I was invited to visit Kiev in Ukraine for Christmas & New Year's. However I noticed that the city resides just 90-100km away from the Blast point of Chernobyl (26 April 1986) and that the whole area was soaked with radiation, as well as the Dnieper river passing by the city and the kyivs'ke reservoir (Probably the city's water supply) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Chernobyl_radiation_map_1996.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster So, I'm skeptical / worried of whether I should even visit and consume, water, food there, let alone the dust on my clothes and breath the air there. Is Odessa (~530km away from Chernobyl) as badly affected as Kiev and safe to visit? From what I understand the whole country was badly affected by this and probably not safe to stay or live there at all even today! What are your objective opinions?! Thanks in advance.
You'd be better off talking to a specialist or someone who is an authority on the subject,however it seems west of blast point is not a good place to be.
Apparently the sarcophagus holding the reactor core is on the verge to collapse so there could be radiation leaking from it even today & contaminating even more the surrounding environment and Kiev city it self! While the corrupt politicians stole the money meant to be used to seal it permanently! http://news.kievukraine.info/2010/02/chernobyl-leaking-radiation-and-sucking.html
best bet do your research carefully.btw an official authority on the subject will say its perfectly safe like they are paid to say.got a feeling one of my relatives went to odessa (for a week) and hes still alive and well.green peace did a lot of testing and stuff around the time it happened not sure how active they are (now) but they may be helpful.