Pripyat in October 2013

Not far from the city of Pripyat stands a well-known monument.

At the entrance, there is a checkpoint surrounded by a concrete fence resembling a location from a computer game.

Unlike Chernobyl, Pripyat is precisely that destroyed city resembling an apocalypse, but this apocalypse is the result of thirty years of abandonment by people, not a disaster.

Here, the Soviet Union is forever.

The streets of Pripyat resemble overgrown country roads.

With the only difference being that it is not a village at all, but a city with 16-story buildings. If you look closely at the overgrowth, you can see the houses.

Somewhere it is more overgrown, somewhere less.

In the overgrowth, sometimes you can find a mailbox.

Or a telephone booth.

Or other artifacts from the Soviet era.

Lazurnyy Pool

In fact, Pripyat has been in abandonment not only since the moment of the accident. Many factories and laboratories were reconfigured and restarted after the city was cleaned up. Accordingly, infrastructure such as electricity, gas, and water, as well as facilities for recreation and leisure, were needed to support work in the city.

Therefore, the swimming pool operated until 1998. The radiation background here is about 10-15 μR/h.

Wonderful wall clocks with a stopwatch.

Everything is in ruins in the changing rooms. What could one possibly be looking for here?

Fern grows straight from the floor.

Vocational School No. 8

A typical school building.

The devastation is terrible.

Classroom.

Textbooks and magazines are carefully arranged for tourists.

Grandchildren of Lenin.

Unlike notebooks and toys, gas masks are not scattered here by tour guides or tourists. Platinum and palladium were used in the filters marked DP, intended for these gas masks. Looters collected them and extracted precious metals.

The staircase to the roof — light shines through the frosted glass.

The roof is overgrown with trees.

Yubileyniy House of Culture.

Scoop

Special Engineering Works Service area.

A very picturesque place.

Here is located a huge bucket that was used to clear the debris of the Chernobyl NPP reactor. According to various data, it either contained roof slabs from the block or directly remnants of uranium and graphite rods.

The bucket emits a very high level of radiation. At a distance of one meter from it, the radiation level reaches 250-300 μR/h, and inside it, levels of around 15,000 μR/h were recorded, which is 500 times higher than the maximum permissible limit.

In reality, it’s not as scary: to receive an annual equivalent dose of radiation, one would need to spend over 10 hours inside the bucket. Therefore, briefly approaching it or even climbing on it is far from deadly.

They say that a recently found uranium particle under the bucket was emitting radiation up to 1.5 R/h. There are also rumors that someone once hung a huge bow on the very top of the bucket.

House roof

One of the high-rise buildings.

An insanely cool Soviet drawing.

The entire first floor is black, presumably indicating a fire occurred here.

Elevator.

Corridors.

Someone’s apartment kitchen.

Suddenly, a piano on one of the landings.

Great view from the roof.

The balconies are about to collapse.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is visible in the distance.

Central Square, amusement park, and nearby

Once it was a clean, bright, and spacious square where flowers grew and May Day demonstrations were held.

Soon there will be a forest here.

The famous Energetik House of Culture is one of the main attractions of Pripyat.

Hotel.

On the building, there is a sign: “Let the atom be a worker, not a soldier.” According to legend, once the letter “a” was replaced with the letter “у”. No reliable photo evidence has been found. There is a caricature in the gymnasium.

Radioactive moss is growing in the square.

Inside the cultural center.

Gymnasium.

Summer preschool.

Not far away, another symbol of Pripyat is visible — a Ferris wheel. It was supposed to be opened on May 1, 1986, but they didn’t make it. No one from the residents rode on the wheel.

No matter from what angles you shoot it, it is still impossible to convey.

Or maybe closer?

Well, perhaps like this, nothing more.

Well, here’s another snapshot.

In the center of the square, there is a radioactive hatch.

All the water flowed here, and now it is heavily contaminated with radiation. A meter above the hatch, the reading is 460 μSv/h.

Stadium.

Traces of life. It’s amazing what one can come up with: to come to Pripyat, climb into one of the scariest places in the city, probably at night, and get high. Surely an indescribable atmosphere.

The former city executive committee building, after the accident, housed a facility for processing radioactive waste.

The letter M has fallen.

Consumer services complex: post office, hair salon, watch repair, knitwear.

River station

Café “Pripyat” is located next to the pier.

Old water vending machines.

Pier.

Café.

Remains of a sign.

Maternity hospital

The hospital has a fairly high radiation background. It is said that in the basement, the suits of firefighters who participated in the accident cleanup are buried, and the radiation level in the basement exceeds 1 R/h, which is equivalent to two years’ worth of normal exposure. It is truly a dangerous place. In the hospital foyer, a piece of firefighter’s clothing is displayed, which also emits strong radiation.

Office or cabinet.

Journal of abortion records. It turns out there were a lot of abortions in Pripyat.

A piece of an interesting wall.

Newspaper or gazette.

Dressing room and foyer.

High School No. 1

Last year, the building partially collapsed.

Jupiter Factory

The Jupiter factory is located in the least affected by radiation area of the city, as it is surrounded by dense forest. After the accident, the factory continued to operate for a long time, until the late 90s. Officially, the factory produced various consumer goods such as speaker cones for tape recorders, but in reality, it was involved in the development of more serious military complexes.

Devices and components are scattered everywhere.

A pile of various watches.

Signboard or signage.

Some kind of room.

Lobster.

In the director’s office.

Cash desk or ticket counter.

Factory premises or plant territory.

One of the buildings was designated for the processing of radioactive waste.

Here, a bunch of Soviet posters “At the Production Site” were discovered. Couldn’t resist and filmed all of them.

A wall with cranes, to make the process of radioactive waste processing less monotonous.

Rusty bus.

Police station

I’m sorry, it appears that your message is incomplete. Could you please provide the text you’d like me to translate?

Primate enclosure or monkey enclosure.

Quite funny cards of the arrested individuals. Someone was wandering around drunk, someone was yelling at night, someone was sleeping on a bench. The police in Pripyat were strict in their work.

Vegetation

In Pripyat, large fruits are indeed found. Unfortunately, the author did not stop next to the tree bending towards the ground under the weight of ripe apples, so they cannot judge whether the apples seemed unusually large and colorful to them or if it was a particular variety. Therefore, I won’t draw any conclusions about radiation effects. Even in the highly contaminated Red Forest, only minor morphological differences in tree structures were discovered, understandable only to biologists.

Other apples are quite ordinary, and one of the participants even ate one. Berries also grow, looking completely normal.

Beauty Pripyat.