So far this year, 32,000 tourists have visited Chornobyl, close to the 36,000 for all of last year,

Kyrylo Harnyk, an official with the Exclusion Zone Management agency, told a Chornobyl tourism roundtable yesterday. Two weeks ago, Ukrzaliznytsia sent the first test train down the Vilcha – Yaniv track. This rail section was restored to connect the nuclear waste storage site with Ukraine’s national rail network. With trains running again for the first time in 35 years, opportunities open up for rail tours of the exclusion zone.