Drop into Solo East Travel’s audio tour to show your support, with quick link to DEC and International Red Cross Emergency Appeal
Imagine welcoming visitors back to your destination after Covid-19 only to have everything turned upside down in just a few days.
This is the reality that our Ukrainian partners, Solo East Travel, are facing. But it goes deeper than that. The Solo East tour guides are a highly specialised group of people who led tours to the Chernobyl site and the town of Pripyat, home to the plant workers.
It was the Solo East Travel team that equipped Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and the BBC Top Gear production team with Geiger counters and guided them around the abandoned remains of the reactor.
Chernobyl Post-Invasion
The tour route takes visitors out of Kyiv and through the Red Forest around the Chernobyl plant. You can listen remotely to the Geotourist Solo East Travel tour to better understand the geography that’s involved. We were relieved to catch up with Sergei from Solo East earlier this week but saddened when he told us that much of this route is now under occupants’ control.
Sergei and the team at Solo East Travel would not have walked on the ground that the tanks are now rolling over and that soldiers are walking on. It was forbidden and travel through this area was only permitted by vehicle.
Last week, radiation levels in Ukraine exceeded control levels* and this is down to the top level of soil being moved by the Russian Army.
It doesn’t bear thinking about, but we’re going to ask you to do exactly that – please. To take a moment to listen in to the tour remotely via the app and show your support for a tour company who are currently either displaced or hiding in bunkers.
At Geotourist, we capture stories and this story might have changed forever. We just have no idea.
Some of our own Geotourist colleagues, are based in Ukraine, are also having their lives disrupted and facing existential challenges. Our thoughts are with them and their families.
Donate to the DEC and Red Cross Ukraine Appeal
With Sergei’s permission, we’ve added a Donate button to the Solo East Travel tour on the app. It will take you straight through to the DEC and Red Cross Ukraine Appeal. If you are going to donate anyway, we ask that you consider doing so through the Solo East tour and drop into one of the points, remotely, to show your support for our tourism colleagues in this time of extreme pressure and stress.
Please also feel free to share on social media. Thank you.
It’s one small action, but we’re joining a million small acts that can join the larger movement to do something useful for Ukraine.
Thank you for taking the time to read this 💛💙 and we know that you’ll join us in sending hope and love to Sergei and the team at Solo East and Ukrainians all over the world.
*https://www.ecowatch.com/chernobyl-radiation-russia-ukraine-invasion.html