The Chornobyl power plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, is just a day’s walk from Kyiv.
Soon workers from the British and French embassies will cover the 110 kilometers from Kyiv to Chornobyl by foot to raise awareness and money to support those who suffered from the April 26, 1986 disaster.
“By walking it in one day you show how close Chornobyl is to a major city of Kyiv, which I don’t think many people realize,” said Lee Roberts, a British Embassy worker.
Imagine if the wind was blowing south on that fateful day. [Kyiv] could potentially have been Prypyat, but on a larger scale.
– Lee Roberts, a British Embassy worker.
Roberts came up with the idea for a charity walk last winter while visiting Chornobyl and Prypyat, the ghost town in the 30 kilometer exclusion zone that surrounds the plant.
“Imagine if the wind was blowing south on that fateful day. [Kyiv] could potentially have been Prypyat, but on a larger scale,” Roberts said. During the first days after the reactor’s explosion, the wind headed north and west, which many believe helped Kyiv escape a much-worse fate.
The anniversary of the tragedy brings up the story of the Chornobyl catastrophe every year in late April. But this March, the world was once again vividly reminded of the nuclear power danger when a Japanese plant was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami.
Eight charity volunteers will depart from Mykhailivska Square late afternoon on April 22, aiming to arrive at Chornobyl the following day at approximately the same time. Covering 110 kilometers in 24 hours is possible at a pace of five kilometers per hour.
When you are trying to attract sponsorship, it has to be something spectacular.
To prepare the body for the physical challenge, the participants have been training on their own since January but recently the group went through their first fitness test on a 21-kilometer training walk, “to give us an idea of what our shoes and gear are like,” Roberts said.
Some of the volunteers have military experience and still remember walking up to 60 kilometers during training. “We also had times when we haven’t slept for a long period of time,” said Kirsty Baxter, assistant military attache at the British Embassy. “So we are hoping our bodies remember that, even though we’re much older than we were.”
They hope their efforts will pay off. “When you are trying to attract sponsorship, it has to be something spectacular,” Roberts said.
A military worker, he chose two charities dear to his heart. One of them is the Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund, which was founded in 1989 after the nuclear disaster. It aims to help children by providing medical equipment to hospitals in Ukraine.
All the proceeds from the Charity Walk will be split equally with another organization, Blesma, a charity in the U.K. that supports British military veterans who lost limbs during service.
Personally my way is breaking [the distance] down. It is only two kilometers from my apartment to work, so I just have to do 55 of those.
– Lee Roberts
Each walker will pack their own snacks, such as chocolate, sandwiches and pasta, which they will try to consume without stopping walking. “By the end of the training walk it became very clear to us that once we stopped, we could already feel our legs turning to lead – it became harder to keep going,” Roberts said.
A good physical shape is not all it takes, though. The mental challenge of keeping up despite the lack of sleep and sore muscles is more of an obstacle. The volunteers have come up with ideas to trick their minds.
“Personally my way is breaking [the distance] down. It is only two kilometers from my apartment to work, so I just have to do 55 of those,” says Roberts.
For safety, the volunteers will be escorted by a British Embassy vehicle as well as a traffic police car that will be provided by the Interior Ministry throughout the whole journey.
To learn more about the project or to donate money, visit the link http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/chornobylcharitywalk/ccrdf
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Horban can be reached at horban@kyivpost.com
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