Chornobyl & Prypiat. The Dark Page in Ukraine's History (50 photos)

city of Prypiat, 1970

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Two cities: Chornobyl & Prypiat (and many more small towns and villages around) are like horror spots on the Ukraine map.

If you haven't heard about Chornobyl, you are the lucky one. Briefly speaking, it's an area in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. It is partially abandoned area which is called the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (or just the Zone). It's abandoned because of a nuclear reactor disaster, which has happened April, 26th, 1986.

I've been to those place twice: in June, 2016, and in October, 2018. This post reflects my excursion in 2016. All photos are taken with Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone.

city of Chornobyl

The tables with the names of villages and small towns that had disappeared after explosion

Why has this disaster even happened? Sources say that it's all because of unsanctioned experiments on the reactor. Few plant operators decided to challenge the capacity of the reactor and did all improperly. The result is terrifying.

April 26, 2021 marked the 35th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster that divided our lives into "before" and "after". And the name of a little Ukrainian town became synonymous with a global tragedy.

And we have not overcome the consequences of the tragedy. It has forever changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and for hundreds of years has made more than 2,500 square kilometers of our state's territory uninhabitable. This catastrophe was the largest in the history of nuclear energy in terms of the number of people killed and affected by its consequences and in terms of economic damage.

"ARC" radar station in the Zone. Also known as "The Woodpecker" or "The Hidden Moscow's Eye"

The radioactive cloud formed after the explosion covered not only Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, which are located near the Chornobyl, but also part of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Ireland, France (including Corsica), Britain and not only...

The fire at the exploded reactor lasted for 10 days. Graphite finally stopped burning only on May, 10th.

You'll ask: how many victims? Thirty nuclear station employees have died in an explosion or radiation sickness within months of the accident. And 8.5 million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia received significant doses of radiation in the days following the accident. A great part of them also died pretty fast...

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I was walking around the abandoned buildings of Chornobyl and Prypiat with a small group of people. All you see on the photos is a mixture of real atmosphere and artificial entourage. Why entourage? I think, guides wanted to make their excursions more interesting, so they put some atmospheric scenery around. For example, these doll's parts below...

Most of furniture and other stuff from buildings have disappeared. Sad but true: all was sold by vandals and looters.

This graffiti below is also just an entourage, it was drawn by a modern artist as a memory of doctors who were saving lives after disaster.

And this is the fourth power unit which actually exploded (I look straightly at it)

A special sarcophagus has covered the fourth reactor same year, in November. But on this photo you can still see it uncovered.

And photo below is one of most amazing: giant catfish Prypiat river.

ЧАЕС — Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Ferris wheel is one of the symbols of Prypiat city

In the center: Mumu (Russian: «Муму»), short story by Ivan Turgenev

The next 2 photos below were taken from the roof of the nine-story building.

The nature of abandoned Zone is amazing... Without human's influence flora and fauna have become... prosperous! Green grass, clear air, blue water (for sure, it's radioactive but seems so pure).

Many species of plants, animals and fish have revived in this area. Especially there's a paradise for ornithologists in the Zone.

So, in this publication I showed you both sides: the horror and the beauty. And the beauty always wins after all...