PRIPYAT, a city (since 1979) in Ukraine, Kiev region (see KIEV REGION), located on the Pripyat River (see PRIPYAT (river)). Railway station (Janov). Founded in 1970 in connection with the construction Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Due to the accident at a nuclear power plant in... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Nuclear Power Plant Satellite City- ... Wikipedia
PRIPYAT- city (since 1979) in Ukraine, Kiev region, on the river. Pripyat. Railway station (Janov). Founded in 1970 in connection with the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Due to the nuclear power plant accident in April 1986, the population of Pripyat was evacuated. For nuclear power plant workers and their... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Pripyat- Chorus, Prypyats, river, Dnieper point; Ukraine, Belarus. Mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years, XII century, as Pripet; modern Russian Pripyat, Ukrainian Cheer up, Belarusian. Sprinkle. The supposed initial glory, form *Pet tributary V. A. Zhuchkevich connects ... Geographical encyclopedia
Pripyat- I river in Belarus and Ukraine, the right tributary of the Dnieper. 761 km, basin area 114.3 thousand km2. Flows through the Polesie lowland. Average water flow 448 m3/s. Connected by the Dnieper-Bug Canal with the Vistula, Oginsky (not operational) with the Neman.... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Pripyat- noun, number of synonyms: 4 city (2765) ghost town (7) river (2073) ... Synonym dictionary
city- Capital, fortress. See resident, place... neither to the village, nor to the city, go to the Kharkov province to the city of Mordasov... Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. under. ed. N. Abramova, M.: Russian dictionaries, 1999. city of gorodets, fortified settlement, ... ... Synonym dictionary
ghost town- noun, number of synonyms: 7 Verkhny Mezensk (1) Zashiversk (1) Kadykchan (1) ... Synonym dictionary
Pripyat (river)- This term has other meanings, see Pripyat. Pripyat Ukrainian Pripyat Belorussia. Sprinkle... Wikipedia
Pripyat- Pripyat: Pripyat is an abandoned city in the Kyiv region of Ukraine. Pripyat river in Belarus and Ukraine. Pripyat is a village in Ukraine. Radiometer “Pripyat” RKS 20.03 See also Pripyat swamps ... Wikipedia
Books
- Warriors of the Zone, Alexey Bobl. A mysterious force shoots down an army helicopter over the Exclusion Zone. A special group of military stalkers goes in search of a fallen car to save its only occupant. Unexpectedly on... Buy for 580 RUR
- Patience of the Devil, Alexey Sokolov. Sapsan, an experienced stalker of the Southern Zone, knew the rules. But the temptation turned out to be too great. Sapsan tried to sell a large batch of swag directly, although he was supposed to bring the loot...
PRIPYAT, a city (since 1979) in Ukraine, Kiev region (see KIEV REGION), located on the Pripyat River (see PRIPYAT (river)). Railway station (Janov). Founded in 1970 in connection with the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Due to the accident at a nuclear power plant in... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
- ... Wikipedia
City (since 1979) in Ukraine, Kiev region, on the river. Pripyat. Railway station (Janov). Founded in 1970 in connection with the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Due to the nuclear power plant accident in April 1986, the population of Pripyat was evacuated. For nuclear power plant workers and their... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Pripet, Prypyats, river, part of the Dnieper; Ukraine, Belarus. Mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years, XII century, as Pripet; modern Russian Pripyat, Ukrainian Cheer up, Belarusian. Sprinkle. The supposed initial glory, form *Pet tributary V. A. Zhuchkevich connects ... Geographical encyclopedia
I river in Belarus and Ukraine, the right tributary of the Dnieper. 761 km, basin area 114.3 thousand km2. Flows through the Polesie lowland. Average water flow 448 m3/s. Connected by the Dnieper-Bug Canal with the Vistula, Oginsky (not operational) with the Neman.... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Noun, number of synonyms: 4 city (2765) ghost town (7) river (2073) ... Synonym dictionary
Capital, fortress. See resident, place... neither to the village, nor to the city, go to the Kharkov province to the city of Mordasov... Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. under. ed. N. Abramova, M.: Russian dictionaries, 1999. city of gorodets, fortified settlement, ... ... Synonym dictionary
Exist., number of synonyms: 7 Verkhny Mezensk (1) Zashiversk (1) Kadykchan (1) ... Synonym dictionary
This term has other meanings, see Pripyat. Pripyat Ukrainian Pripyat Belor. Sprinkle... Wikipedia
Pripyat: Pripyat is an abandoned city in the Kyiv region of Ukraine. Pripyat river in Belarus and Ukraine. Pripyat is a village in Ukraine. Radiometer “Pripyat” RKS 20.03 See also Pripyat swamps ... Wikipedia
Books
- Warriors of the Zone, Alexey Bobl. A mysterious force shoots down an army helicopter over the Exclusion Zone. A special group of military stalkers goes in search of a fallen car to save its only occupant. Unexpectedly...
- Patience of the Devil, Alexey Sokolov. Sapsan, an experienced stalker of the Southern Zone, knew the rules. But the temptation turned out to be too great. Sapsan tried to sell a large batch of swag directly, although he was supposed to bring the loot...
About the city and the accident
Pripyat is located 94 km from Kyiv and two kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The city received its name from the river of the same name, on the banks of which it stands.
The settlement of Pripyat was founded in 1970 to house people involved in the construction and further maintenance of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The power plant was named "Chernobyl" after its name district center. Chernobyl itself, located 18 kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, is not directly related to it.
Drawings “Shadows of Hiroshima” in PripyatOne goal was put at the forefront of the design of the city - the comfort of residents, for which the “triangular development”, unique for the 70s of the last century, was used. The peculiarity of this layout is the alternation of five-story buildings with more tall buildings and large spaces between structures.
Pripyat today (Palace of Culture "Energetik")The first one was laid in 1972 concrete block into the foundation of the power plant. The city grew along with it - residential buildings, cinemas, cultural centers, the Palace of Pioneers, sports complexes, and recreation parks were erected at an accelerated pace. People from all over the country went to the all-Union construction site. Average age The population of the young city was only 26 years old. Every year more than a thousand little inhabitants were born in Pripyat, so great attention was paid to the construction of kindergartens and schools. The city was considered exemplary; foreign delegations were constantly brought to Pripyat to demonstrate how well the Soviet people lived. By the mid-80s, almost fifty thousand people of 25 nationalities lived in the city.
Monument to firefightersOn April 26, 1986, at half past one in the morning, an explosion occurred at the fourth power unit of the nuclear power plant. A huge radioactive cloud covered Pripyat. The population of the city was not immediately notified of what had happened. The coming Saturday was sunny, people were enjoying the good weather, working on summer cottages. Children had fun on the attractions launched on this day ahead of schedule to create a deceptively calm environment.
A lot of time was catastrophically wasted, the residents of the city received severe radiation, which over time led to serious illnesses and deaths. During the Soviet era, man-made accidents were hushed up so as not to destroy people’s faith in the reliability of everything Soviet and not to sow panic.
Abandoned shoeAnd only more than a day later, on April 27 at 11 am, the residents of Pripyat were informed of immediate evacuation. 3 trains and 1,200 buses arrived in Pripyat to transport people. The townspeople were allowed to take with them only documents, the most necessary personal items and a small supply of food. Residents were assured that the evacuation was temporary, and after the situation normalized they would be able to return home. No one could have imagined that they would never see their home or their hometown again.
Throughout three hours, from 14.00 to 17.00, 49,614 people were taken out of Pripyat. People were placed in temporary accommodation and then relocated to the city of Slavutich, built shortly after the accident, 50 km from Pripyat.
Abandoned housesIn early May, evacuation began from the 30-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. More than 60,000 head of farm livestock were also removed from the affected area. In total, about 165,000 people left the radiation-contaminated zone over 5 years.
During the time that passed after the accident, Pripyat was robbed by numerous looters, who took away everything of any value from here.
Empty streets of a ghost townThe former fairy tale city has become a ghost, looking at the lifeless streets through empty window openings. The houses are dilapidated and partially collapsed, lush vegetation has taken over the streets and squares of Pripyat, and there is an eerie silence on the city streets.
After the accident, decontamination work was carried out in the contaminated area, which made it possible to significantly reduce background radiation. But despite this, it will be impossible to live in this area for at least another hundred years.
Now the entire city is surrounded by barbed wire, and a checkpoint (checkpoint) has been installed at the entrance to Pripyat. Station employees, builders of the new “Sarcophagus” and military personnel live in the city. In the vicinity of Pripyat live about 500 people - “self-settlers” - people who returned to their native places, who were unable or did not want to start life in foreign lands.
There are only four operating facilities in the city: a water fluoridation station, a checkpoint, a specialized laundry and a garage for cars transporting radioactive waste.
Every year, at the end of April, several thousand people come to Pripyat - former residents and accident liquidators. Some are drawn here by longing for their youth spent in these places, others want to meet with colleagues and friends and remember those whose lives were claimed by the nuclear disaster.
Scattered gas masks in secondary school No. 3Excursions to the exclusion zone
These days, Pripyat attracts many fans of abandoned and unusual places. You can visit the city as part of an organized tourist group that has special permission and accompanied by a guide.
Tourists in Pripyat 
Stalactites on the ceilings of abandoned apartmentsIllegal trips to Pripyat are very popular among extreme sports enthusiasts, giving them the opportunity to uncontrollably enter any building, visit abandoned hospitals and schools, and completely immerse themselves in the apocalyptic atmosphere of the consequences of a global catastrophe. Such people want to feel like real stalkers, penetrating into a forbidden, deadly zone. Unauthorized forays are dangerous to health, since uninvited guests are not familiar with the radiation situation in a particular place in the city. The route of organized excursions passes through the least contaminated places, in which the level of radiation does not exceed the corresponding indicators of a large metropolis.
Installation of thingsPripyat is often visited by artists who draw inspiration from the deserted city, which succumbs to the onslaught of nature. The walls of many houses are covered with graffiti, adding gloom to the surrounding landscape. Some creative people create expressive installations from preserved objects and furniture.
Sights of Pripyat
Places of pilgrimage for tourists - objects associated with the Chernobyl accident and characteristic buildings Soviet era. Excursions to Pripyat are one-day, a walk around the city lasts from 3 to 5 hours.
Monument to the liquidators of the accidentThe nuclear power plant is the center of a nuclear disaster, which has become the most destructive in scale and in the number of deaths and illnesses. Over the course of several years, 600,000 people were involved in eliminating the consequences of the accident. The station operated until 2000, when, under pressure from the world community, the Ukrainian authorities stopped its work. Nowadays, the most pressing task is to normalize the situation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
"Sarcophagus"“Sarcophagus” is the unofficial name of the “Shelter” structure, created to isolate what was destroyed by the explosion nuclear reactor. The unique structure was erected by several thousand people around the clock; it was necessary to protect the environment from radiation as quickly as possible. At the cost of their own health, and often their lives, the liquidators of the consequences of the reactor explosion were able to do it in a record short time - 206 days. The construction of the shelter required 7,000 tons of metal, more than 400,000 cubic meters of concrete and the participation of 90,000 people. On the Sarcophagus there is Observation deck, where visitors are allowed, but you can only stay here for a few minutes. The protective structure is gradually collapsing and needs urgent repairs, otherwise the fourth block could again cause mortal danger.
Next to the Sarcophagus there is a monument to the liquidators of the accident - the fallen heroes who prevented the large-scale spread of radiation.
One of the darkest and saddest symbols of the city is an amusement park that never became fully operational. A terrible impression remains from dilapidated carousels, rusty chairs swaying in the wind and a frozen Ferris wheel. A scary place where particularly impressionable people can hear the distant laughter of children.
Radioactive equipment dumpThe exclusion zone is an area located 30 kilometers in diameter from the epicenter of the accident. In the vicinity of the zone, excursions are held with visits to the houses of self-settlers, farmers and unique museums. Due to the fact that this place has become a hotbed of illegal tourism, Lately The rules for traveling to and staying in the zone have been tightened. Oddly enough, the local forests are home to many animals: hares, wild boars, lynxes, horses, bears, badgers, roe deer, wolves. Contrary to all negative forecasts, birds and animals did not mutate, nature survived and flourished due to the absence of human influence.
Another of the attractions of Pripyat is football stadium overgrown with trees. A depressing impression remains from the sight of the stands surrounding not a field, but a young grove. An ideal place for those who want to look at the planet from which people disappeared.
The Bridge of Death is an object where the highest level of radiation was recorded in April 1986. The townspeople did not know about this and came to the bridge as if it were the most comfortable spot to monitor a burning reactor. The tragic landmark is still extremely dangerous to visit.
Huge catfish in a pond near the Chernobyl nuclear power plantThe cooling pond for the reactor is also one of the most contaminated monuments of the disaster in its time. Huge catfish live in the channel through which water enters the reservoir. The fish always swims out to the tourists who feed it, who love to take pictures with the big barbel.
The Lazurny pool was open until the end of the station’s operation; it was the cleanest and safest place where the accident liquidators rested and swam.
rusty forestThe “rusty” forest surrounding the nuclear power plant experienced a huge dose of radiation. Most of the trees died, and the surviving ones acquired a red color. At night, the dead trunks glowed - this was facilitated by the reaction of the interaction of radioactive elements with wood. During the decontamination of the area, all the trees were uprooted and buried, but today young growth appears in the place of the dead forest.
Bridge of Death in PripyatThe Polesie Hotel became the site where the emergency response headquarters was located in 1986. The roof of the building was ideal place to correct the actions of helicopter pilots filling the emergency fourth block of the station with sand. Two decades after the disaster, the famous “Shadows of Hiroshima” drawings appeared on the walls of the hotel, depicting black silhouettes of people who died due to radiation. These days the hotel premises are completely empty.
The Energetik Palace of Culture is a typical building of the Soviet era, symbolizing the prosperous life of the people. Like all buildings in Pripyat, the Palace of Culture is dilapidated, but mosaics have been preserved on its walls. Dining room high school No. 3 with hundreds of gas masks scattered on the floor is a hard to bear spectacle, as if specially staged by the director of a gloomy disaster film.
Concrete sign at the entrance to the cityThe most terrible and dangerous place in the city, approaching which is mortally dangerous, is medical unit No. 126. In the basement of the building, the clothes of the firefighters who extinguished the emergency power unit in the first hours after the disaster still lie. All these heroic people died within three weeks after the accident, having received an unimaginable dose of radiation, several tens of times higher than the lethal dose.
In memory of the firefighters in Pripyat, a monument was erected, made by the liquidators of the disaster. The monument is made of the same concrete that covered the emergency power unit.
Everyone who comes to Pripyat considers it their duty to take a photo in front of the large concrete sign installed at the entrance to the city.
Trailer for the mini-series "Moths"
How to get there
You can get to Pripyat as part of excursions conducted by some travel companies And public organizations together with the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine. Independent trip into a closed city and exclusion zone faces a fine and possible problems with health.
It's really a jungle. For 30 years the city disappeared into the forest. In another ten years, buildings will begin to crumble en masse. Therefore, you need to go to Pripyat right now, it will only get worse. It’s not difficult to get here; even a kind of tourism is developed.
But I managed to see a little more, and I will show you the Exclusion Zone from an unusual side. Welcome to a place where the USSR never ended, and where radiation in some places is still 50,000 times higher than normal.
1. Today everyone can visit the famous ghost town. This is a little more difficult than going to Kyiv; an area of 30 kilometers around is still considered closed zone, but getting there is as easy as shelling pears, and the trip will be no more dangerous than an hour-long plane flight. What I will talk about in this report is mine personal experience, it may be a little different for you, but it’s better to really see it once. I wanted to go to Chernobyl ten years ago, but for some reason I put it off, I was afraid of radiation and couldn’t find a reason to go. Conclusion - in vain, the further you go, the less remains, nature takes its toll, buildings are destroyed, artifacts disappear. So, let's go!
2. Checkpoint “Dityatki”. The border between the living and the dead, the gates of the Exclusion Zone. Everyone who travels to it legally enters the Zone through this checkpoint. If you are not an employee nuclear power plant(and it still works!), then most likely the only way to get to Pripyat is to buy a tour for one or two days. It costs, taking into account the road from Kyiv and back, paperwork, lunch and overnight accommodation, 100-150 dollars, and the Zone itself takes most of it for paperwork. It is much cheaper for Ukrainians than for foreigners. I can’t recommend a guide, since I traveled privately with the help of friends: for the two of us with Dasha, we paid about 10 thousand rubles for a one-day tour.
3. At the entrance there is an information and souvenir kiosk of one of the travel companies. Which one to choose - decide for yourself, study sites and reviews, share in the comments.
4. There are strict rules for visiting the Exclusion Zone, and the program itself is clearly written out on paper. Step aside and you risk being expelled from the territory. They say that sometimes you can retreat from them, but the main thing is not to catch the eye of other groups: otherwise the guide will get hit hard, and the tourists will not find it enough: competitors are happy to “knock” on each other.
5. Another outpost, already 10 kilometers from the Chernobyl station. Here the police check the route sheet, make sure everything is in order and let you inside. Then it all begins. Looking ahead, I will write that the Zone is much more lively than it might seem at first glance, and Chernobyl itself is an inhabited city with shops and cafes. Inhabited, but very strange. The next story will be about why people still live here, and what kind of life it is after a nuclear disaster.
6. This sign welcomed visitors to the Lenin Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, now the letters have been removed and only the torch remains. I don’t recommend stopping here even for a minute: a rusty stele with a torch is one of the most contaminated places in the Chernobyl Zone, located on the territory of the Red Forest. Its trees took the largest dose of radioactive dust during the explosion in 1986, their crowns turning brownish-red. Later the trees died, and at night a glow was observed at this place. (according to legends and stories, nothing really shone there)
Radiation is a terrible thing, and many are afraid to come here for fear of the consequences. The trouble is that it is not visible. Walking in a seemingly quiet place can be deadly. So, let's move on.
7. Pripyat entrance sign. Go left to the residential part of the city, straight or right - to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The city of Chernobyl itself remained on the sidelines. He has nothing to do with the disaster, although he ended up inside the Zone after the accident. Why the Chernobyl station and not Pripyatskaya? I've always been interested in this. It began to be built earlier than the satellite city, and was named simply by the name of the area, the center of which is Chernobyl. In order not to get up twice, let’s discuss another myth: what kind of name is CHERNOBYL? Black reality? A curse? Those who do not believe in conspiracy theories will answer that this is simply the Ukrainian name for wormwood, which grows abundantly here. The more impressionable will remember Holy Bible, where wormwood is a symbol of the Lord’s punishments: among the ancient Jews, the plant was mentioned as a synonym for poison, bitterness or curse. In the New Testament, in the Revelation of John the Theologian, a fallen star or angel is called “Wormwood”:
The third angel sounded and fell from heaven big star burning like a lamp, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of this star is “wormwood”; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter.
And here you don’t have to believe in mysticism at all, but the result of the reactor explosion was, among other things, the pollution of water systems not only in the surrounding area, but also in many areas of Europe. So think for yourself whether this is a coincidence or not.
8. We step onto the streets of the city, which in reality has become symbols of bitterness and sorrow.
9. For thirty years now, Pripyat has been stuck in Groundhog Day. Time froze forever in 1986, and this is for real. The Soviet Union did not collapse here, the Internet and satellite TV did not appear, and stores have the same shortage as throughout the country in the same years. But then in Pripyat, an exemplary Soviet city, there was no shortage of food.
10. The city is very overgrown, you can’t even see what’s written on the store sign behind the trees and bushes. In summer there are completely impassable jungles here: a real concrete jungle is here!
11. But this is Lenin Avenue, one of the main streets of the city of 50 thousand people!
12. The double tree grew through sewer hatch and rushed to the sky. The tree grows in the courtyard of one of the schools: powerful, dense, 15 meters in height.
13. One of the main official prohibitions is not to enter buildings. They say that it is dangerous and they can collapse at any moment. But it’s impossible to be here and just walk the streets!
14. If you really want to, no one will stop you from entering empty high-rise buildings. The most interesting ones are 16-storey high-rise buildings, they offer excellent views. It’s better not to go to those with coats of arms: they are really in very poor condition, plus they are in the center, it’s easier to “burn yourself out” there.
15. How nice life was in 1986: no intercoms, no iron doors! Come in, comrade, it's open! And they didn’t put air conditioners on the facades, they simply didn’t exist. Although they have already begun to dabble in home-made glazing of balconies...
17. The inside is very similar to the 16-story buildings of the Moscow series, a strange feeling immediately arises. Such tall residential buildings are rarely found abandoned on the territory former USSR, so you immediately feel that Pripyat is a special place.
18. Mailboxes...yes, in some houses and in residential entrances there are such!
19. For a building that has been empty for so many years, the order is almost perfect. Almost all residential buildings whole elevators, no graffiti on the walls - graffiti can only be found in the center. They were made after the accident. I was lucky to find an apartment with intact batteries: today it is very rare, over the past 15 years the city has been plundered quite well. But can you imagine what it was like here in the early 2000s? Everything is whole!
20. People left their apartments for three days, not knowing that they would not be able to return home even after thirty years.
21. In some apartments the glass is intact, while in others it is broken. But it’s not the vandals; they simply didn’t reach many houses. Wind. Although looters swept through Pripyat like a hurricane twenty years ago, most of the contents of the apartments were taken away by the liquidators of the accident: furniture to a burial ground, some equipment for storage to stores. The Rainbow store still has a warehouse of old stoves, sideboards and pianos.
22. We go up to the top floor. We pass by the machine room. The door is open, the equipment is opened, but not taken out. The copper windings of the motors were first removed from the elevator equipment. In general, copper cables are the No. 1 target for looters.
23. We go out onto the roof of a 16-story building.
24. In good weather, there should be a view of the nuclear power plant and the Fourth Power Unit from here, but in the fog you can’t even distinguish the city. But look how overgrown its streets are
compare with a photo taken from exactly the same angle in 1995.
25. We continue our walk around Pripyat. One of the most recognizable places, the corner of the Rainbow store with bright yellow telephone booths. And one of the very first childhood memories of the Chernobyl tragedy: a television picture with this particular house and booths was forever etched in my memory. And the residential building where the store was located was called the “White House” because the entire city elite lived in it, from the director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to the head of the railway station Yanov. 4-room apartments are commonplace there.
26. The advanced Soviet nuclear city was richly decorated with all kinds of communist slogans. “May you be a warrior, not a soldier.” There is also a story about this sign that a day after the accident, some joker climbed onto the roof and knocked down the first letter “a,” which is why the inscription acquired a completely different meaning. Later, the entire inscription was “put” on the roof, but a few years ago illegal “self-propelled vehicles” raised the letters back.
27. Hotel “Polesie” on the central square of Pripyat, next to the Energetik cultural center. Little remains inside. In general, in Pripyat it is more interesting to walk as far as possible from the center, where there is a much greater chance of encountering interesting artifacts rather than bare walls. The hotel, like some other facilities, continued to operate for a long time after the accident: dosimetrists lived here to monitor the level of radiation in the city.
28. Awesome neon signs! How I would like to see with my own eyes how they worked. If they ever invent a time machine, I will definitely return to Pripyat in 1985.
29. Graffiti with bears appeared on the building of the Energetik Palace of Culture recently, I haven’t seen it in other reports. No real bears have appeared in the city, but packs of wild boars regularly run around the city. Sometimes wolves come in. Semyon the fox also lives in Pripyat , he often comes out to guests. Almost tame, here is his portrait. But there was no trace of the domestic cats and dogs. Although they were not taken out of the city, the residents were not allowed to take their pets, they had to be left behind, they gathered in packs and attacked. on the liquidators. They say that at some point they were all shot... is it true or another Chernobyl myth?
30. The disaster occurred a week before one of the main Soviet holidays, Workers' Day. Cultural workers prepared for it, printed and drew posters for the demonstration. They remained standing in the corner of “Energy”.
31. One day for a trip to the Zone is very little, especially in winter, when daylight hours are short.
32. I was in the city for the first time, and could not remember the names of all the objects. I don’t remember what kind of building this is with a beautiful mosaic, either a club or School of Music. The infrastructure in Pripyat was excellent, Soviet years they really cared about the comfort of scientists, so working at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and living in Pripyat was considered a great success, the best brains of the country came here.
33. Cinema “Prometheus”...click on the arrow to the right, see what it looked like in the 80s. Today the place is almost unrecognizable. Not a trace remained of the fountain, everything was overgrown with trees, and the sculpture of Prometheus was moved out of harm’s way to the territory of the nuclear power plant, thanks to which it has been preserved to this day (click on the arrow again).
34. The famous amusement park with its yellow Ferris wheel turned out to be not as grandiose as I imagined. I was even disappointed... the attractions themselves made the cat cry, besides the wheel and the race track there is only a carousel and swings. The park is very tiny, how could everyone fit in it? The Ferris wheel was supposed to be opened only on May 1, 1986; it was a gift for the holiday and never had time to work. Here's another legend. In fact, many people were able to ride the wheel, and not for free. Below I will quote the recollection of one of the former residents:
I rode it myself. And not for free, I bought a ticket. I wanted to ride the cars, but I couldn’t get a chance to ride them - the crowd was huge. But there were significantly fewer people willing to take the wheel. But the woman who managed it apparently did not have time to study the instructions on how to seat people correctly, so it turned out to be a serious incident. We had a great time then. This worker put people in each booth. And when half of the wheel was tightly filled, and the other, on the contrary, remained completely empty, the wheel spontaneously broke off abruptly and began to roll up and down, seeking balance, until the loaded booths ended up at the bottom of the wheel. The sight was creepy, because... the axle on which the wheel was attached wobbled greatly. It felt like the wheel would fall on its side. Some of the boys who were lower down jumped off in all directions. The woman herself was very scared. Turned off the wheel. When it stopped, she began to turn it on and off little by little, first from every second booth, then even less frequently, until she had dropped everyone off. We were lucky, we did 2 more laps for free. Maybe because of this incident it no longer worked, or maybe some flaw was discovered in it. We rode exactly a week before the accident, because I only came home to Pripyat on weekends and was at a pedagogical practice in Polesskoye. This is the kind of fact that took place in the history of the cultural park that never opened.
35. The attractions smell very strongly, the iron collects all the radiation, so I don’t advise you to linger in the park. Especially standing near the race track. I didn’t know about this, I stood there taking pictures, but my fellow travelers pulled me back.
Later it turned out that the park is generally one of the dirtiest places in Pripyat. The dirtier places in the center are only on the square in front of the Energetik Palace of Culture and the Polesie Hotel.
And in the neighborhoods there is surprisingly little radiation. The second most infested place within the city is the river pier. We will go there again.
36. Beautiful bridges over a small stream on the way from the park to the central square.
37. It was unbearably sad in the abandoned school. It seems like I’ve seen all this dozens of times in pictures, like someone wrote their name and class at the time of study in ’86 with chalk on a blackboard, but it touches your soul. The children of Pripyat took the tragedy especially close, and some of them have already tied their adult life with the city, making films, conducting research and organizing tours to the Exclusion Zone.
38. Some school interiors and artifacts. Browse through the gallery.
39. Where are you now, Nikolai Korotkikh?
40. The third school is in very poor condition, the inside is 100% damp. And the building of school No. 1 has already collapsed.
41. Children's gas masks on the dining room floor.
42. Details of the past: old road signs, a handle from a diplomat and a cap from Soviet kefir.
43. Pripyat was a young city in all respects. The average age was only 25 years old, and the city itself barely had time to celebrate its 16th anniversary... And how loved it was that they still can’t forget it?!
44. After the accident, there was talk that after decontamination, perhaps they would be allowed to return to the city and it would come to life again. It was carefully “washed” of radiation by liquidators, and many of them paid for it with their health and even their lives. The terrible truth was revealed later: Pripyat and the entire Chernobyl Zone will not be inhabited for a very, very long time, at least until the middle of the 21st century. Some areas were not cleared. We are standing on the border of the “clean” zone; further on the radiation will be stronger.
45. Abandoned river station. From here high-speed “missile” boats went to Kyiv or Belarusian Mozyr. There was an excellent summer cafe in the station building.
46. In the completely razed building, a beautiful, cleverly made mosaic has been preserved.
47. And in the soda machine there remained “that same” faceted glass from which all Soviet people drank, but no one got sick.
48. The second super dirty place within the city is this staircase. The sound is so loud that your ears are shaking, but there is no other way to get down to the pier...
49. Why am I telling this? So that you understand: on the one hand, a trip to Chernobyl in 2018 is easy and quite safe, but on the other hand, you need to be careful and should not walk on your own and without a dosimeter.
50. Remember the wooden pier on archival photography in the gallery five paragraphs ago? The landing stage was carried a hundred meters to the side by the current, it ran aground and partially sank. But still well recognizable...
51. Over three decades, the nature of the Zone has been restored, large lush mushrooms and juicy berries grow here. Some visitors, especially those who walked on their own and “survived” in the Zone for several days, willingly eat them: but in my opinion, it’s not worth it.
52. And now it’s time for some real horror. The building in the photo is the most terrible and dangerous place in all of Pripyat, this is not a joke or an exaggeration. Just the sight of him evokes horror. Any abandoned hospital is intimidating, but it's hard for me to put into words what I experienced there.
53. Medical unit No. 126, the only hospital in Pripyat, received the first victims of the accident: firefighters who extinguished the fire of the Fourth Power Unit went here immediately after the call. In the hospital basement, they took off all their clothes because they were contaminated. All the uniforms are still there, and even the most desperate people who visited the basement were freaked out by what they saw and are unlikely to go back a second time. Dust with “hot” particles flies in the air, the background reaches a million decays per minute (per square centimeter in beta). In the room with the remains of firemen's uniforms, you can see both 20 and 50 millisieverts per hour on the dosimeter.
54. In front of the entrance to the emergency room there are brand new boots that have not been worn at all. Someone threw it away, and this someone was clearly in that very basement
55. Of course, we didn’t go into any dungeons, but a walk around the first floor was enough.
56. Yura measures the background near the reception desk in the hospital. The Geiger counter squeals like a butchered pig. The readings are off the charts - 50 thousand times (!) higher than normal.
57. This is the sound of a firefighter’s balaclava, once pulled out of an ominous basement. Later, a metal tablet was brought here and placed next to it: touching such a radioactive thing, much less moving it from place to place, would be dementia and courage.
58. Radiation is the main reason why Pripyat is still relatively well preserved, even among the looters there are few fools.
(Yura corrected: no, of course not, it’s just that this is a restricted area, they can give you a prison sentence for taking away goods. And it’s a long way to walk from the border of the zone, and driving illegally by law means giving a car to the first cop)
59. And here is a clear reason why people are asked not to enter the buildings... Now is the time to go to the Zone. The farther, the more the city will collapse, many places will soon simply not remain: without the help of people, by the forces of nature itself, they will disappear forever under piles of unnecessary concrete.
60. What's left of the bookstore. It was his roof that caved in in the previous photo.
61. The collapsed wall of the first school revealed a wonderful stand about the methods of party propaganda.
62. Despite everything, this dead city did not die completely. Until the early 2000s, life was in full swing here; Pripyat enterprises worked for the employees of the nuclear power plant. They didn’t live here, but they came here. And the Chernobyl nuclear power plant stopped generating electricity only a year ago in the 21st century, because the three other reactors were completely operational! They were gradually closed, the last, 3rd block was stopped in 2000 according to European requirements.
63. Now in the nuclear city they heat with wood...
64. The laundry of Chernobyl NPP employees still operates here to this day: yes, yes, the station is still functioning and several thousand people work there. Their clothes need to be disinfected, and there was no better place.
65. At the same time, radiation hazard signs are painted over.
66. On the way back, in the evening, we drove past the nuclear power plant itself. Unlike Pripyat, I experienced absolutely nothing there. Although I saw it with my own eyes for the first time, the nuclear power plant itself is almost an exact copy of the Desnogorsk nuclear power plant in the Smolensk region; I did a report about it many years ago.
67. This is what the infamous fourth power unit looks like today, where the explosion occurred. Last year, it was covered with a new sarcophagus - an arch that will last a hundred years, and will allow the reactor to be dismantled and buried in parts during this time.
The idea to close the torn open mouth of the reactor arose almost immediately after the explosion. By November 1986, a “Shelter”, better known as a “sarcophagus,” was erected over the fourth power unit. The old sarcophagus was, in fact, a large concrete box (its construction took 400 thousand cubic meters of concrete mixture and 7 thousand tons of metal structures). Erected in haste, it nonetheless held back the further spread of radiation from the reactor for 30 years. However, its ceilings and walls have already become dilapidated and have begun to collapse. Construction of the second sarcophagus began in 2007. It was planned that it would be a movable arch that would cover the reactor along with the old sarcophagus, after which it would be possible to begin dismantling, decontaminating and burying the remains of the power unit. The project was originally going to be completed by 2012/13, but the deadline was pushed back due to financial problems. The new sarcophagus became the largest above-ground mobile structure: Since it was dangerous to build an arch directly above the old sarcophagus, it was built in parts at an assembly site near the power plant. The assembly and lifting of the elements of the first half of the arch lasted from 2012 to 2014; by 2015, the second half was also assembled. Afterwards, both parts were connected into a single structure. By November 2016, installation was completely completed.
68. Unfinished power units 5 and 6. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant should have been even larger... in 1986, the construction site was abandoned as is, along with the construction cranes, and throughout the USSR the construction of new nuclear power plants was urgently stopped: they still stand abandoned on varying degrees readiness.
69. Another new facility is spent nuclear fuel storage facility No. 2. It has just been put into operation. Another storage facility has begun to be built nearby, where waste from the operation of the Rivne, Khmelnytsky and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants will be stored. Now the fuel is exported to Russia, and Ukraine pays us about $200 million a year for this.
70. Time to leave the Chernobyl Zone. We get into the car and drive all the way to the Dityatki checkpoint. On the way we go through radiation control twice: everything is clean.
I hope my report was useful for those who have not yet been to Pripyat. Now you have definitely decided whether you want to go there or whether you will never dare to take such a trip. Those who have been will probably remember familiar places.
When you mention this city, everyone has different thoughts. Someone wants to get here and just take a walk. Someone will be saddened by remembering that terrible accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which claimed the lives of thousands of people. And someone will have an acute longing for home... for something gone... for something lost forever...
The city of Pripyat is the famous city of nuclear workers, built for workers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A unique experiment of the Soviet Union. Perhaps the closest place to the unfulfilled utopia of built communism. Specialists who came here were given warrants for apartments; on store shelves one could even find things that were not available in Kyiv. The city encouraged and supported in every way the creative and other hobbies of its residents. It was even partially resolved private business. This policy was completely atypical for Soviet Union, and even more so for a regime closed city, and it bore fruit. The city's population grew rapidly. The annual increase in population was about one and a half thousand people, more than half of whom were newborns. The average age of the population was about 30 years. The city of nuclear workers was rapidly expanding, land development was underway, new houses, schools, kindergartens were built, the plans remained to build a spacious embankment and the 6th microdistrict, until a terrible disaster struck...
Instead of an introduction:
Less than a day later, after the accident, due to the sharply deteriorating radiation situation, a plan was urgently developed to evacuate the city. Approximately 1,200 buses and 200 trucks were used for this. The city was divided into 6 sectors. Traffic routes and settlement addresses for residents were determined. On April 27, 1986 at 14:00, the complete evacuation of the city began. In two and a half hours, the city of 48 thousand was completely empty. Only the station workers who preserved Pripyat, employees of law enforcement agencies and other ministries remained.
Unfortunately, the city turned out to be too polluted. Living in it, despite the complex of decontamination works, turned out to be impossible. For almost 28 years now, the city has been abandoned and is gradually being plundered by looters.
Residents were allowed to return to their apartments for their belongings only at the end of the summer of 1986. By the May Day holidays, refrigerators were completely filled, and corpses of cats and dogs, left for a couple of days, were met at the doorstep. There was a terrible stench in the closed apartments. They took away mainly documents and personal belongings, and only those that the dosimetrists allowed to be taken. Until this time, the entire city (as well as Chernobyl and many villages) was undergoing decontamination: houses and asphalt were washed, the top layer of earth was removed and buried. The liquidators, accompanied by police officers on duty, climbed the fire escapes onto the balconies and threw all the things from there and took them to the burial grounds. After the residents took their belongings from the apartments, everything that remained was sent to burial grounds.
In we have done long haul to the center of the zone along the “western trail” and by the end of the day they settled into an empty apartment not far from the center of Pripyat. It's time to take in the atmosphere dead city. The day began with a tour of neighboring apartments.
Crumbling plaster and wallpaper coming off the walls is a typical situation in a Pripyat apartment.
The reason lies in high humidity and precipitation (most of the windows in the apartments are broken). During the liquidation of the accident, roofing material was removed from the roofs of houses and transported to burial grounds. It is clear that the waterproofing from such measures was violated. After rain, the upper floors of almost all houses leak, and moisture seeps into the lower floors. The photo shows large smudges and drip marks on the floor.
The windows of many apartments were broken. During the liquidation of the accident, all things were thrown directly from the windows. Many of them didn't even bother to open.
Due to the small amount of furniture (everything valuable was taken to burial grounds or stolen), the atmosphere of renovation reigns here. At the same time, mostly large-sized cabinets, sofas, plumbing fixtures and sometimes refrigerators with stoves remained.
Let's go upstairs. All exits, both to the apartments and to the roofs, are open. During our entire stay in the city, I did not notice a single intact castle.
This is such a dull landscape from above.
Near the houses there are still objects and things that were once thrown from the windows.
Let's go explore the city itself.
To my eyes, Pripyat appeared gloomy and gloomy in an autumnal way. There is complete silence everywhere. There are not only the usual city noises, but even birds. Only occasionally the wind rustled the leaves and slammed open doors and windows.
We begin our tour from the main stadium. Popular place among the tourist routes, so we got up early so as not to bump into the excursion group.
The entire stadium field, as well as most of open places city, overgrown with trees that in 28 years managed to grow to the level of the 4th floor and above.
Main lobby.
Corridor under the podium.
It is worth noting that the background radiation on the stadium field is quite high. In some places the dosimeter showed a value of 1000 microroentgens/hour.
While we were enthusiastically exploring the stadium, we heard the mechanical noise of an engine somewhere nearby. Everyone immediately missed them, as if they were on command. The next moment, two white vans pulled out from around the corner of a nearby house. There was no time to think, instincts took over. The next moment everyone was lying on the ground.
Meanwhile, the vans drove even closer to us and stopped some 50 meters away. Due to the lack of greenery, we could easily be seen in the low and sparse grass. Having quickly whispered, we did not wait to see what would happen and rushed from a low start to the nearest house. The building turned out to be a hostel.
Hiding on one of the upper floors, carefully looked out the window. There was a tour group on the buses. Some people glanced in our direction. Still would! Go on an official excursion and see “live stalkers” :) We were in no hurry to leave the building and decided to explore it a little.
An illegible slogan. Everything here is imbued with former Soviet patriotism and pride.
Activity room.
Let's go up to the roof.
To our pleasant surprise, there was an excellent view of the central park attractions. In the center is the famous Ferris wheel, which has become a kind of business card"ghost town"
Most open areas in Pripyat have been subjected to high level infection. This applies not only to squares and streets, but also to roofs. As I wrote above, one of the reasons for leaks in houses is the “removed” layer of roofing material during the liquidation of the accident. On the remaining pieces the background greatly exceeds the norm, on the cleaned areas only by dozens.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant complex is only 3 km from us, but because of the gloominess it seems as if the station is 10 kilometers away.
The official opening of the park was scheduled for May 1, but it is known that before the opening they made a trial run of the attractions. According to one version, it took place on April 27 to avoid rumors about the accident and distract from thoughts about evacuation.
And this is how a woman eyewitness recalls the opening of the park: “The Ferris wheel also managed to work before the accident. I rode it myself. And not for free, I bought a ticket. I wanted to ride the cars, but I couldn’t get a chance to ride them - the crowd was huge. But there were significantly fewer people willing to take the wheel. But the woman who managed it apparently did not have time to study the instructions on how to seat people correctly, so it turned out to be a serious incident. We had a great time then. This worker put people in each booth. And when half of the wheel was tightly filled, and the other, on the contrary, remained completely empty, the wheel spontaneously broke off abruptly and began to roll up and down, seeking balance, until the loaded booths ended up at the bottom of the wheel. The sight was creepy, because... the axle on which the wheel was attached wobbled greatly. It felt like the wheel would fall on its side. Some of the boys who were lower down jumped off in all directions. The woman herself was very scared. Turned off the wheel. When it stopped, she began to turn it on and off little by little, first from every second booth, then even less frequently, until she had dropped everyone off. We were lucky, we did 2 more laps for free. Maybe because of this incident it no longer worked, or maybe some flaw was discovered in it. We rode exactly a week before the accident, because I only came home to Pripyat on weekends and was at a pedagogical practice in Polesskoye. This is the kind of fact that took place in the history of the cultural park that never opened.”
In addition to the wheel, the park has a race track, boats and a children's carousel. There is little left of the boats now. One of them is pulled out into the middle of the square - teddy bears or dolls with their legs torn off are planted in it and staged photographs are taken against the background of the wheel.
The background radiation in the park greatly exceeds the norm. This is due to the fact that during the liquidation, helicopters that participated in extinguishing the fire at the station landed on the open area.
Somewhere nearby we heard a mechanical noise, and we decided to go to another place.
Information stands.
The Polesie Hotel was located next to the park. In April 1986, the hotel housed a dosimetry post and was inhabited by military personnel.
Main lobby.
Elevator hall.
Nature takes over houses from the inside, breaking through thick ceilings.
In most houses, looters cut out all the metal, but in the central part of the city, handrails and radiators still survived.
Looters are the problem of the current exclusion zone. They most likely work under the guise of zone security, because... the results of their labors are exported to industrial scale, and doing this as an illegal immigrant is almost impossible.
We go up to the roof.
The central square of the city. On the right is the building of the Energetik cultural center and the city executive committee. In the background are two 16-story buildings with coats of arms. We will climb onto one of them later.
A sign on a nine-story building between two towers reads: “May you be a worker, not a soldier.” It turned out that the peaceful atom is not so harmless... By the way, this house was lined with tiles brought from Togliatti, and people called it Togliatti.
Pripyat is one of the surviving monuments of Soviet architecture and style. Everything here is frozen in the distant 86th. Sectional panel houses, spacious streets, signs - all this conveys the spirit of the Soviet past. I was so used to the annoying advertising of large cities that walking along deserted streets with a complete absence of information garbage was a real pleasure for me.
The central street of the city is Lenin Avenue. People dubbed it "Broadway".
View of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant complex.
We move towards one of the high-rise buildings. By the time we descended, several tour groups had appeared on the square. It’s not far to go directly, but we go around the main square of the city in a roundabout way. Due to the lack of foliage, the streets are clearly visible, and all crossings have to be made with large detours, while the streets had to be crossed carefully and quickly.
Pripyat apple tree. The background is just a little higher than normal.
Throughout the city, here and there, the famous graffiti - “Shadows of Hiroshima” flashes. They depict the shadows of those burned during the flash nuclear explosion people drawn by a group of artists 20 years after the accident.
Meanwhile, several excursion buses appeared on the square at once.
Just in case, we don't stick our neck out too much.
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant from one more angle.
A little chronicle:
For six months after the accident at the station, there was dangerous job to clear the area of rubble and construct the “Shelter” protective complex, popularly referred to as the “sarcophagus”.
At the cost of incredible human effort and material costs, the task was completed in short time. After eliminating the consequences of the accident, the stopped power units 1 and 2 were restarted, and half a year later the third one was restarted. For almost 15 years, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant operated and generated income that made it possible to maintain the exclusion zone without additional subsidies from outside. However, under the influence of politicians, including from the European Union, a program was developed to completely close the station. In December 2000, electricity generation was completely stopped.
In April 2012, construction began on a large-scale arch-shaped structure “Shelter - 2”, which will be placed over the existing sarcophagus. The height will be 92 m, and the span of the arch will be 257 m.
The existing sarcophagus (the Shelter object) still provides insulation and protection from radiation, but does not allow work to remove nuclear fuel from the sarcophagus. The new protective structure must, in addition to protecting environment, both will allow us to begin work on processing the radioactive materials contained inside the Shelter object, and to carry out repairs to the emergency parts of the shelter itself. Official name the project: “New Safe Confinement”.
On this moment All work on the construction of the structure is planned to be completed in 2015, but this is only the beginning...
Robotic systems will be installed inside the structure for the step-by-step dismantling of the power unit structures and the remains of the reactor down to the base.
In the global perspective, it is planned to completely recultivate and transform the territory of the nuclear power plant into open field. It is unknown how long it will take to implement the entire project, but certainly not one decade. The specificity of the work is “jewelry” and mistakes here are not excusable.
St. Kurchatova.
More street art.
Finally, we took a group photo on the coat of arms. Andrey was filming the story on a video camera and, when showing the surroundings on Zoom, drew attention to the trio walking separately from the excursion groups. The silhouettes were in clothing atypical for a tourist, and seemed to be peering in our direction. Through the viewfinder it was clear that they were looking at us through binoculars. A few seconds later, the brave stalkers rushed headlong down the stairs
We were faster and ran into the next block. But they did not relax.
Studio.
All shops in the city had their own numbering.
Evening is approaching and the streets are gradually getting dark. There is no point in walking around the city at night - visibility is zero, and there is no point in flashing a flashlight once again, and we have already attracted attention to ourselves. Therefore, we go to our squat.
Evening is approaching and the streets are gradually getting dark. It’s better not to walk around the city in the dark - visibility is zero, and you can’t flash your flashlight too much, and we’ve already attracted attention to ourselves. Therefore, we go to our squat.
On the way to one of the apartments, we came across a piano. No matter how many years and how many curious hands try to play on it, it is still in working order.
Upon arrival at the squat, it turned out that we had no water to cook dinner. Where to find clean water in Pripyat, without capturing any emission particles? You won't believe it! - 10 meters from the radioactive waste repository. We set off with Andrei to search for her.
This is the city water supply center. Its location was suggested to us by the guys we met on the way to the center of the zone. If it weren’t for their advice, most likely I would have had to run for water all the way to the river embankment. Pripyat.
This place was the only one of our entire hike where the water turned out to be clear and did not have the taste of swamp mud.
We successfully completed the task and, after a hearty dinner and emotional gatherings, went to bed. Let me once again insert a photo of our squat. It’s already painfully cozy :)
Ahead of us is a visit to some famous places in Pripyat: the Energetik Palace of Culture, the Lazurny swimming pool, kindergarten, as well as a run through the city burial ground. More on all this in the next review!
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