Chernobyl and the dangerous ground of ‘dark tourism’

360° Video: Step inside the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster left it uninhabitable.

It’s the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, responsible for causing an incalculable number of deaths and exposing millions to dangerous radiation.

It’s also a tourism hotspot, a place where visitors seemingly strip off for selfies in front of abandoned buildings and snap artistically macabre shots of ruined relics.

This is Chernobyl, which in 1986 became the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster when a reactor explosion pumped out radioactive contamination over a huge area, causing widespread human suffering and prompting an entire region to be evacuated.

Today, groups of tourists throng through the abandoned city of Pripyat, next to Chernobyl, to experience deserted nurseries, funfairs, stores and other grim spectacles of the site – their bleeping radiation monitors adding an eerie soundtrack.

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Explore Chernobyl's exclusion zone in 360°

02:06 - Source: CNN

Chernobyl is one of the most popular examples of the phenomenon known as dark tourism – a term for visiting sites associated with death and suffering, such as Nazi concentration camps in Europe or the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York.

“It’s […] living on the edge almost – if you go to a place where people have really died,” Karel Werdler, a senior lecturer in history at InHolland University in the Netherlands, tells CNN Travel. “It also confronts you with your own mortality.”

Visiting such locations can be an edifying experience, driving home the horrors that humankind or nature is capable of. But the morals and pitfalls of dark tourism, and what constitutes acceptable behavior in such places, are becoming murkier in the social media age.

On the rise?

The abandoned city of Pripyat has become a popular place to visit and photograph.

Chernobyl and Pripyat have been on the dark tourism map since the radioactive Exclusion Zone surrounding them opened up to visitors in 2011, but – prompted in part by the launch of popular HBO mini series “Chernobyl” – travel interest in the Ukrainian site has grown considerably in recent weeks, according to tour operators.

“After the show, I started to watch a lot of documentaries to find out more about what happened in Chernobyl, and I found out there are tours and you can come over,” one recent visitor, Edgars Boitmanis, from Latvia, tells CNN.

Chernobyl isn’t the only site of suffering that’s topping “must-visit” lists. Some 2.15 million people visited Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland in 2018, roughly 50,000 more than the previous year. That’s a relatively small increase in numbers, but seems to reflect a global trend.

As international tourism skyrockets – in 2018, there were 1.4 billion international tourist arrivals – interest in dark tourism is also escalating.

“We’ve got two things at play here,” says Philip Stone, executive director at the Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the UK’s Lancaster University.

“We’ve got dark tourism, which has always been around in different guises. And then you’ve got the issue of overtourism, where popular sites are becoming even more popular. And then you’ve got the mass movement of people – so it’s almost kind of a perfect storm.”

Stone tells CNN Travel that, while it’s impossible to quantify whether dark tourism specifically is growing, because it’s too tricky to define the phenomenon, there is growing interest in the concept both academically and in the media.

Defining dark tourism

Visitor surge: Tour operators say interest in the Chernobyl power plant has increased since the launch of HBO show "Chernobyl."

TV magic: Stellan Skarsgard, Jared Harris and Emily Watson star in the highly rated HBO series.

Exclusion zone: Travelers can visit an observation point 300 meters away from the New Safe Confinement, which covers the remains of the number four reactor.

Top attraction: Tour company SoloEast has reported a rise of around 35% in the months since the HBO show first aired.

Quick turnaround: "Most of the people say they decided to book after seeing this show," says Victor Korol, director of SoloEast. "It's almost as though they watch it and then jump on a plane over."

Contaminated area: Situated around 110 kilometers north of Kiev, Chernobyl is one of the most polluted places in the world.

Guided trips: The meeting room in the underground shelter of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is also open to visitors.

TV magic: SoloEast has been taking between 100 and 200 visitors to the area on weekend days since "Chernobyl" first screened.

Safety checks: Visitors pass through radiation measuring devices during guided tours around Chernobyl.

Radioactivity detection: "It's absolutely safe," Korol says of safety concerns regarding radiation levels. "The radiation they [visitors] are exposed to on a tour is less than on an intercontinental flight."

A photo tour of the abandoned Chernobyl site

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Dark tourism as a term was coined in the 1990s, by scholars exploring why tourists visited sites associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The concept’s also sometimes called thanatourism, – from the Greek word thanatos, meaning death, or grief tourism.

But visitors were traveling to sites associated with death and destruction way before the ’90s.

Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed by a volcano eruption in AD79, has been on the tourist trail since the 1700s, and is still one of Italy’s most-visited destinations.

“It’s not as new as it may seem,” says Peter Hohenhaus, who chronicles his experiences visiting dark tourism sites on his website, Dark-Tourism.com.

Tony Johnston, head of Tourism at Althone Institute of Technology in Ireland, says motivations for visiting these places vary from individual to individual, and from site to site.

Some visitors are there just because they’re on vacation in the area, others pursue a historical passion. There are also thrill seekers going for “fun,” says Johnston – and a small group might have a morbid interest.

Most tourists behave respectfully, he clarifies.

People have been visiting Pompeii for centuries.

“Quite often the intention of the visitor is to learn about atrocity or a dark heritage in a useful way, and it could be a reflection on what went wrong in the past and what lessons they can learn from the future so that mistakes aren’t repeated again,” says Johnston.

Stone, of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research, goes as far as to say there’s “no such thing as dark tourists.”

“People who are either on vacation or on study trips […] that doesn’t make us ‘dark’, that just makes us interested in what’s happening at these particular sites and learning from them,” he says.

But, says Rebekah Stewart, communications and outreach manager at the Center for Responsible Travel, a Washington D.C.-based research organization, motivations do matter.

“Before visiting places that are associated with death and tragedy, it’s important to reflect upon your intention,” she tells CNN Travel. “Are you visiting to deepen your understanding and pay your respects, or are you going to check a box or take a selfie?”

Inappropriate behavior

Evocative images: Photographer Nigel Walshe visited Chernobyl in 2017. He took a series of evocative images in Pripyat.

Respectful shots: Tourists to Chernobyl have been thrown into the spotlight recently with claims that visitors have been taken inappropriate photographs. Walshe felt it was important to take respectful shots.

Morals of photography: Walshe trusted his instincts in regards to working out what he was comfortable to photograph and how.

Location-lead: "You can see that people hardly figure in the photographs," he tells CNN Travel.

Objekt: This photograph is of an abandoned Soviet radar missile tracking station: "It is nearly half a mile long, and 200 feet high," says Walshe. "It will have to be dismantled by hand, as it cannot be allowed to collapse, or be blown up with explosives."

Rejecting intrusion: "I also reject the common, but highly intrusive way in which people are often included in pictures of 'dark' scenes, almost as props, to add some 'human interest,'" says Walshe.

Individual shots: Walshe says his images are intended to "speak for themselves, without explanations, theorizing or even titles."

Evocative images: Walshe took haunting photographs of an abandoned high school with discarded exercise books.

Exclusion Zone: Chernobyl and nearby abandoned city Pripyat have been visited by tourists since the Exclusion Zone opened up to visitors in 2011.

Recent popularity: Prompted in part by the launch of popular HBO mini series "Chernobyl" -- travel interest in the Ukrainian site has grown in recent weeks.

Haunting photographs of Pripyat

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Recent months have seen some keen to define what is appropriate behavior at such sites.

In March, the Auschwitz Memorial Museum tweeted images of visitors posing on the train tracks outside the camp and wrote: “Remember you are at the site where over 1 million people were killed.”

In June, Twitter user Bruno Zupan shared four photographs of people purportedly visiting Chernobyl. One in particular, showing a woman in a hazmat suit unzipped to expose her underwear, sparked outrage.

Some of the people whose Chernobyl photographs were shared have since spoken to outlets including the i, saying they aren’t influencers, arguing that the context of the photographs has been lost or even that they weren’t actually in Chernobyl at all.

Still, the viral images sparked a widespread debate on what kinds of photographs – if any – are appropriate at dark tourism sites.

Photographer Nigel Walshe, who visited Chernobyl a few years ago and took a series of evocative images in Pripyat, including photographs of an abandoned high school, says he largely avoided images that featured people.

“I also reject the common, but highly intrusive way in which people are often included in pictures of ‘dark’ scenes, almost as props, to add some ‘human interest,’” he says.

Abandoned Berlin -- Spreepark: Journalist Ciarán Fahey began exploring Berlin's array of abandoned places after a visit to Spreepark -- a GDR-built amusement park which closed in 2002. "I went in on my own because I couldn't get anyone to come with me," says Fahey. "And it was just such a magical experience that when I got home I had to write about it."

Abandoned Berlin -- forgotten train station: After Spreepark, Fahey decided to hunt out more abandoned buildings. "One place lead to another," Fahey says. "I just kept finding more and more and more, and that's when I decided to put them all together on their own site, a dedicated abandoned site." Fahey took this photo on a disused train line, the Siemensbahn, in west Berlin.

Abandoned Berlin -- city center villa: Not only does Fahey take photographs -- he also researches the history behind the abandoned spaces. "It would be a lot quicker just to go a place, take a load of photos and then publish the photos and forget about it," he says. "But for me the most important thing is actually the stories behind it." Fahey took this photo of a piano in a villa strewn with personal belongings and old correspondence.

Abandoned Berlin -- Vogelsang nuclear bunker: This former nuclear bunker was once used for storing missiles in the Soviet-built camp of Vogelsang. There were at least two secret deployments of nuclear weapons to Vogelsang, which was built in the middle of a forest.

Abandoned Berlin -- Flugplatz Schönwalde: Most places Fahey visits were abandoned within the past 30 years. "I'd say 90% are since the fall of the Berlin Wall," he says. This means information can usually be tracked down online and in newspaper archives. Fahey photographed these buildings at Flugplatz Schönwalde, an abandoned Soviet airfield.

Abandoned Berlin -- Flugplatz Schönwalde: "There are usually newspaper articles about it, about factories closing down or hospitals closing or moving off somewhere else," says Fahey. He took this atmospheric photograph of a corridor at Flugplatz Schönwalde, another airfield used by the Soviets during the Cold War.

Abandoned Berlin -- Children's hospital in Weissensee: Breaking into an abandoned building isn't always easy. "It really depends on the place," says Fahey. This former children's hospital in Weissensee has become a canvas for the city's street artists.

Abandoned Berlin -- garage: Fahey says he's had a few moments where he's nearly been caught in the act. He photographed this early-model Trabant, abandoned along with other cars in a garage at the back of a derelict house.

Abandoned Berlin -- abandoned house: In many of Fahey's photographs, nature is taking over humankind's forgotten relics. Here, curtains mingle with brambles in the windows of an abandoned house.

Abandoned Berlin -- war-damaged villa: So why are there so many abandoned buildings in Berlin? "Germany's history is pretty unique," says Fahey. "I don't think you have the same level of waste and destruction in other countries in Europe." This villa, damaged during World War II is in the southwest of the city.

Abandoned Berlin -- former Soviet headquarters: Part of the reason why there are many abandoned buildings in Berlin is because Germany's political history has been characterized by upheaval -- during the 20th century, buildings were erected and abandoned as regimes changed. Pictured here, a statue of Lenin outside a villa at Wünsdorf, the headquarters for the Soviet military forces in Germany.

Abandoned Berlin -- SS bakery in Oranienburg: There are relatively few buildings still standing from the Nazi regime -- but occasionally Fahey discovers buildings with disturbing pasts. This is a former SS bakery, where inmates from the neighboring Sachsenhausen concentration camp were ordered to bake bread.

Abandoned Berlin -- disused airfield control tower: The majority of the buildings Fahey discovers have fallen into disuse since German reunification. "Germany hasn't really caught up yet with that, it hasn't really made use of those buildings," he says. Fahey photographed this disused airfield at Sperenberg.

Abandoned Berlin -- Soviet mural in a former military camp: Times are changing though, and Berlin is growing economically. "There is much more money now and much more investment going on," says Fahey. "The gaps are being filled in all the time. Old buildings are being taken over again." This Soviet mural is in Jüterbog, to the south of Berlin.

Abandoned Berlin -- anatomy college: Fahey's urban exploration of Berlin is also the focus of a book, published by Berlin-based publishers be.bra verlag. Pictured here, a dissecting table and cold storage in the basement of a former anatomy college.

Abandoned Berlin -- former Soviet swimming pool: Fahey was unsure at first about transitioning from screen to page. "Every time you go into these places and take a picture, it's evidence of a crime and that you're trespassing on someone's private property," Fahey admits. This photograph depicts showers beside the swimming pool at Wünsdorf, former headquarters for the Soviet military forces in Germany.

Abandoned Berlin -- disused swimming pool: Once the publishers confirmed that they'd take care of any legalities, Fahey was on board. He's thrilled that the book has opened up his work to German speakers for the first time. This hippo is left at the Wernerbad in Kaulsdorf, a disused swimming pool in what was East Berlin.

Abandoned Berlin -- Waldhaus Buch sanatorium: As his work becomes popular, Fahey has considered expanding his horizons beyond Berlin. "But there's way too much here to occupy me for the moment before I think of expanding it or going abroad or anything like that," he says. Fahey photographed these fluttering curtains in the window of an abandoned villa near Sperenberg Airfield.

Abandoned Berlin: Inside the city's forgotten places

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Ciarán Fahey, another photographer whose striking images of abandoned sites in Berlin, including one location used for Nazi experiments on prisoners, were spotlighted by CNN in 2017, agrees with Walshe.

“I think respect is simply showing what you find, not bringing adornments, props or anything else. I don’t think a fashion shoot in a place where Nazis tortured victims is appropriate or respectful, for example,” he says.

For some, any photograph is disrespectful, but selfies are particularly bad.

Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital -- Gyeonggi, South Korea: The eerily empty halls of this former psychiatric hospital are not for the faint-hearted, its grim past is ever-present and is known for being haunted.

Sedlec Ossuary -- Czech Republic: A Baroque period bone-chandelier is just one of the skeletal oddities on display at the Sedlec Ossuary, a Chapel beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec in the Czech Republic. It's decorated with 40,000 human remains from the 18th century.

Akodessewa Fetish Market -- Lomé, Togo: Located in the Akodessewa district in Lomé, Togo, this fetish market sells items including chimpanzee hands, cobras and crocodile heads. It's essentially a giant pharmacy, but you might find it a bit unnerving.

La Isla de las Muñecas -- Teshuilo Lake, Mexico: An isolated island covered in dismembered dolls certainly qualifies for a place on our freaky places round-up. The dolls are allegedly dedicated to the spirit of a young girl who drowned in the canal.

Battleship Island -- Nagasaki, Japan: Hashima Island, is also known as Gunkanjima (meaning "Battleship Island" as the island resembles a warship) is a cluster of concrete ruins. Its creepy isolation made it the perfect setting for Bond villain Raoul Silva's lair in 2012 movie Skyfall.

Chernobyl Amusement Park -- Pripyat, Ukraine: The terrible 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant closed down the plant and caused the evacuation of the entire city. It's now a ghost town and this amusement park is a haunting reminder of its past life.

Catacombs -- Paris, France: Under the streets of Paris are the creepy catacombs, a subterranean network of old caves and tunnels lined with bones. A short section of the caves are open to the public, if you dare...

Poveglia Island -- Venice, Italy: Don't let the beauty of this island distract you, it's got a creepy past: it was once a quarantine zone for plague sufferers. It's not supposed to be visited by anyone, let alone tourists -- but you might be able to persuade a boat operator in Venice to take you.

Darvaza Crater -- Turkmenistan: Nicknamed "the Gateway to Hell," the Darvaza Crater is a mysterious inferno in the Turkmenistan desert. There's no concrete record of exactly how it happened, making the fiery cavern even more intriguing.

Bell Witch Cave -- Tennessee: The Bell Witch Cave is the supposed home of an evil witch who tormented the Bell family of Tennessee during the 1800s. If you fancy some ghost-hunting, you can visit John Bell's cabin and delve into the creepy cave.

Some of the eeriest locations on the planet

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“It’s more than pure narcissism,” Darmon Richter, a photographer whose doctorate studies focus on dark tourism, tells CNN. He says the way people communicate now is different.

“More and more people are very visually oriented orientated in the way they communicate with their peers.”

Taking photographs, says Stone, is part of how modern day tourists document their travels – the equivalent of writing “I was here” on a wall, however the egotistical appearance of selfies “doesn’t sit well with these sites of conscience.”

Ethical consequences

Walshe was concerned with taking respectful images.

It’s not just visitors who need to consider their treatment of sites of tragedy, the experts say.

Werdler, of InHolland University, points out that most tourist attractions need parking spots, bathrooms and food outlets.

“You have to be also thinking about the ethical consequences of entertaining your visitors,” he says. “But where do you draw the line?

“I think it is very inappropriate to sit in a restaurant in Auschwitz and eat during my lunch break. But other people have less constraints with that.”

The passage of time is also a factor to consider. Pompeii, for example, may feel like a more “acceptable” dark tourism site, because the disaster occurred so long ago.

“Memory is critical,” says Johnston. “We will act a certain way around the gladiator outside the Colosseum in Rome, we might stand and pose for a photograph. But this is somebody who represents someone who was employed to quite brutally kill people, but because it was 2000 years ago, and it’s distant in the past, it seems temporally acceptable.”

Tourism officials in Fukushima in Japan want to promote the destination outside of its association with the 2011 disaster.

Some sites actively try to resist dark tourism.

In Japan, in Fukushima Prefecture – the site of a 2011 fatal earthquake, devastating tsunami and nuclear disaster – authorities have made a conscious move away from promoting disaster tourism, instead marketing the region as a safe, interesting place to visit.

As part of that, Jun Muto, head of the tourism department in Fukushima Prefecture Tourism and Local Products Association, tells CNN Travel they’re focusing on “hope tourism.”

Muto and his team want visitors to see “the Fukushima that is recovering after the nuclear disaster, but also make sure to see the side of Fukushima full of rich history, nature, and many fantastic sightseeing spots.”

Personal stories

Room for reflection: The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum reopened on April 25, 2019, following an extensive two-year renovation. Click through gallery for more photos:

Personal impact: The restored space includes personal artifacts and clothing that belonged to bomb victims.

Visitors gather: The museum, which originally opened in 1955, attracts more than 1 million visitors a year.

Emotional experience: It's estimated that the Hiroshima bomb killed around 135,000 people. Visiting the space is an emotional experience.

Genbaku Dome: Visitors to the city can also see Hiroshima's Atomic Bomb Genbaku Dome -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When the United States dropped the bomb on August 6, 1945, it exploded just above the building.

See the renovated Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima

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So where’s the line between a thought-provoking, educational excursion and macabre, misplaced voyeurism?

For some museums and memorials, the key is to concentrate on the human stories behind the mass tragedy, re-centering the victims to the heart of the narrative.

At Japan’s newly reopened Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, an extensive two-year renovation lead to an increased emphasis on personal artifacts and survivor’s stories.

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum features portrait photographs of the people who were killed on September 11, 2001 and the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Audio recollections from loved ones are accompanied by victims’ personal artifacts.

For many visitors to Auschwitz and the other European concentration camps, hearing the victims’ stories, and seeing the belongings that were taken from them, is the most impactful and moving part of the visit.

Broadening horizons

Johnston recommends visitors educate themselves prior to their trip, to “really learn about the history of the site, the people that were there, the human stories of the tragedy that unfolded,” he says.

Other experts, including Stone, suggest extensive research isn’t integral, as long as you go in ready to learn what happened, and respectful of the significance of the site.

In Chernobyl, despite the recent controversies, visitors who spoke to CNN seemed mindful of the horrors that had befallen the location and the lessons on offer.

Among them, Joe Robinson, from Hull in England, said he was risking mild exposure to radiation and exploring the Exclusion Zone around the nuclear reactor to take stock of a situation caused, in part, by catastrophic political decision making.

“There’s a consequence of the lies,” he says. “You can watch the news and think nothing, but Chernobyl shows how far people would go to protect their reputation.”

Dark-Tourism.com editor Hohenhaus thinks this applies to many dark tourism spots.

“If you’ve encountered and dealt with sites that are very much propaganda-lead – like Nazi sites, Communism sites, and so on – then you can see through propaganda better, you recognize it. So it also gives you an advantage outside the tourism sphere.”

The key, most experts agree, is to visit responsibly and respectfully.

CNN’s Matthew Chance and Zahra Ullah contributed to this story