Day 69 Continued...: Pripyat

Pripyat was founded in 1970 to house the workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It is located 3 km from the Reactors.

In 1986, when Reactor 4 blew up, Pripyat was home to 45,000 people.

There is no one there now.

After the disaster, the entire town was evacuated. The people were given 2 hours to gather what they could. Everything else remained behind.

Now, 23 years later, the contaminated town is slowly being reclaimed by the forest. But it sits, frozen in time, a snapshot into life at the end of the Soviet Union.






Sadly, in spite of the radiation risk, the town has been looted and stripped of almost everything. What remains is debris, and the buildings. The contaminated trees are slowly reclaiming the buildings and roads.. The main road into town is now barely wide enough for our Van, the trees and leaves scraping the sides.

We come out into the parking lot in front of the town Hotel. Moss and grass and small trees dot the cracked pavement. The radioactive contamination here is quite low among the buildings. We go into the Hotel and climb the steps to the top overlooking the city. There is a tree growing out of the floor on the top balcony.

From the top we gaze out over the city. Reactor 4 with the ugly Sarcophagus is easily visible 3 km away on the horizon. The Cultural Center is straight down below us. We spend some time on each floor walking down the hallways littered with debris. We poke our heads into the tiny apartments, now stripped of everything. We are careful not to disturb anything. We are aware that each one was someone's home, and we want to respect that.







We walk over to the Cultural center, walk up the steps, and gaze at the crumbling, colorful mural on the wall. It seems out of place. We walk through the remains of the theater. All the seats have been stripped out, but the stage and some of the lighting is still there. We walk down hallways full of debris. Our dosimeter is almost silent. The radiation here is barely above background.






Outside we walk around a corner, and into view comes the famous Pripyat Ferris Wheel and the Bumper Cars. Abandoned and rusting, they are images I have stared at many times in the last 20 years. And now I am standing in front of them.




Cory and I are both as excited as kids, as we take pictures of the cars and then walk over to the Ferris Wheel. Cory climbs up on one of the smaller ones, and I snap a picture.





We are careful to run the dosimeter over everything before we touch it. The radiation is NOT consistent, and there are pockets of highly radioactive areas beside relatively safe areas. We are safe here, and I snap a quick pic of Cory.

We walk over to the giant Ferris Wheel. At it's base is a teddy bear laying on the ground, slowly being reclaimed by the earth. It was likely a child's toy, maybe dropped in the frantic time after the order to evacuate came. We imagine the children playing and riding the wheel, and laughing. It is quiet now except for the wind, and the beeping of our dosimeter measuring the radiation, which never stops.

We take more pictures. Cory and I sit on the Ferris wheel.









Afterwards, we walk over to the Super market, stripped of everything, except the aisle signs.



Finally, we venture down a path to the Pool. It is the cleanest building in Pripyat, with the dosimeter showing almost normal levels. We walk through the pool and the basketball court. There is a hockey net and a gymnastics springboard on the floor.

Cory bounces a few times up and down.








We exit the pool, and walk back to the Van, careful not to step on the moss (we were told not to).




We pile into the Van. On the way out, our guide takes the Dosimeter and holds it out the window. As we drive down the road, it starts to climb.. .300.. .400.. 0500.. 0700.. 1.00... 1.30... 1.700... 1.900.... then it changes to a steady 1.

"Off the Scale" intones our guide.

It then drops down as suddenly as it rose. We ask why, and he explains that this is where they buried all the radioactive trees, 2 meters down.

Cory and I wonder why they would build the road out over it, and whether we will be glowing for the rest of the trip.

We leave the Zone after having our Van checked by a technician, and being personally scanned by a machine that measures our radioactivity.

We pass.

I can say without reservation, visiting Pripyat was one of the most memorable experiences of my lifetime.