History: Ukraine wants to list Chernobyl as a Unesco World Heritage Site
a Heritage History information InternationalHistory: Ukraine wants to list Chernobyl as a Unesco World Heritage Site
The remains of Chernobyl, witnesses of the nuclear disaster join the Unesco World Heritage, already attracting towers
At the beginning of December, rare snowflakes cover abandoned buildings and playgrounds in the town of Pripiat, in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in northwestern Ukraine.
To protect them from time and to encourage visitors, Kiev now wants these remains, which have become witnesses to the worst nuclear disaster in history, to join the Unesco World Heritage (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
A 30 km zone around the damaged power plant
"The Chernobyl area is already a famous attraction around the world," said Maksym Polivko, 38, a professional guide, during a visit with AFP journalists. "Unfortunately this place has no official status," he continues, hoping for a boost for "the development of tourism infrastructure."
The idea of classifying the Chernobyl exclusion zone as a Unescor was proposed by the new Minister of Culture, Oleksandre Tkatchenko, who has been in office for six months after a long career in television. "This is one of The most emblematic territories in Ukraine" and it must be "preserved for humanity," the senior official said in an interview with AFP.
If successful, Chernobyl would join the mausoleum of Taj Mahal in India, the shrine of Stonehenge in England or the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel in France.
Vast as Luxembourg, the exclusion zone surrounds within a radius of 30 kilometers the damaged power plant whose fourth reactor exploded on 26 April 1986. After trying to cover up the incident, the USSR, of which Ukraine was a member at the time, finally recognized its extent and evacuated hundreds of thousands of people. Tens of thousands of "liquidators" had also been mobilized, with rudimentary means of protection, to build a sarcophagus around the damaged reactor and try to clean up the contaminated territories. Today, the recapture of these lands by nature is more visible: roads are narrowing, devoured by wild grasses, and houses disappear under wooded areas where wild animals proliferate.
The area attracts more and more tourists in search of thrills
Last year, the worldwide success of the MINI-series of the American channel HBO
In Pripiat, a few kilometres from the plant, entry into apartment buildings is strictly discouraged due to the risk of collapse. Although authorities believe that humans will not be able to live safely for 24,000 years, the area is attracting more and more tourists in search of thrills.
Last year, the worldwide success of the HBO miniseries "Chernobyl" brought a new generation of visitors, selfie enthusiasts. Before the shutdown caused by the Covid-19pandemic, Chernobyl had reached a record 124,000 tourists in 2019, up from 72,000 the previous year. The site could even receive up to a million a year, enthuses Oleksandre Tkatchenko. Nevertheless, the Minister stresses the need to make visitors understand that this is not a "simple adventure in forbidden territory."
With the help of experts, his ministry wants to prepare travel programs to "perceive the area as a place of remembrance that must teach us things" at a time of a global environmental crisis. For Oleksandre Tkatchenko, Chernobyl's historical legacy is not just a tragedy because the disaster "forced" the Soviet authorities to "tell the truth", "triggering democratization" that resulted in the fall of the USSR in 1991. Ukraine is preparing a dossier to submit it to Unesco by the end of March and a group of the organization's experts is then expected to visit the site this summer. The final decision is expected by 2023 at the earliest.
"Before, everyone took care of the sarcophagus," the new steel cap inaugurated in 2019 on the remains of the damaged reactor, to ensure its safety for the next 100 years, says Oleksandre Tkatchenko. Now, he says, "the time has come" to do this.
Source:- Flash News and News Agencies
