Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko paid a working visit to Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.

Together with Deputy Minister Svitlana Fomenko, he visited the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the ghost town of Pripyat, the Duga radar station and other facilities, as well as held a round table with tour operators specializing in visiting the exclusion zone.

"The objective of the MCIP and the State Agency for Tourism Development is to develop the exclusion zone as a tourist destination and to include certain sites in the UNESCO World Heritage List. But this will be preceded by a number of steps," the Minister said on the outcomes of the visit.

Among the main tasks for the near future:

arrange the visiting procedure;

invite art curators and develop routes with narratives and contents;

teach guides who would qualitatively convey history and interesting content for the visitor;

involve restoration specialists to obtain a professional expert opinion that monumental art needs conservation and museumification, and that it is even possible to partially restore it;

provide quality basic infrastructure - improve services at the checkpoint, electrify the access system, place signs;

review safety issues not only in terms of radiation control, but also in general the site visits;

develop an independent tourist brand of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.

"We are now beginning to combine and harmonize all ideas in order to reset the approaches to the tourist capacity of the exclusion zone," the Minister concluded.

It will be recalled that in 2019, more than 120,000 tourists visited the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.