Pripyat - Ghost Twon (Chernobyl - exclusion zone)
May 2005 - After almost a year of planning and preparations, we finally succeeded in fulfilling the most important goal of opuszczone.com. We visited the world’s holy grail of forgotten places. There were four of us, each with somewhat different dispositions and expectations. We all felt an amount of uncertainty and risk- what made us want to go to a place that every normal person would stay away from? Passion.
A date that you all should know – April 26th 1986. The day the earth faced uncertainty. The accident in reactor no. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station brought the whole world to a frightful standstill. Thousands of victims, many still incurably ill to this day, tears, grief, memories. All this is closed off in a 30 kilometer zone around the reactor, where but a few individuals are granted admittance.
We were there.
It’s about 100 km from Kiev to the last town before the Zone. Further on, the landscape becomes more and more uninhabited, empty... with abundant vegetation. Small settlements, homesteads, encounters with a few people who’s culture and technology dates back to the 80’s. Road traffic consists of sporadic trucks carrying building materials – the repairs to the sarcophagus of the damaged reactor are ongoing.
The Zone – If you’re not on the list, you won’t get in. Guards have one job – not to let anyone in who hasn’t been authorized and to check that people leaving are capable of returning to world outside.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
At present, around 4 thousand people work in the Zone and 400 of them live there. Job assignments are temporary so that no one stays in the same place for too long. Radiation – the myth of glowing after exposure? It’s not true. After passing the first control point our Geiger counter strangely doesn’t change it’s readout – but it is indeed working. Radiation levels remain minimal on the condition that you stay on the street, not wandering onto the grass or into wooded areas where accumulation is highest. Instability only begins when we walk along past the Red Forest. The Geiger counter suddenly awakens and shows a value above the save levels of exposure suggested by our guide.
The nuclear power plant. Standing in front of the still ‘living’ monument of people’s incompetence you become aware of it’s size and impact on the world. Standing longer in this place isn’t possible because the radiation levels are rather high and our Geiger counter can’t keep up with the fluctuations.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
Pripyat - Once a city with a population of 50 thousand, it was established in 1970 out of the need to house workers from the nuclear power plant along with their families. It existed for 16 years. The city lies in the shadow of the nuclear power plant, separated by a mere 3 km, it was the closest to the accident and doomed to receive the largest dose of radiation and suffer the most tragic effects. Residents had to be evacuated within hours and left most of what they owned behind. Despite the safety measures, it was already too late.
The only person we see in the city is a guard checking for authorization – the third and last check point.
Today Pripyat is a dangerous jungle, unhindered vegetation growth is reclaiming the city along with encroaching wildlife. The danger is by no means only lurking in the local flora and fauna. The radiation levels here are several times higher than normal with the tendency to rise even higher in densely vegetated areas.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
We’re inside. We have little time, too little time, only enough to visit the most interesting places. We start with the tallest building (16 floors) from which you can see a panoramic view of the city, the power plant in the distance and the deserted landscape encircling us. ‘A deadly wasteland’. We have rainy spring weather. Trees obscure the view. Little time. We must return and stay longer.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
After exploring the tallest building, we see how few belongings the tenants managed to take with them, the visits by thieves and vandals which followed could not be avoided..
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
The house of culture – A place to meet, play, laugh, dance, celebrate. The municipal library. The place emanates memories of quiet music, wind in the trees. Emptiness.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
A kindergarden. This is where the future generations were brought up and educated, such a innocent world. I leave behind my personal reflections.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
Besides the theater, cinema, preschool, elementary school, library, house of culture, hotel, covered swimming pool, sports hall, amusement park and the unfinished sports stadium, uncovering the other hidden places and secrets of the city would require perhaps years. Posters lie in wait everywhere along with banners prepared for the May day celebrations that were to take place in a couple of days. The city was in the process of being decorated.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
A place so innocent and once filed with amusements and fun, is today one of the most dangerous areas of the city. The bumper cars effectively protect themselves from closer inspection by making our Geiger counter’s read out rise to unsafe levels.
.:: opuszczone miejsca - Prypeć - Czarnobyl ::.
This place can be safely populated again in about 900 years. Not much of the city may be left by then. A new, unbelievably secret life has been created here. People are but a superfluous addition. The passing of time rules here. We’ll visit again.
