Ukraine will unveil next year "safe" tourist routes in Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, the head of the state-run Chernobylinterinform enterprise, Oksana Nor, said on Tuesday.
"All those interested will be able to visit the Chernobyl zone," she said, adding there was a growing demand for such trips.
Earlier this month Ukrainian authorities declared the site with a 30 km exclusion zone was ready to become a tourist attraction.
"Foreigners are showing the highest interest. We understand that we need to meet this demand."
This is not tourism in the conventional sense of the word, Nor said.
"We want to show that Ukraine is no longer a nuclear hazard," she said.
Special routes were developed by Ukraine's Emergency Situations Ministry and they "pose no health risk."
Ukrainian experts say a person can stay in the zone for four to five days without any harm to his health.
An explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 resulted in a highly radioactive fallout in the atmosphere over an extensive area.
Vast areas, mainly in the three then-Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, were contaminated by the fallout from the major nuclear meltdown. Some 200,000 people were relocated after the accident.
Russia also offers extreme tours, such as ones to the most infamous prison camps, Josef Stalin's Gulags. Tourists may spend their "holiday" in the Soviet prison camp and feel the experience of being a prisoner.
KIEV, December 21 (RIA Novosti)
