Ukraine

  

UPDATE 24 February 2022: Russia has launched a military invasion of Ukraine and I'm left speechless. Needless to say, tourism in Ukraine is for now impossible. So all the Ukraine texts on this website are currently outdated and everything said in them regarding tourism is on hold. I can't see a solution at the moment, but hope that one can be found eventually. 

  

UPDATE September 2022: since the Russian attempts at capturing Kiev were repelled and the Russian troups withdrew from the region, some forms of dark tourism have come back, especially within Kyiv where various war relics are now on display, but also in visits to the formerly Russian-occupied towns of especially Bucha and Irpin. I've had a report from one such visit, but haven't been on any such thing myself (and am very reluctant to do so anytime soon) and hence can't report any more details here. It's certainly dark tourism on the very edge of that concept (were one caveat has always been "don't go back too soon"), but apparently foreign visitors are welcome to see the war destruction first hand and tell about it back at home. While Kyiv is currently out of the firing line and apparently not under immediate threat, travelling further towards the active war zones in the east and south continues to be out of tourism's scope and has to be advised against.   

  

UPDATE October 2022: and now Kyiv has come back into the firing line, by missiles and drones attacking important infrastructure and residential complexes; war against civilians. So whatever possibilities of tourism may briefly have come back are basically gone again. Better stay away. 

  

UPDATE February 2023: a year on and the war is still raging, no diplomatic solution is anywhere in the horizon, and much of the world is affected (however directly or indirectly). It really is a "Zeitenwende" ('change of era'), as the German chancellor called it a year ago. And there is still the threat that this could escalate into a proper World War Three. Very dark times indeed. 

  

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Ukraine is the second largest Eastern European country (after Russia), and was formerly an important constituent part of the Soviet Union, before becoming independent again after the latter's collapse.

 

Ukraine may not offer the widest range of dark tourist attractions but amongst them is one of the very top dark destinations in the whole world: Chernobyl.

   
The country's capital city, Kiev, serves as a base for tours to Chernobyl – and also offers several dark sites of its own.

 

Furthermore, halfway between Kiev and Odessa on the Black Sea there's a decommissioned strategic missile base with old ICBMs as museum pieces and a chance to go down into the former missile launch command unit – ultra cool! Tours to that extraordinary site also run as day excursions from Kiev.    

 
   Chernobyl

   (Pripyat, Chernobyl NPP, Duga)
 
   Kiev

   (Chernobyl Museum, Rodina Mat statue & war museums,  

    Babi Yar, Holodomor Memorial)

     

    Slavutych (Slavutych museum)

    Strategic Missile Base, Pervomaisk

  
   (  Balaklava  in Russian-annexed Crimea  )

  

  

UPDATE 2022: the conflict is no longer frozen but properly hot. I'm in disbelief and despair. Of course, no tourism in Ukraine is now possible. 

  

UPDATE 2018: the troubles in the east of Ukraine seem to have established themselves as one of the world's 'frozen conflicts' (cf. Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria), except that actual fighting is still going on periodically. There doesn't seem to be a solution. Ukraine and Russia remain at loggerheads. But the central parts of Ukrain relevant for dark tourists are still largely unaffected by all this. (UPDATE: they no longer are)

 

UPDATE 2014/2015: and yet again the country has gone through a "revolution" ... this time escalating in a really nasty way ... But for now the war-zone-like scenes from Kiev that made the international headline news seem to be over and a new government is in place. The whole crisis, however, is not over. Far from it ... the east of the country has been slipping into a nasty, potentially prolonged civil-war-like confrontation or at least a so-called "frozen conflict" (cf. Nagorno-Karabakh or Transistria).