Inside the abandoned classrooms, shattered glass and crumbling plaster covered the floor. Yellowed textbooks lay open to lessons frozen in time, and dusty backpacks still waited for children who never returned. A faded slogan — "Long Live May Day!" — hung on the wall, a haunting reminder that the joy of the 1986 holiday was abruptly stolen by radiation. For residents in the contaminated zone, life was permanently divided into "before" and "after".

As the vehicle moved deeper into the exclusion zone, the radiation monitor's reading climbed, and its beeping warning grew increasingly urgent.

"There is no completely safe place here; we are always exposed to some radiation," explained Maxim Kudin, deputy director of the reserve. However, because tourist areas are grass-covered and relatively dust-free, short visits carry limited risk.