Nearly completely unperturbed by man — some 350 "self-settlers" still live inside the zone, but this mainly elderly group generally keeps to its eight villages — the flora and fauna here have developed with virtually no human interference.
In one day, a lucky first-time visitor may see elk, foxes, otters, beavers, wild boars, gray cranes and endangered great spotted eagles. Regular visitors say bears have also been spotted in the area.
With so few people, the zone is the perfect habitat for endangered species. The Chernobyl International Radioecology Laboratory has so far recorded the presence there of more than 400 animal species, including 280 kinds of birds and 50 endangered species.
And despite apocalyptic predictions at the time of the Chernobyl disaster, the animal species living inside the forbidden zone are not strange, disproportioned mutants.
"The mutants never resembled the monsters described in the media and all died out quickly," said Sergei Gashak, an ornithologist at the Chernobyl lab.
The ecosystem surrounding Chernobyl has passed through several stages since the accident, said Rudolph Alexakhin, director of the Agricultural Radiology Institute in Moscow.
During the first year-long phase, plants and animals that were most affected by the radiation died. Some areas were so soaked with radioactivity that they had to be completely razed, such as a pine forest that became known as the "Red Forest" for the levels of radiation registered there.
Over the next six years, nature slowly licked its wounds following the disaster, he said.
Today it is coming back with a vengeance.
