More than 35 years have passed since the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl became the most devastating catastrophe of its kind in human history.
A routine test at the power plant went horribly wrong, and two massive explosions blew the 1'000-ton roof off one of the plant’s reactors, releasing 400 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Even hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on cleanup and literally untold thousands of people have been left dead, injured, or sick, the area itself still remains a ghost town, uninhabitable for the next 20'000 years.
Chernobyl today is indeed a place long since abandoned, yet it is still full of relics of its tragic past.
Pripyat, the town forged next to the nuclear plant, was meant to be a model nuclear city, a testament to Soviet strength and ingenuity.
Now it's known only as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, forcibly devoid of humans and since retaken by animals and nature itself.
Welcome to Chernobyl today, an empty shell haunted by its disastrous past.
Amusement Park
The Pripyat amusement park was only open one day: April 27, 1986, as entertainment for those preparing to evacuate the city following the April 26 Chernobyl disaster.
Festive decorations still linger near the haunting rides for the planned May 1, 1986 opening that never came. Its looming ferris wheel has become an unsettling icon of the nuclear disaster.
Schools
April 26 1986 was just another school day for the Pripyat children. The teachers gave the students iodine and the windows were tightly closed, but classes were not cancelled. They were allowed to go home earlier, not knowing that the next day at noon, Pripyat was empty.
Pripyat Secondary School No. 3 houses the most photographed collection of gas masks in Pripyat. Hundreds now lie strewn across the floor having been removed from storage by stalkers in search of the tiny amounts of silver within their filters.
Azure Swimming Pool
After the evacuation in 1986, Pripyat was not completely abandoned. The impressive Azure Swimming Pool was still in use by liquidators and other parties, years after the disaster. They kept it in operation until 1998, 12 years after the accident.
The building was considered to be the cleanest place in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, so many workers enjoyed this clean and inviting sports complex.
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2021
Kindergartens
There were many young families in Pripyat, the average age of the people was 26. Under communism, women, especially married mothers, broke through traditional ideas of women’s participation in paid, skilled, labour. For this reason, there were 15 kindergartens in the Pripyat area.
Those Who Saved the World
700'000 men were conscripted into the Chernobyl area to “liquidate” the released radiation from the Chernobyl Nuclear accident. The selfless efforts of these “liquidators”, miners, soldiers and firemen, are unparalleled in history. Sacrificing themselves, they prevented a potential secondary nuclear explosion that could have killed hundreds of thousands across Europe.
