Radiation safety

A radioactive berry-picking boom outside Chernobyl

While many rural towns across Eastern Europe face economic struggle, the Ukrainian region of Polesia, 200 miles east of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, has become something of a boomtown for foragers seeking mushrooms and berries — nearly all of which are contaminated with radiation.

It has become a good, if unlikely, business, and helped Ukraine become a berry exporter to the European Union, University of Maryland historian Kate Brown writes in the magazine Aeon.

Brown notes that in 2015, Ukraine exported 1,300 tons of fresh berries and 17,251 tons of frozen berries to the European market. That is more than 30 times as much as in 2014.