Stock & Art Photos from Chernobyl & Pripyat

Overview of the Chernobyl reactor and nearby areas

On the 26th of April, 1986, a series of catastrophic mistakes caused the explosion and fire resulting in the largest release of radioactivity by a nuclear reactor in human history. The accident took place in the building housing the number 3 and 4 reactors. In preparation for a routine shutdown of the reactor for maintenance the next day, the crew took it upon themselves to do some unauthorized testing of the reactor safety systems. When the power surged, they were unable to contain the reactor and there resulted in a large steam explosion and fire in the graphite control rods. It was this graphite fire that released that large amounts of radiation. It took two weeks to extinguish this fire, and the fallout blew with the winds (see map below) and contaminated a huge area of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus.

The city of Pripyat, built by the Soviets to house scientists and workers for the reactor complex, was not evacuated for a full day after the accident. Residents were told that the evacuation would be temporary, but as the magnitude of the radiation leak became apparent, authorities realized there was no safe way to bring residents back. The evacuation became permanent, and Pripyat was abandoned. The town of Chernoby, however, was spared heavy radiation, and still houses a few thousand workers doing remidiation work, operating a natural gas plant and doing government work.

View of the Ill Fated Reactor 3

The "Sarcophagus"

Reactors 5 & 6 Stopped Work

Bridge over the Pripyat River

Abandoned Highway

Does at Reactor 3

Rusting Cranes

Fallout Map

Overview of Pripyat

Entrance to Pripyat

The Red Forest

Cooling Tower Halted Progress

Looking Up Inside Cooling Tower

Structures Within

Access Ladder to Top

Structure and Opening

Stock & Art Photos from Pripyat Hospital

Below are photos taken from within the Pripyat Hospital. This is where many of the initial victims of the accident were taken. Later, the city of Pripyat would be evacuated when radiation levels were too high and patients from here were taken to other hospitals throughout Russia. Photos below show the crumbling condition of the building as well as equipment, furniture and other items left when the building was evacuated. Officially, the death toll from Chernobyl is 56, mostly those responding right after the accident. This hospital treated many of those cases of radiation poisoning. Of, course, the actual death toll is higher, but difficult to determine due to the fact that cancers and other symtoms took months or years to develop.

Stock & Art Photos from Pripyat Athletic & Play Facilities

Like many cities in the Sovite Union at the time, athletics were seen as very important to human development. Often, elaborate public facilities for dozens of different sports were built. Pools, various ball courts, weight rooms, gymnastics rooms, spas and saunas were built across the nation. The standout athletic performers were then recruited to the Soviet Olympic teams. Pripyat, being a city built for the scientific elite, had incredible athletic facilities, many of them heated and indoors.

In addition, like many larger towns in the Soviet Union, there was an amusement park for play. Some of this remains today but the conditions of this equipment are beginning to fail from lack of maintenance.

Stock & Art Photos from Pripyat Cultural & Visitor Facilities

Views of the hotel and cultural facilites in the abandoned city of Pripyat. This city was built for the elite of the Soviet union, for scientists and workers at one of the largest nuclear facilities of the country, Chernobyl. The city was built entirely from the ground up in the late 1960's for the opening of the first reactors in the early 1970's.

Chernobyl would continue to grow, and at the time of the accident in reactor #4, more reactors were under construction and expansion of Pripyat was continuing. Like athletics, the Soviet Union took its cultural life seriously. Pripyat had a first rate hotel for visitors with numerous restaurants serving items hard to find in other areas of the nation. Locals and visitors could take in theater and concerts in state of the art facilities. Opera to rock were perfored at the Pripyat theater building, lined with marble walls and heroic murals covering the walls. Pripyat also enjoyed a supermarket full of food and items almost impossible to find outside the confines of a city built for the Soviet science and technical elite.

Photos from Pripyat Elementary School & Children's Camp

This is view of a children's summer camp set in a now highly radioactive forest near Chernobyl. Animal figures painted on quaint wood cabins stand eerily alone in an environment that seems so pleasant, yet is full of decaying Cesium 137 which the area forests absorbed in large quantities.

The elementary school at Pripyat is among the first buildings in the abandoned city to start collapsing. Inside are classrooms for almost 1000 children on three floors. The school is abandoned in nearly the state when in May 1986 the city of Pripyat was evacuated. But, like in many parts of the Soviet Union, these types of buildings were poorly constructed and in Pripyat are collapsing to the extreme weather found in northern Ukraine.

Photos from Chernobyl Equipment & Ships

Much effort was thrown into the recovery effort following the Chernobyl reactor accident. Ships, trains and construction equipment were pressed into duty to contain the accident, evacuate people, bring in emergency workers and so on. But these trains, ships and construction gear quickly became contaminated. There was no economical way to recover this equipment and so most of it was damaged to make it uneconomical to reuse or it was simply abandoned. Today, nature is taking back tanks, ships, trains, cars, cranes and other gear. Its sinking into rivers and rusting in fields.

Stock & Art Photos from Chernobyl

Views from the town of Chernobyl. Despite having the name Chernobyl, this city actually fared well following the reactor accident. Prevailing winds took most of the radiation towards Belarus and towards the larger city of Pripyat. Today some 3000 people live and work in Chernobyl, mostly continuing remidiation work to permanently deal with the disaster or work for the Ukraine government or run the natural-gas power plant nearby. The city is still radioactive, and visitors are highly restricted, but, in a sense, life goes on in Chernobyl. There is, however, plenty of abandoned infrastructure here, the city population is much smaller than before and if you don't work here, then you don't live here.