After visiting Pripyat, the final stop on the Chernobyl tour was the town of Chernobyl. Before the evacuation in 1986, Chernobyl had about 14,000 residents.
During the Chernobyl tour, we walked past several different residential buildings in Pripyat. Some were several stories high while others stood only a few stories.
The following photos are from Public Pool “Lazurny” (Басейн “Лазурний”), which was located near several residential buildings on Sportivnaya Street in Pripyat. Strangely, the pool was in use until 1998, 12 years after the Chernobyl disaster. It’s considered one of the least contaminated places in Pripyat and was mainly used by liquidators. Liquidators were the military and civil personnel charged with limiting both the immediate and long-term consequences of the disaster.
Middle School #5 in Pripyat was one of the more interesting buildings we visit on the Chernobyl tour. It’s located in a residential area near the stadium, which was home to FC Stroitel Pripyat. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:
After walking through the amusement park in Pripyat, we found ourselves on a wide path lined by trees on both sides.
“What do you think this path is?”, asked the guide.
The amusement park in Pripyat was set up for use during May Day and Victory Day celebrations. Because the Chernobyl disaster happened just days before the important holidays, none of the attractions were ever used. The amusement park is one of the eeriest areas in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, yet it’s also the most photogenic.
Lenin Avenue was the main road into Pripyat. At the corner of Lenin Avenue and Kurchatova Street was 32/13 Lenin Avenue, a residential building with a furniture store on the ground floor. It was surrounded by a few public places and shops.
The highlight of my Chernobyl tour was a visit to the ghost city of Pripyat. It’s a city that was founded in 1970 for workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and had a population of just under 50,000 at the time of its evacuation on April 27, 1986. It has been stuck frozen in time ever since.
After Kopachi, the second stop on my Chernobyl tour was a visit to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Known as the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station during Soviet times, the plant is located a few kilometers from the city of Pripyat, 18km northwest of Chernobyl town, 16km south of the Belarus border, and about 100km north of Kyiv.