A City Without People - Prypyat, Ukraine

View from one of the rooms in Hotel Polissya in Prypyat

Yesterday I went on a trip to the city of Prypyat and the nearby Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station, formerly known as the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station. Edna arranged it all for my birthday/Christmas present because she knew that I have been fascinated by what happened there ever since working at a nuclear power plant in California when we first got married. It was an amazing opportunity to visit the city that had once been the jewel of the Soviet Union, but had to be completely abandoned with only a two hour notice. (It was replaced by the city of Slavutych, an engineering feat in itself. You can see my post on Slavutych by clicking HERE.)

Over the years the city of Prypyat has been looted and vandalized, but you can still see that it was a beautiful city at one time. Even though it stands in ruins, I can imagine how life there must have been a relative paradise compared with other Soviet cities before the Chornobyl disaster. The true tragedy wasn't the actual accident, but the failure to inform people of the accident and the high levels of radiation they were being exposed to. The 43,000 plus residents of Prypyat weren't told of the danger for almost two days when they were finally evacuated. Had they not been evacuated they would have suffered a lethal dose in four days.

The accident at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station and the lack of government intervention to protect the people affected by it is very personal to us. We know so many people who were physically affected by the immediate fallout and children who would later be born with birth defects attributed to the radiological release from the accident. Our neighbor Olya told us how people here in Bila Tserkva, including herself, were outdoors breathing in radioactive particulates because they weren't told about the accident. Even after the accident was made public, people were told that there was no danger to their health. She told us that the doctors suspect that a bone disorder she has is related to her exposure.

The road into Prypyat with the name of the city and its founding year of 1970

Then: The palace of culture "Energetic", shortly before the April 26th, 1986 accident.

Now: January 4th, 2010, almost 23 years later.

Not to be confused with the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station, the town of Chornobyl is 18 kilometers south of where the accident occurred. It had a population of 14,000 people at the time, but now it is home to 250 security, fire department, and monitoring personnel. They work on a 15 day rotation to reduce their exposure. The city of Prypyat is only 3 kilometers from the site of the accident.


Although the reactors have been shut down since December 2000, it still serves as an active power station to control the distribution of power.


This is the site of reactors 5 and 6 that were due to be completed in October of 1986. After the accident the construction was immediately halted and the cranes haven't moved since.

Standing in front of the structure containing reactor number 4 that exploded on April 26th, 1986. Reactors 1, 2, and 3 continued to operate until they were shut down in December 2000.

View of reactor number 4 from the roof of Hotel Polissya in Prypyat

This amusement park was due to open on May 1st, 1986 to coincide with the International Day of Worker's Solidarity, but the city was evacuated just a few days before. Children never got to go on these rides.

Never to be used

Hedgehog in the Fog

The palace of culture Energetic and Hotel Polissya in the city center

This is a snack bar on one of the floors of the hotel. The last people to stay here were the scientists, radiation experts, and Soviet government officials who were assessing the damage after the city was evacuated. They later realized that they had been exposed to lethal levels of radiation.

One of the many abandoned apartment buildings

Frozen in Time: a view from an apartment window

A Soviet Russia newspaper from May 6th, 1984

A symbol of power

A crumbling hallway in the sports complex

The high dive above a pool that will never see swimmers again

City restaurant and the palace of culture Energetic

The entrance into the palace of culture where community activities were held including sports and theater.

The gym inside the palace of culture. "Strong - Bold - Agile"

Ironically, this mural inside the palace of culture seems to be of people mourning.

As I left Prypyat, the sun broke through the clouds just as it was setting on the Soviet hammer and sickle atop this apartment building. The disaster here began a series of events that would eventually lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union.

My time in Prypyat was a surreal experience. At times it was so quiet without the normal sounds of automobiles, electric appliances, or bustling crowds of people that it gave me a very eerie feeling. Most of the buildings and fixtures inside were familiar to me. Not much has changed in the last 23 years and several times I found myself thinking about the thousands of people who should have been there living their lives. Prypyat is a memorial to all those who died, are suffering, and have yet to suffer from what happened on the 26th day of April, 1986.

A Monument a Day #16 - Chornobyl Victims Memorial

Memorial to the victims of the Chornobyl nuclear accident

This memorial was dedicated by President Victor Yushenko on the 20th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster. On April 26th, 1986, there was an explosion and fire in reactor #4 at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station near the city of Prypyat (the city has been abandoned since it was evacuated). Bila Tserkva is located in the Chornobyl region for purposes of government assistance to survivors. Many of the emergency personnel and doctors from Bila Tserkva participated in the emergency response to Chornobyl and the massive cleanup that followed.

There are no exact statistics as to how many people have died or have been physically harmed by the radiation release at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station, but it is in the tens of thousands. The effects on future generations can not be estimated.

There is a good documentary that explains the accident and the details of the cleanup and government cover up of the disaster. Here are the links to the parts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

The Chornobyl Memorial is located at: 49°47'8.18"N 30° 9'16.88"E

(Славутич) Slavutych, the Newest City in the Soviet Union

On Tuesday we decided to take a drive out to the city of Slavutych with Jake and Anya Knotts. What makes Slavutych so interesting is that it was a planned Soviet city built to house the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station after the city of Prypyat had to be abandoned. Prypyat had formerly been the newest city in the Soviet Union when it was constructed in 1970. Its 50,000 residents were evacuated 36 hours after reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Plant suffered a meltdown on April 26th, 1986. With the aide of 1,200 buses, the residents were removed from the city, minus their belongings. They were told it was temporary, but no one was ever allowed to return.

In October of 1986, construction began on the city of Slavutych, the old slavic name for the Dnipro River. The first residents began moving into the city in October of 1988. The city was literally carved out of the forest and this was very obvious when we drove into the city. The city has a population of about 25,000, but it feels more spread out for a Ukrainian city of that size. The first thing we noticed were all the homes that resembled American track homes all built alike and in straight rows.

The layout of the city and even the style of some of the buildings reminded me of several U.S. Army Posts I've been on in the past like Fort Benning or Fort Lewis. It just seemed to have a very deliberate and planned feel to the whole place. The city was also unusually flat compared to other Ukrainian cities we've seen. I learned later that this was because the land had been leveled so that two meters (six feet) of uncontaminated soil could be brought in to build on.

Slavutych is architecturally unique as a city. It was built with eight different distinct sections. Each section was built with workers and architects from the Soviet Republics of the Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Estonian SSR, Georgian SSR, Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Russian SFSR and Ukrainian SSR.

Slavutych is located 45 Km (28 miles) from the ghost town of Prypyat and 50 Km (31 miles) from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. Although the plant was shut down in 2000, about 3,000 (down from the original 9,000) workers still work there to monitor and maintain the spent fuel stored there. A train travels from Slavutych crossing the border of Belarus twice to transport the workers to Chernobyl. The city of Prypyat is located in the Kyiv Oblast and while Slavutych is considered part of the Kyiv Oblast, it is completely surrounded by the Chernihiv Oblast. The best comparison I can think of would be if Los Angeles was considered to be part of the State of Arizona although it is located in the State of California. Interesting.

Each of the eight kindergartens, like the one above, have their own indoor swimming pools. The quality of life in Slavutych is much better than most cities in Ukraine and it has a significantly high birth rate and a low mortality rate. We didn't notice any wells for water like we're use to seeing in other cities, with good reason, but it left me wondering where their water does come from.

It was just really strange to see so many straight, well maintained roads and sidewalks. It's just not something you normally see in Ukraine. About 20% of the people live in one to two family style homes and most of those had green lawns complete with sprinklers rather than the usual vegetable gardens. Some of the homes looked similar to ones we might have come across back in our home town of San Luis Obispo, California. It was definitely strange to see some of these neighborhoods in Ukraine. It was even stranger to know that all of it was built by the Soviet government a mere twenty years ago.

There were no trees planted earlier than twenty years ago in Slavutych except for the pine trees that they left when they cleared the forest. This gives the city a strange look as you survey the neighborhoods and town square. Jake said it reminded him of the movie The Truman Show where the main character unknowingly lived on a movie set. That's exactly what it felt like.

Near the town square is a memorial to the victims of the Chernobyl accident with pictures of those that died immediately following the accident. The murals on either side of the memorial had an eerie, "Soviet denial" feel to them especially since they were in English.

We all enjoyed the time we spent in Slavutych especially since the overcast skies gave it an even creepier feel than normal. I was fascinated by the whole concept of a planned city and the determination of the Soviet Union to build its Utopia despite the devastation of the first. Slavutych was the Soviet Unions newest city and also a symbol of its downfall and global embarrassment. I can't think of anywhere I've ever traveled that comes close to the mystique of Slavutych. The next city I want to visit is Prypyat, where guided tours are available.

"We value calmness, security, and comfort in Slavutych!"

Just don't pick the mushrooms or berries in the surrounding forest because they still contain high levels of radiation.