Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, is to become an official tourist attraction, Ukraine’s president has declared.

Tours to the power plant and its radioactive surroundings have been offered for years, but there has been renewed interest in the 1986 disaster following a critically acclaimed HBO drama. The miniseries, Chernobyl, triggered a spike in visits to the site – as well as criticism of tourists for taking “disrespectful” selfies.

Government backing will see the addition of walking trails and increased regulation of tours – including the introduction of an electronic ticketing system to crack down on corruption. It will also see efforts to improve mobile phone reception, so those selfies can be uploaded to Instagram without delay. Restrictions on filming the site will also be lifted.

The top draw for tourists isn’t actually the power plant, now encased in a £1bn steel sarcophagus, but Pripyat, once home to 50,000 Soviet workers and their families but now abandoned and being slowly reclaimed by nature. Whether visitors will now be prevented from entering the empty buildings in Pripyat remains to be seen. Officially, you’re not supposed to – but currently independent tour guides are pretty relaxed when it comes to enforcing the rules, and most will lead you to the most eye-catching spots.

“Chernobyl has been a negative part of Ukraine’s brand,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week. “The time has come to change this.”

He added: “We will create a green corridor for tourists. Chernobyl is a unique place on the planet where nature [has been] reborn after a huge man-made disaster. We have to show this place to the world: to scientists, ecologists, historians [and] tourists.”

The power plant today with its new steel sarcophagus Credit: getty

Dozens lost their lives in the immediate aftermath of the 1986 catastrophe – brave firemen and workers sent to clean up the mess – but a radioactive plume contaminated vast swathes of Europe and as many as 9,000 deaths could eventually be linked to fallout from the site.

What it’s like to visit Chernobyl

An organised tour is the only way to see Chernobyl. A handful of companies offer day trips from Kiev, as well as overnight stays – yes, there’s a rather spartan hotel inside the exclusion zone.

It’s a two-hour journey by minibus, during which time you will probably be shown a documentary about the disaster and another on the ongoing efforts to clean it all up. The first checkpoint is at 30km from the ill-fated power plant. Passports are scrutinised, and coffee and souvenirs – including gas masks – hawked (on the way back out, this is also where you’re screened for radiation).

As many as 9,000 deaths could eventually be linked to fallout from the site Credit: GETTY

Another check follows at 10km, before the first signs of abandonment arrive. In most cases the clean-up effort here consisted of simply bulldozing houses and burying them underground and you’ll spot dozens of little mounds where homes once stood.

The Chernobyl town sign offers the first photo opportunity. Look out, too, for dogs. Chernobyl, curiously, is home to hundreds of stray hounds who have learned to survive in the woods surrounding the power plant, dodging wolves and begging for scraps from guards, workers and tour guides. A non-profit US organisation, Clean Futures Fund, tags and neuters them, and even finds homes for some on American soil.

The trip to the power plant itself comes next. Workers in blue overalls still potter about; a new solar power plant opened here last October. A little way up the road, in the small abandoned town of Chernobyl, is that tourist hotel, where you may well be served lunch.

Afternoons are usually dedicated to the highlight for most visitors: Pripyat. By far the biggest settlement in the exclusion zone, it is the original ghost town: a sprawling, Brutalist Cold War museum, frozen in time – but which nature is slowly reclaiming. Guides will lead you to the solemn fairground with its famous Ferris wheel, due to open four days after the explosion, but which never welcomed a single paying guest; most will show you around buildings including a school and a hospital.

Inside an abandoned building Credit: GETTY

All the while they will have their trusty Geiger counter. Background radiation in cities varies from around 0.1 to 0.4 microsieverts per hour. So what about the Chernobyl exclusion zone? In most places… it’s pretty normal. The explanation? Concrete. On the roads, radiation doesn’t linger. But point the counter at the soil and the readings rocket. And some items are dripping in radiation. During my visit our guide pointed out the tattered remains of a fireman’s jacket. Geiger reading? 1,500.