But those adventurous tourists who have fought their fears of radiation sickness and want to see the highly-patrolled area all but deserted after reactor number four exploded on April 26, 1986, might find the staff less than welcoming.

"There cannot be family tourism here, we cannot allow walking holidays. There can only be bus tours for about four to six hours," said Mykola Dmytruk, deputy director of the agency which coordinates visits by specialists.

"As for extreme tourism, I am not sure this place is extreme enough. There is not much need for adrenaline on a bus ride...This is a place of tragedy."

Sixteen years on, the tragedy of Chernobyl's exploded reactor which spewed deadly clouds of radioactive dust over Russia, neighbouring Belarus and much of Europe is still being lived out by thousands.

Many areas still have dangerously high levels of radiation. Stories of death, illness and poverty pepper conversations. Old women and men have returned to contaminated ghost towns after becoming unhappy with government efforts to resettle them.

The staff, who battle with the stigma of contamination for living in the region and face months of unpaid wages, say the site is best left in the hands of caring scientists who monitor ever-changing levels of radioactivity and still strive to make the area finally safe.

Beer-drinking, smoking tourists, hoping for an adrenaline-boosted thrill by meandering around pinewoods and fields which bloom once again around the encased reactor are not the order of the day, they say.

"There are more interesting places in Ukraine where you can get a trip on a boat, or get drunk," Dmytruk said.

TACKY CHERNOBYL T-SHIRTS

Agencies have been offering day-trips to Chernobyl for $250 a couple, including lunch - but make sure you are over 18, are not a hippie and do not want to make a tour of the souvenir shops before you leave.

Six people have signed up so far - teachers hoping photographs and first-hand stories would educate their children.

For Dmytruk and colleague Rimma, long-standing workers for Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry in Chernobyl, the idea of tourists having a good time where people perished makes them shudder. They advise a visit to a adventure park instead.

And T-shirts and caps with the Chernobyl name emblazoned on the front seem a little tacky.

"The agencies say we should make T-shirts and caps with Chernobyl written on them, but surely they would be bad luck," said Rimma, a bubbly Russian woman dressed in a U.S. camouflage jacket.

"It's like buying a T-shirt with the name of the Buchenwald concentration camp on it."

She is equally dismissive of an idea by the United Nations to promote eco-tourism. The world body described much of the so-called restricted area as an "extraordinary environmental opportunity" in a report earlier this year.

"The natural environment has returned there," Kalman Mizsei, an official of the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) told a news conference in February.

"It is a huge area that is very natural, with lots of wildlife and unique types of animals."

Rimma calls the idea "stupid" and launches into a joke with her colleague, Dmytruk.

"Hippies are not going to be allowed in. They'll want to lie on the grass and then smoke it," Dmytruk laughed, adding seriously that walking in the grounds without permission could be dangerous for those with a more adventurous spirit.

"The law does not stop adult people from visiting - people who are older than 18 years and who have some kind of interest in this region...The most important thing for this region, is making it safe."

VILLAGE VISITS