You're getting prepared, good. It's starting today you know...
Chernobyl nuclear disaster covered by New Safe Confinement structure
As for the game, I assume you're running the patched version, right ? Originally it was so.. bad, it was almost unplayable. Getting out of that swamp was a real challenge and for example getting to most artifacts was close to impossible. Oh right, you know about the artifacts, right ? Many anomalies (and I'm sure you ran into a couple at least by now) hold sometimes very powerful artifacts that can make the game a lot easier (mostly because they are worth a lot and you can't complain about having too much $ in this game).. but getting to them most of the time is a bitch. Use a detector (the first one you get is crap iirc, but it's better than nothing) and locate the artifact. Often there is a very specific way of getting to it, sometimes you can grab it and get away before you die .. save, throw bolts around to find a safe passage etc.
Anyway, even though in my part of the world the game was huge, I only got to it a lot later once it was patched .. and I have to say, it was one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I had,this feeling of overcoming and/or outsmarting a very challenging world, that's something I can't say I see often.