Thumbs-up for gamer grandmother

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine — Camera? Check. Sunglasses? Check. And a Geiger counter? Check. For a growing number of thrill-seekers visiting Chernobyl’s radiation-contaminated lands the device is used to help navigate the site of what remains the world’s worst nuclear accident.

The uninhabited exclusion zone, a 30-kilometer radius around the former nuclear power station, has seen a surge in tourists in the past few years.

Almost 50,000 people toured the area last year — a 35 percent rise on 2016 — to see the plant that contaminated a large swathe of Europe when its fourth reactor exploded on April 26, 1986.

Nearly 70 percent were foreigners.

“(I wanted to) see something totally different,” said Maja Bandic, a Croatian in her 50s, who described the day as “amazing”. Viktor Kharchenko, of visitors

A souvenir kiosk at the main entrance to the exclusion zone sells T-shirts and fridge magnets with the black-and-yellow radiation warning symbol as well as Soviet-era gas masks.

It is even possible to stay a few nights in a basic hotel or one of two hostels near the power station.

Viktor Kharchenko, whose travel agency Go2chernobyl.com has run tours to the site since 2012, said the growth in visitor numbers came after the 30th anniversary of the disaster in 2016 and the installation that year of a huge metal dome over the damaged reactor that significantly reduced radiation leaks.

These developments were widely covered by international media and alleviated people’s fears over whether it was safe to visit Chernobyl, Kharchenko said, arguing that the risk to tourists is minimal.

“A day’s stay in the area equals two hours of flying over the Atlantic Ocean in terms of the dose of radiation absorbed,” he said.

But one of the tour group member, Joel Alvaretto, a 28-year-old student from Argentina, confessed he is “a little afraid” of radiation, since he has heard “you can see the effects later, many years after”.

Leaving Chernobyl, everyone has to go through radiation checks. Members of the tour group take turns to stand inside a large dosimeter which indicates that they are all “clean”.

‘A symphony’

Several Ukrainian travel agencies offer tours from one to seven days, priced from $30 to $790.

The activities on offer include viewing the new shield covering the damaged reactor, feeding gigantic catfish in the radioactive waters of cooling pools, and driving past the “red forest” — where pine needles turned from green to red after the accident due to absorbing massive levels of radiation.

The trees were felled and buried during the cleanup operation, but even now, when a tour bus drives past the area without stopping, the tourists’ Geiger counters all start beeping frenetically, signaling a very strong increase in radiation.

“A symphony,” one tourists said.

The highlight of the trip is a visit to Pripyat, the ghost town built for nuclear workers a few kilometers from the plant. The nearly 50,000 residents were evacuated the day after the disaster, never to return home.

Blocks of flats and schools where children’s toys, books and handwritten notes still lie abandoned and a big wheel still rises above an amusement park on the central square.

Adam Ridemar, a Swedish student who came with his father to see this “iconic place” said that it is “very cool to see all this, to see how a whole city is just a relic of what it used to be”.

He voices surprise at the luxuriant vegetation, saying he had expected a “concrete jungle”.

Nature is reclaiming the abandoned land with tarmacked roads gradually choked by wild grasses and apartment blocks disappearing behind green foliage — a sight that fascinates many visitors.

“It proves that nature is stronger than humans after all,” Bandic said.

People “have sun, wind, they don’t need nuclear energy: It’s so dangerous”, she said.

A day’s stay in the area equals two hours of flying ... of the dose of radiation absorbed.” agency owner travel

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BUENOS AIRES — Like many women at her age, Isabel Martinotti, 82, is a doting grandmother. Unlike her peers, she is also an avid video gamer who has become an online celebrity in her native Argentina for handling a console with the dexterity of a teenager.

“I’m the ‘Gamer Grandma’ for everyone on the internet. They all want to be my grandchildren sometimes,” Martinotti said at her home in Buenos Aires, where she lives with her 27-year-old grandson German Gil.

It was Gil who realized Martinotti was no ordinary grandmother and decided to upload videos online of her expertly tapping away on a game controller.

Together they joke about whose turn it is to use the PlayStation, or “Play” as they call it.

“The Play is mine, end of discussion, and he knows it, so he can’t do anything about it,” said Martinotti, whose elderly demeanor and appearance belie a mischievous and competitive spirit.

Their playful rivalry began about 15 years ago, when Martinotti bought Gil his first PlayStation but ended up becoming a fan herself.

“We began to play, then came Final Fantasy and that was the end of his Play, because I loved it and spent hours playing,” she said.

When Gil’s friends sounded skeptical of his grandmother’s gaming ability, decided to go public.

“Going on the internet started out because his friends didn’t believe I played with the Play. Once, I began to play at 7 in the evening and when I next looked at the time it was 5 in the morning,” said Martinotti.

According to Gil, a video of his gaming granny posted on Facebook received so many likes and hits that it eventually led to YouTube.

“I once posted a video to a Facebook group and it got a lot of reactions. I decided to make her own page, and began to post videos there and they got lots of replays,” said Gil.

“Gamer the two Grandma” now has a YouTube channel (Abuela Gamer ARG) with more than 9,000 followers. One of the latest videos, showing Martinotti sitting on the edge of the bed celebrating in front of a large-screen TV as she fells one of the bad guys, has been seen more than 50,000 times.

While the two regularly vie for control of the console, they both agree video games have brought them closer together.

“Instead of grandmothergrandson, we became friends and he began to tell me about everything that happens outside of the house,” said Martinotti.