of power. Ignalina was shut down a decade
ago. Closing and decommissioning it were key
conditions of Lithuania’s entry to the European
Union in 2004.
In 1986, Lithuania, then part of the Soviet empire,
was one of the republics affected by the nuclear
disaster. Thousands were sent to clean up the
mess in Chernobyl. Many of them are dead.
Today, the nuclear disaster is helping Lithuania
grow as a tourist destination.
“Chernobyl,” a highly-rated miniseries, continues
to send curious watchers to the filming locations
in the capital Vilnius and at Ignalina, where
glowing uranium rods cool in concrete pools. The
plant, which is still open for tourists, drew 2,240
visitors in 2018. By July, 1,630 had visited the
plant. And demand is growing, plant officials said.
“They have made a good movie, I guess. But
what happened long ago does not bother us
now. I think looking backward is not good,”
Nefedyev said, after explaining how the RBMK-
type reactor blew up.
Tourists who come to this Baltic coastal country
of 3 million to see the HBO filming locations first
visit the KGB museum in downtown Vilnius where
interrogation scenes were shot. They are taken
to a Soviet-era district of gray condos built in the
mid-1980s that look somewhat like Pripyat, a
nuclear city that served the Chernobyl plant.
“People come to see these places that we never
used to promote. This is very new and unusual
to see them not in the Old Town taking photos
of Baroque churches, but sporting selfies here,”
said Inga Romanovskiene, general manager at
Go Vilnius agency.
Already a popular movie-making destination,
Lithuania has benefited economically from the
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