User:Musicwaves/sandbox

There have been growing numbers of visitors to the Exclusion Zone each year, and there are now daily trips from Kiev offered by multiple companies. In addition, multiple day excursions can be easily arranged with Ukrainian tour operators. Most overnight tourists stay in a hotel within the town of Chernobyl, which is located within the Exclusion Zone. According to an exclusion area tour guide, as of 2017, there are approximately 50 licensed exclusion area tour guides in total working for approximately nine companies. Visitors must present their passports when entering the Exclusion Zone, and are screened for radiation when exiting both at the 10 km checkpoint and at the 30 km checkpoint. The Exclusion Zone can also be entered if an application is made directly to the zone administration department. Some evacuated residents of Pripyat have established a remembrance tradition, which includes annual visits to former homes and schools. In the Chernobyl zone, there is one operating Eastern Orthodox Christian church, St. Elijah Church, notable for its very low radiation levels, which according to Chernobyl disaster liquidators, are "well below the level across the zone", a fact that president of the Ukrainian Chernobyl Union, Yury Andreyev, considers miraculous. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has been accessible to interested parties such as scientists and journalists since the zone was created. An early example was Elena Filatova's online account of her alleged solo bike ride through the zone. This gained her Internet fame, but was later alleged to be fictional, as a guide claimed Filatova was part of an official tour group. Regardless, her story drew the attention of millions to the nuclear catastrophe. After Filatova's visit in 2004, a number of papers such as The Guardian and The New York Times began to produce reports on tours to the zone. Tourism to the area became more common after Pripyat was featured in popular video games: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Fans of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise, who refer to themselves as "stalkers", often gain access to the Zone. (Both the name "the Zone" and the term "stalker" derive from Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker, which predates the Chernobyl disaster but describes a similar setting.) Prosecution of trespassers became more severe after a significant increase in trespassing in the Exclusion Zone. An article in the penal code of Ukraine was specially introduced, and horse patrols were added to protect the zone's perimeter. In 2012, journalist Andrew Blackwell published Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places. Blackwell recounts his visit to the Exclusion Zone, when a guide and driver took him through the zone and to the reactor site. On 14 April 2013, the 32nd episode of the wildlife documentary TV program River Monsters (Atomic Assassin, Season 5, Episode 2) was broadcast featuring the host Jeremy Wade catching a wels catfish in the cooling pools of the Chernobyl power plant, at the heart of the Exclusion Zone. On 16 February 2014, an episode of the British motoring TV programme Top Gear was broadcast featuring two of the presenters, Jeremy Clarkson and James May, driving into the Exclusion Zone. In October 2018, the BBC reported that people were moving to areas close to the exclusion zone, mostly refugees from the war in Ukraine and due to low prices in the area