Abandoned Kansai

When people talk about the ruins of the Zone Of Alienation they usually say Chernobyl, but mean in fact Pripyat. As I already described, Chernobyl appears to be a rather normal countryside town, except for the fact that it’s populated just temporarily by its inhabitants.
The real ghost town in the area is called Pripyat, named after the local river that provided the nearby nuclear power plan with water. Founded in 1970 it was planned and built with the purpose of housing the people working at the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station, now known as the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Prior to the disaster it was the home to almost 50,000 people with an average age of just 26 years in more than 13,400 apartments in 160 buildings. The city had 15 primary schools, 5 secondary schools and 1 professional school, a hospital for 410 patients, 25 stores, 27 eateries, 10 gyms, 3 indoor swimming-pools , 2 stadiums and 35 playgrounds. At that time Pripyat was famous for its 33,000 rose plants and almost 250,000 shrubs – a green paradise about 100km north of Kiev. It was a city for privileged people with high incomes; the local police station nevertheless looks scary to this very day…
While the town of Chernobyl benefited from the east wind on the time of the disaster Pripyat got hit directly. To get to Pripyat you have to pass a bridge across train tracks, now called the “Bridge of Death” – a couple of children watched the spectacular lights during the accident standing on the bridge while the wind blew the radiation in their direction; they were amongst the first people to die… It nevertheless took authorities 36 hours to start the evacuation of Pripyat. To speed it up they told the population they should bring only necessary things as they would be back after three days – Pripyat is a ghost town ever since.
Nowadays, after almost 25 years (the anniversary of the disaster will be in April) it is relatively safe to enter Pripyat. Since the isotopes released during the accident were rather short-lived (and due to the work of 800,000 so-called “liquidators”) the radition in Pripyat barely ever exceeds one microsievert per hour – one exception would be the basement of the hospital were were strongly advised not to enter. Aside from natural decay the already mentioned liquidators were the main cause of destruction / vandalism in Pripyat. When new buildings in the not so severely contaminated Chernobyl were constructed, the planners weren’t able to provide enough furniture, so the liquidators took it from Pripyat since it wasn’t needed there anymore. So while most buildings in Pripyat are still standing a lot of them are actually quite empty, some vandalised by frustrated workers – other than that you can find a couple of graffiti all over the town, done by a French guy a couple of years ago. Other than that it’s 25 years of natural decay…
On our 15 minute ride from Chernobyl to Pripyat Maxim, the guide, asked us what we wanted to see first and since we had no specific plans we asked for a “Best Of” tour with spontaneous adjustments once in a while. We made a quick stop at the Pripyat City Sign right outside of the city where we could also have a look at some trees that died from the intense radiation at the time of the disaster (the so-calld Red Forest) – right next to them an abandoned building of the forest authority.
Pripyat itself, fenced off and guarded by another post who, once more, checked our permission papers, is pretty much reclaimed by nature. The streets are free since there are almost daily tours to the city, but they are in horrible condition – no road builders in Pripyat for 25 years… Most buildings are completely surrounded by trees and bushes, some of them are not even visible anymore from the streets.
The atmosphere in Pripyat is truly unique – very quiet, very sad, you can almost hear your own thoughts. Since we had our private guide and driver we were able to visit places to our liking. Luckily Maxim was a very relaxed guy who gave us enough freedom to roam; actually I spent at least half of the time by myself, although Maxim was always in sight or at least in calling distance. From an urban exploration perspective Pripyat is the ultimate location. In every other place of the world each building would be a one day exploration on its own. But Pripyat is so much more. It’s not just abandoned buildings, it’s history. It’s not an investor running out of money, it’s not a movie set – it’s the real thing. Catastrophic events happened there 25 years ago and pretty much everybody, even unborn at the time, knows what you are talking about when you mention “Chernobyl”…
Okay, this was the last wordy posting with few pictures about the Zone Of Alienation. From now on it’ll be all about the locations I’ve visited during the two days in the zone, in the same order I’ve actually visited them – with lots of spectacular photos.
(If you would like to know more about my trip to the Zone Of Alienation please *click here* to get to the “Chernobyl & Pripyat” special. For a map of the area please *click here*.)