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The Abandoned City of the Chernobyl Disaster | Pripyat, Ukraine

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Pripyat, Ukraine - once home to 50,000 people was swiftly abandonded immediately after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (Wiki).

For the past 22 years the city has been totally uninhabited with the exception of a few (about 300 or so) elderly people who returned to their homes in surrounding villages.

Today Pripyat remains an empty and dreary desert of concrete, wild animals, and rampant flora. There are plants busting through pavement to reach the sky and wild horses roam free through vast open fields…untouched for 22 years by manking, perhaps for the better.

These are some photos I pulled together from various sources around the interwebs - enjoy!

Photo of the control board at Chernobyl…before the disaster

(May be from Reactor 3…but not Reactor 4)

Pripyat before the disaster…it was a well-planned city - you can see the Pripyat pool in the backdrop:

Look at this amazing photo of the Pripyat city center…after the nuclear disaster:

The abandoned Pripyat Ferris Wheel:

Children were affected physically and mentally by this tragedy…so many of them got Thyroid Cancer from simply drinking milk that originated from cows that ate contaminated grass…Here are some children drawings that depict the disaster:

Another child’s depiction

Decontamination Team

Even better prepared

A Child After Radiotherapy

Relics of the Soviet Era…still remain — as nobody was left to even care to take them down.

Toys are strewn about all over… Items were scattered around by looters in the event’s aftermath.

Rogue art has been drawn inside the Pripyat pool…that use to stand in city center.

Life still thrives in Pripyat…twenty-two years later (Chernobyl happened in 1986)…wildlife like these Mongolian horses roam the open fields…and continue to breed

More wild horses.

After evacuation about 300 elderly people returned to Pripyat’s surrounding villages - to continue living their lives, however lonely, in their old homes. This lady went back to live near her son’s grave…he was a ‘liquidator’ - one of the people that went back to help clean up the disaster.

Pripyat cultural palace…COMPLETELY Abandoned

Pripyat Central Square — You can see that the woods have come into the city - most of the vegetation pictured is new…and only started growing after the disaster.

The above Images and Information Sourced from these websites :

Written by Lateef

December 17th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Posted in Ethnography, International Affairs

Tagged with , ,

5 Responses to 'The Abandoned City of the Chernobyl Disaster | Pripyat, Ukraine'

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  1. The photo of the control room may be from Reactor 3, not from Reactor 4. These control rooms were exact duplicates of each other.

    Also, Pripyat’s residents did not move back to their old homes. No one has lived in the city since the evacuation. There are approximately 300 elderly people (samosels) who moved back to their homes in some of the surrounding villages.

    The evacuation was fast, but most, if not all the items scattered around the buildings were strewn about about looters, who hit the city hard.

    I personally visited the Chernobyl area for two days in June 2006 with a friend and former resident of Pripyat. We toured the Chernobyl Plant (including the Reactor 4 control room), several of the abandoned villages, and Pripyat. I have posted a photo journal of my trip at:

    My Journey to Chernobyl: 20 Years After the Disaster

    Mark

    17 Dec 08 at 1:09 pm

  2. [...] con cancer, ni?os en horfanatos por deformaciones geneticas por la contaminaci?n radioactiva… The Abandoned City of the Chernoybl Disaster: Pripyat, Ukraine | machete | the blog Adem?s, es interesante ver como poco a poco una ciudad rebosante de gente poco a poco es devuelta [...]

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  3. [...] I’ve added a snippet here for you. This film was effectively banned for almost 20 years after its production due to the British government deeming it to disturbing for general consumption. And it is very real and disturbing but I feel we should see this type of thing from time to time to remind ourselves of  the consequences of nuclear disaster, be it willful use of weapons, or simply an accident such as Chernobyl which left an abandoned city. [...]

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  4. [...] away and never came back again, leaving behind everything that they had. That reminded me of other abandoned cities, for example the city of Pripyat, in Ukraine, after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Pripyat used to [...]

    The Fascination of Abandoned Cities

    7 Jan 09 at 5:14 am

  5. this is awesome

    malcolm

    24 Feb 09 at 5:00 pm

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