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This unique photography trip to Ukraine incorporates some of the country’s most remarkable visual experiences—from the markets and street art of Kyiv to hundred-year-old brickwork drains beneath the city streets, and from towering relics of Soviet might to a post-human landscape where space-age technology lies ruined in the snow.
Winter in Ukraine can be severe, however the rewards for visiting in winter are extraordinary—and this is a dry cold, so provided you dress accordingly with lots of layers, the experience oughtn’t be unpleasant! We’ll take regular pit stops to warm up, and finish each evening with hot, home-cooked food and (optional) Ukrainian moonshine. Whereas in summer Chernobyl is overtaken by forest, in winter the leaves pull back to reveal panoramic vistas. In Pripyat we’ll get a clear look at the city’s urban design, so for lovers of architecture and those keen to explore the peculiarities of Soviet-era urban planning, there really is no better time to visit.
Arrive in the Ukrainian capital and settle in at Hotel Salyut—an impressive work of Soviet modernist architecture in itself. In the evening, we’ll gather in the lobby for a brief welcome and introduction, then head out for our first dinner together to chat about travel, gadgets and lenses, and all the things we’ll see in the coming week.
Hotel Salyut, Kyiv
Welcome Dinner
Our first full day in the city will be focussed on the modernist, massive, and quite often mad architectural relics of the Soviet period in Ukraine. We’ll see the 335-foot Motherland monument; the UFO-shaped Institute of Information; the brutalist National Library; the space-age Kyiv Crematorium, and more—not to mention a fine assortment of colorful Soviet-era mosaics. In the afternoon, you can bring your laptop to our first post-processing session, where your photo leaders will share tips and techniques for getting the most out of your images. Finally, we’ll finish the day with a group dinner and drinks.
Hotel Salyut
Breakfast, Dinner
This morning, join us for an optional trip down to the drains below the city—a network of Tsarist-era tunnels near Kyiv’s old town. These spaces are cramped, but immensely photogenic, with colorful moss and mould, rushing water, and some brickwork sections more than a century old. Bring a tripod, a flashlight, and get ready to learn some handy light-painting techniques. If you don’t fancy the tunnels, you can stay topside instead for a guided street photography session in some of the city’s less-visited corners. There’ll be another post-processing session later, this time focussing on light-painting and night photography. We’ll end another exciting day with our customary evening banquet.
Hotel Salyut
Breakfast, Dinner
For the next four days, we’ll explore the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. This Chernobyl portion of the trip will be unlike anything else out there; we offer the flexibility of hiring a private guide combined with itineraries carefully curated by experienced photographers with an eye for the region’s most extraordinary hidden details. Today we’ll drive from Kyiv, enter the Exclusion Zone, and spend the rest of the day exploring largely untouched former villages before getting settled at our comfortable homestay. We’ll warm up here at the end of each day with home-cooked food and (optional!) potent Ukrainian moonshine. Keep in mind that our schedule during our time in Chernobyl is unpredictable, and subject to weather, local whims, and several other factors. These daily descriptions aim to give you a general idea of what to expect, rather than a prescriptive schedule.
Comfortable Homestay, Chernobyl Region
Breakfast, Dinner
Covering roughly 1,000 square miles, the containment area around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant offers a huge amount to see and photograph. We’ll begin with some of the more typical sites, such as the abandoned city of Pripyat, which until 1986 was a thriving atomgrad. Schools and kindergartens, a cinema, palace of culture, swimming pools, river port, and a respectable selection of shops and cafés—all these amenities served the city’s young populace, by then numbering nearly 50,000 residents.
Comfortable Homestay, Chernobyl Region
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Today, we’ll take a tour inside the Power Plant itself, donning protective suits as we photograph the corridors, control rooms and reactor halls of the world’s most (in)famous nuclear plant. This evening, we’re excited about the rare opportunity for some night photography inside the Chernobyl Zone.
Comfortable Homestay, Chernobyl Region
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Today we’ll meet with some of the returnees. We’ll have lunch with people who live full-time inside the Chernobyl Zone, and learn about the latest developments, including Solar Chernobyl, a solar farm adjacent to the reactors. Later today, we’ll return to Kyiv for hot showers and soft beds back at Hotel Salyut.
Hotel Salyut
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Every year on Epiphany, Ukrainians celebrate the religious holiday by dunking themselves underwater in frozen rivers. Foreigners are very welcome to join in—or if preferable, watch from the sidelines with a cup of hot wine. Locals pour out in crowds for this event, so it’s a great opportunity for some candid street photography. We’ll mingle with the crowds beside the river all morning before warming up with a hearty lunch together. In the afternoon, you’ll have some free time to wander—a perfect opportunity to revisit some sites, check out someplace new, or simply sit back and relax. Your guides will be on hand to help you with tips and transport, or suggest new photographic targets for the afternoon. Finally, we’ll all gather back together for dinner near our hotel, to eat, drink, reminisce, and check out the photos we’ve captured throughout the day.
Hotel Salyut, Kyiv
Breakfast, Farewell Dinner
We’ll have one final breakfast together before we part ways. From here, head homeward or onto your next destination. If you’d like to extend your time in Ukraine, your guides will be happy to offer advice and suggestions.
Breakfast
The total cost of this trip is $3,920. For those traveling by themselves, single accommodations can be provided, subject to availability, at an additional cost of $580. Please contact us to request a single room.
This trip won’t be suitable for those expecting 5-star accommodation. Particularly during our time in Chernobyl, many modern luxuries simply won’t be available. However, we can guarantee the essentials you’ll need in order to enjoy your stay: warmth and good food; power plugs for charging batteries; a modern, heated bus, and comfortable beds. At our Chernobyl homestay, the showers are usually hot, and the wifi is at least consistent, if not necessarily fast.
Some elements of this trip will be physically demanding. Our four-day exploration of Chernobyl involves no more than walking—but there will be a lot of that, and over rough ground—or potentially through deep snow—so be sure to bring proper walking boots or other outdoor footwear. You’ll also need warm outerwear and full-length pants inside the Zone.
The Kyiv underground tunnel tour will be particularly challenging. Expect to get wet as you climb up and down ladders and crawl through tight spaces beneath the streets of Kyiv. You’ll need to be in good physical shape for this section of the trip, and it’s absolutely not for the claustrophobic—but if that doesn’t appeal, you’re welcome to join the street photography session instead.
This trip has been designed by photographers, for photographers. Your three guides, between them, have an extensive range of photography experience and will be excited to share their knowledge with you. That said, this trip is open to absolutely anyone. Maybe you received a fancy camera as a gift, and you’re not sure which button does what... or perhaps you’re an intermediate photographer looking to hone some specific skills or techniques. And for the accomplished photographers out there, you’re going to love some of the captivating visuals built into the itinerary—and your guides certainly won’t take offense if you want to skip the tutorial segments to go off shooting alone!
Having three photography guides on this trip allows for a lot of flexibility. We can work with participants with varying levels of experience and gear. We’ll take a drop-in, drop-out approach to workshop sessions, and whichever guides aren’t busy instructing will be glad to accompany you as you track down other targets. Just bring whatever camera gear you’re most comfortable using (or maybe, the camera you want to be comfortable with), tell us what kind of pictures you want to make, and we’ll do our very best to set you on the right path.
You should aim to arrive in Kyiv on Sunday, January 12 by 4 p.m., and depart any time on Monday, January 20. Kyiv Boryspil International Airport (KBP) is your best option when it comes to booking flights into Ukraine. Traveling to and from your hotel in the city center is easiest by taxi, which should cost no more than $25 each way. Uber is very popular in Kyiv, too. If you decide to extend your stay, your guides will be only too happy to suggest additional activities for you.
Chernobyl is very much safe to visit. The outer area, the 30km Zone, acts as more of a buffer space between the contaminated land and the rest of Ukraine. This area is more or less fine—people live there full-time, they grow crops, raise livestock, and so on. Radiation levels in the 30km Zone are lower than the standard background radiation in a typical developed city. The largest dose of radiation our travelers usually get is from their trans-Atlantic flights. Most important, as always, is following the site’s regulations. Chernobyl’s security team are really thorough, and last year alone they safely catered to 60,000 visitors.
