Franchuk is especially amused by the tourists' moribund fascination with the town of Pripyat, which counted 45,000 residents at the time of the accident but that today is a Soviet ghost town overrun by vegetation.
Among the most bizarre of his visitors, Franchuk last year accompanied a newly married couple from either Britain or the United States who wanted to end their honeymoon in the city.
Many of the people who work in the zone in up to 15-day stints hope that a protected natural preserve can someday be established here.
But even after two decades signs remain that this is no ordinary wilderness zone.
There are checkpoints on entry and access is still forbidden to areas considered the most contaminated; the cemetery of buses, fire trucks and helicopters that helped evacuate the zone's residents and today are awaiting incineration; and the frequent beeps of the dosimeter every time the level of the surrounding, invisible radiation jumps.
And there is of course the radiation itself: invisible, odorless, tasteless, it permeates the buried buildings, cars and cattle, the earth that covers them, the rivers that flow nearby. And it will do so for a long time to come.
Name: Przewalski's Horse (
Equus caballus)
Primary Classification: Equidae (Horses)
Location: Formerly Mongolia, southern Siberia, Kazakhstan and Sinkiang.
Habitat: Desert and steppe.
Diet: Grasses, plants, fruit, bark, leaves and buds.
Size: Averages 7-9 ft in length and 440-660 lbs in weight.
Description: Reddish-brown coat; yellowish-white underneath; massive head with long face; long, erect ears; short neck; stiff, blackish mane; stocky build; short, slender legs.
Cool Facts: It is thought to be the only purebred wild horse still in existence. Some believe it is the ancestor of the domestic horse, but some say otherwise because it has two extra chromosomes.
Conservation Status: Extinct in the wild (zoobred animals are sometimes released into the horse's former range).
