experiences. Dark tourist sites are connected to heritage and involve real death and disaster, which makes them difficult to manufacture. Furthermore, the emotional experience for tourists visiting such sites is organic and authentic. According to Tarlow (2005), there are four basic emotions which are connected to a dark tourist’s psychological state: insecurity, gratitude, humility, and superiority (Niemella, 2010). When visiting a site, such as Gettysburg, Americans may feel gratitude toward the many soldiers who lost their lives to ensure freedom for all citizens. The same battlefield could raise feelings of humility for those who feel like they have not done enough for their country or who go against the principles established by such battles. Many battles sites are even part of national identity which can make the visitor have a proud feeling of “we” surviving against “them” and lead to feelings of superiority (Niemella, 2010).

In addition to a quest for authenticity, the traveler has become a searcher. This search includes finding oneself, willingness to know different cultures and to get to know an area’s or country’s “psychological aura, fauna and flora” (Niemella, 2010). Ashworth (2004) would describe it as a pilgrimage, search for identity, quest of knowledge, and a sense of social responsibility (i.e., “Lest we forget,” “Never again”). “As individuals and societies, we need the past to construct and anchor our identities and to nurture a vision of the future . . .” (Yuill, 2003, p. 103).

Auschwitz-Birkenau was enlisted as a UNESCO Heritage Site in 1979, 34 years after it officially closed as a working concentration camp. Although the site did not strictly meet one of UNESCO’s 10 criteria, the site was enlisted under criterion (vi), as an exception, which states,

Auschwitz—Birkenau, monument to the deliberate genocide of the Jews by the Nazi regime (Germany 1933-1945) and to the deaths of countless others bears irrefutable evidence to one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. It is also a monument to the strength of the human spirit which in appalling conditions of adversity resisted the efforts of the German Nazi regime to suppress freedom and free thought and to wipe out whole races. The site is a key place of memory for the whole of humankind for the holocaust, racist policies and barbarism; it is a place of our collective memory of this dark chapter in the history of humanity, of transmission to younger generations and a sign of warning of the many threats and tragic consequences of extreme ideologies and denial of human dignity.

Auschwitz-Birkenau is a physical reminder of one of the darkest chapters in human history. It represents man’s greatest crime against man, and as such, Auschwitz-Birekenau has outstanding universal value. It is a symbol and lesson for all humankind and deserving of its formal recognition by UNESCO. Its universal value is evident in the three reasons articulated by UNESCO: it represents a great crime perpetrated against humanity, it is a monument to the strength of human spirit, and it serves as sign of warning.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial was also enlisted as an exception, under criterion (vi) and states,

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on August 6th, 1945. Through the efforts of many people, including those of the city of Hiroshima, it has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. Not only is it a stark and powerful symbol of the most destructive force ever created by humankind; it also expresses the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Similar to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Hiroshima Peace memorial has universal value because it represents the most destructive force ever created, expresses hope for world peace, and stands to serve as a catalyst for the global discussion on the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Within UNESCO’s framework, this study seeks to determine through autoethnographic methodology whether Chernobyl and its exclusionary zone have an outstanding universal value great enough to be recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, despite Chernobyl’s failure to meet one or possibly all of the 10 criteria.

The Existential Tourist

I am no ordinary tourist. My visit to Chernobyl is not simply a cognitive experience—it is an emotional experience, shaped by who I am. If the reader of my story seeks to find meaning from my interpretation of this experience, then the storyteller is as important as the story. My grandfather, who immigrated to the United States from Ukraine, was offered a position in the Forestry Department at the University of Illinois. He worked in Mumford Hall. My father followed in my grandfather’s footsteps and became a faculty member at the University of Illinois. He is a Professor of Public Health and has spent the past decade studying the health effects of the Chernobyl accident. During my trip to Chernobyl, I was a doctoral student at the same university where my grandfather taught over 60 years ago. I completed a master’s degree in Russian and Eastern European studies and was pursuing a doctor of philosophy in cultural tourism. Both my father and I are studying Chernobyl, though from different perspectives.

I have become an existential tourist. Existential authenticity denotes a special state of being in which one is true to oneself. Authenticity is only possible once the taken-for-granted world and the security it offers are called into question. Very few places that I have ever visited have blanketed me in such anxiety. And it is these places, these moments, and these stories that I seek. These are the world’s most valuable places. These are places that need to be visited and experienced. And I set forth to question whether or not such outstanding universal value can be discovered through an individual’s search for authenticity—an authenticity I found in one of the darkest sites in the world, standing on the roof of the Pripyat Hotel.

Sketches From the Deathbed

The Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum is located in the Podil district of Kyiv on Khoryv Lane. When asked for directions, Kyivans will say “look for the building with emergency vehicles.” It occupies an early 20th-century building that formerly housed a fire brigade. The mission of the museum is to

help mankind understand the scope of the disaster through the destinies of thousands of those people who witnessed the accident, participated in the mitigation and suffered from the disaster. The aim is to make people realize the necessity of reconciliation between man, science, and technology that endanger the existence of human civilization and Earth, to conceive the lessons of the tragedy in all spheres of lift, lets the world forget the lessons of Chernobyl. The museum is a warning for future generations.

A symbolic display of road signs slashed with a diagonal stripe, as one would find when exiting a town, symbolize the many villages that were evacuated as a result of the accident. I later saw this same “path of displaced villages” in the town of Chernobyl. A unique feature of the museum is the electronic database called the book of remembrance of those who participated in the liquidation of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. The “Memory Book” gives an opportunity to “comprehend the extent of man-caused radio-ecologic disaster through the destinies of thousands of people of all occupations—civil and military, who are witnesses and participants, heroes and victims at the same time.” By turning over her pages, you find the names of your parents and grandparents, brothers, and sisters, look into their eyes and find out what they did in the danger zone. The “Memory Book” has collected the stories of over 5,000 liquidators. The 595,000 other stories remain to be told.

The most evocative feature of the museum is its collection and display of “Chernobyl art.” I was especially moved by one exhibit, that I call “Sketches from the death bed.” The sketches are drawn with a black pen on line, loose-leaf paper. They appear to be drawn by those who were there in the immediate aftermath of the accident. The first depicts a control room on the inside of the reactor. There are four people in the room. All four are wearing helmets and face masks. There is an arrow in the upper right pointing to a pile, with a caption detailing the radiation levels. All four people in the room are named by the artist, who was likely their coworker. In the bottom left corner, there is a much darker scene. Workers are standing in shin high water. One of the workers is vomiting. The adjoining sketch depicts the inside of a hospital room. There is a man, who has lost his hair and looks ill, lying on the bed. The caption indicates that he was a “boss,” of some sort. The caption further reads that he is having trouble breathing, and that he cannot sleep at night and his legs are burning.

The sketches from the deathbed provoke complex emotions: sadness, anger, compassion. How could I see art in horror? I believe that art is a way of reconciling the collage of emotions that clouds our understanding of tragic events. We strive to be happy, yet are willing to expose ourselves to art that can disrupt that very happiness. One reason could be our need for resolution. A story should have morals: it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, or denouement. When a tragedy occurs, such as Chernobyl, we need to learn the technical reasons for its happening and the efforts taken to minimize the effects. Still, we are left with the most important element: the denouement. The resolution can take many forms, but one of the most powerful is found in the arts. Our emotional connection to a work of art makes us ask the question Why?

The Road

The road to Chernobyl is straight and long. It passes through forests, swamps, and dairy country. The cows in these fields had eaten contaminated grass and concentrated radioactive iodine in their milk. We fell behind schedule because I did not have a hat to wear. Hats were obligatory to prevent radioactive particles from getting into your hair. Our driver stopped at a supermarket that had not yet opened, banged on the closed door until it opened, and secured me a hat.

The gate blocking the road into Chernobyl has two signs. The first sign is white and has the word “Stop” written in capital letters. The second sign is yellow and reads “Danger.” The gate itself is a piece of metal painted white and red. The guard checked my passport and put a check next to my name on a list on his clipboard. The process of obtaining official permission to enter the Exclusion Zone had been onerous. A few years before the Ministry of Emergency Situations had opened the Zone to tourism then shut it down a few weeks before our visit. Visits were now only permitted for scientific reasons. The Academy of Medical Sciences had submitted a request to Chernobylinterinform, the State Enterprise Agency of Information, International Cooperation, and Development, which was approved shortly before our visit.

Once we passed the gate and drove into the Exclusion Zone, I realized that this was a protected place. First, there were no other cars. Second, it was completely quiet. Not a peaceful quiet, but an unnatural silence that felt forced, as if you had put your hand over the mouth of a child to ensure that they do not make a sound. Our guide, Mykola, was dressed in a camouflage military uniform and appeared to be about my age. He took us to the second floor of the administration building and asked what language he should speak, English, Russian, or Ukrainian. I opted for Ukrainian to justify the many Saturdays that I had spent in Ukrainian school. He held up a wooden pointer and recited a long list of don’ts: “Do not proceed to any area without supervision . . . Do not pick anything up . . . Do not take off your hat.” He then proudly produced a hand-held, real-time gamma-ray dosimeter so that we could be aware of the radiation flux at every moment of our visit.

We walked a few blocks through the town until we reached an empty field with a military tank that had been sitting there for years. As we approached, the dosimeter began to beep. We approached until the dosimeter emitted a continuous, steady warning. “There are radioactive particles in here,” he pointed out. This suddenly made the hazard very real. North of the tank was the open field with rows of black and white road signs arranged in alphabetical order. The guide informed us that they stood for each town that was evacuated. “How many,” I asked. “One hundred and eighty-eight,” he replied.

A Doll in the Forest

Kopachi was a small village located 7 km from the epicenter of the disaster. The name Kopachi means “diggers.” The 1,114 residents were evacuated on May 3, 1986, 1 week after the explosion. To contain the radiation, most of the town had been bulldozed and buried under the ground. As we pulled off the side of the road, there was only forest. I walked through the overgrown forest looking for signs of an abandoned town. Thirty yards ahead I saw a bright object sticking out of the forest floor. It was the reflection of sunlight from the plastic head of a doll. I could see small fingers, the size of an American quarter. The doll was dirty, naked, and covered in leaves. Nearby I uncovered a second doll and a toy truck. The second doll had strangely bright, gray hair that looked like that of an old woman. I saw a faded, green fence that once enclosed a kindergarten. A small building within looked like a witch’s house in the woods. Inside there was a row of lockers with missing doors. “The work of bandits,” the guide informed me. A second room was filled with rusted bunk beds. They reminded me of spent shotgun casings. The floor of the third room was littered with papers: art projects and homework assignments. The room had an easel displaying a poster that depicted a mother waiting at a stoplight with her three children. She was instructing them to wait until the light changed to cross the street.

I Was Here

The town of Pripyat is a ghost town that once housed over 50,000 people who had made their livelihood at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant complex. Before we started exploring the abandoned buildings, the guide warned me not to step on the moss. “It’s radioactive and will stick to the bottom of your shoes.” The first building we entered had been the town hall. The elaborate parquet floors had been ripped up by looters. We wandered through an auditorium, a natatorium, a gymnasium, and the plaza with the Ferris wheel before entering a school. A gas mask was placed on a small table in the center of the room. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw that the floor was littered with a thousand such masks. They looked violent: military green and made of metal and rubber. These masks were made for war and not for homeroom drills.

As we turned a corner to see a looted grocery store, I was startled by an unexpected sight: a girl sitting on a red ball. She was laughing and her hair was blowing in the wind. She looked like she was seven or eight. The guide explained that following the sudden evacuation from Pripyat, artists from Germany and Belarus illegally entered and painted this Soviet ghost town with their graffiti. Today their work is one of the highlights of a visit to the Exclusion Zone. “Her brother,” the guide said pointing to the wall of another building. He was younger than her and wore a bright, yellow shirt. He faced her with an open hand with his thumb up against his nose and his tongue sticking out, teasing her as brothers and sisters do all around the world. According to an anonymous Memphis graffiti artist, “the basic principle of graffiti is often to simply say ‘I was here.’” I was happy to see the brother and sister. It was a natural scene, like you may have seen on a normal day before the evacuation. The art makes the tour more personal and relatable. It is important that someone gives voice to the children who were evacuated from their homes and likely had no idea what was happening to them. The art lets tourists know that they were here.

The Sarcophagus

Late in the day, we reached the end of our tour. Everything had led us to this place. We were at the foot of the reactor. Our guide took off his hat and whispered, “We lost many men here.” I took off my hat to pay respects. “Don’t leave it off for too long,” he warned me. I put it back on and asked him to take a picture of me with my father by the monument to the heroes of Chernobyl. The monument stands in front of the barbed-wire enclosure that prevents visitors from getting too near to Reactor Number 4. The monument depicts a pair of hands that are sheltering the reactor and reads “To heroes, professionals, to those who protected the world from nuclear disaster.” The reactor itself is a factory-like structure, 24 stories high that is encased in a tomb of concrete blocks called the “sarcophagus.” Beyond the concrete, steel, and barbed wire are the untold stories of countless heroes. Much like the first responders to 911 in the United States, the first responders to the Chernobyl accident, in the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, rushed into an inferno.

The sarcophagus embodies the debate over the safety of nuclear power. Some argue that nuclear power represents one of society’s greatest technological failures. For one, it did not live up to its early promises of being “too cheap to meter.” Instead, it has a military heritage and has been a vehicle for proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Soviet RBMK reactors were designed not only to provide electric power for civilian use but also to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. They also created a legacy of dangerous waste for future generations to manage. Defenders of nuclear power argue that the risks and benefits of nuclear power need to be compared with other energy sources. Fossil fuels, for example, contribute to global warming while nuclear power does not. They also argue that despite Chernobyl and Fukushima, new third-generation plants are inherently safer. In either case, if you seek an education on the pros and cons of nuclear power, Chernobyl is the place to be.

Evolution on Steroids

The last stop of our tour was a bridge overlooking the cooling ponds. These ponds are home to the monster catfish that have spurred Chernobyl horror movies and video games. I took a few pieces of rye bread that our guide had given me and threw them into the cooling pond. After a few seconds, the bread was gone. We began throwing the bread into the water as a group. Our throws created a feeding frenzy. A school of fish violently hit the surface of the water to get at the bread. The smaller fish were soon displaced by lurking giants. The stories of river monsters were true. The bottom dwelling catfish that surfaced last looked to weigh over 100 pounds.

When I later told my students about the giant catfish, they laughed and jokingly asked if any of the fish had two heads. It was a question I was asked more often than not. I told them that the wildlife in the Exclusion Zone looks normal. Moreover, it is thriving. It was a paradox as a tourist to Chernobyl. You expect to see environmental destruction but are instead startled by the environmental resurgence. The destruction you see when touring the zone is of the human environment. Nature has prevailed.

The rebound of nature in the Exclusion Zone was apparent to experts from the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) and UNICEF when they issued their 2002 report “The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident: A Strategy for Recovery.” One of their recommendations for economic recovery in the Zone was to promote ecotourism. UNDP and UNICEP specifically called for conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the affected areas.

Coming Full Circle

As we were leaving the reactor complex, we stopped on a bridge that crossed one of the many tributaries of the Pripyat River. From this vantage point, Reactor Number 4 looked peaceful, surrounded by nature and a flowing river. This is what I imagined nuclear power defenders dream about: a safe and clean energy source that blends into nature. Our guide asked me what I would do when I go back home. “I’ll go back to teaching,” I told him. “What will you tell your students about the famous Chernobyl?” he asked. I thought it over for a moment. “I’ll tell them about you,” I replied. “I’ll tell them about all the trees, the wildflowers, the bees, the sounds of birds. What about you?” I asked. “I’ll tell my wife about you. You’re not like the other tourists who have come through here.” I smiled and took his hand, “Thank you. I consider you my friend.” My father came up to me and asked, “So what are you looking at over there?” “Everything,” I replied. “Everything.”

Years later, one of my tourism students asked me, “If you had to sum it up in one word to describe your experience, what would it be?” I closed my eyes and images flashed before me: pieces of dark, rye bread soaking on the surface of the cooling pond, a Chernobyl official taking a bribe, a radioactive fire burning underneath tons of concrete, a small plastic hand reaching out from underneath the earth, a woman desperately trying to put shoes on her dead husband. . .gas masks. . . I took a deep breath and looked at my students. “When I first visited Chernobyl, I thought I was visiting this dark site of death, but that’s not what I found.” I closed my eyes, and more images flash before me: our guide, Mykola, sitting around the dinner table with his wife, a brother and sister playing hide and seek, a flower breaking through a field of concrete, pine trees planted in perfect rows, Mumford Hall, a photo of my grandfather holding my father on the porch of a typical Midwest house. . . “in what language would you like me to conduct this tour today?” I open my eyes.

“Heritage,” I replied. “Heritage is the one word that I would use.”