Surely many heard about the places in which the explosions and accidents occurred, which turned them into ghosts. One of them is the city of Pripyat, the center of the exclusion zone in Chernobyl. Read about this settlement, its history in the article.
Meaning of the word "Pripyat"
This combination of letters is familiar to every person living in the CIS, and many foreigners, because the accident in Ukraine shocked the whole world. This word has several meanings:
- Town. Of course, the settlement, in which about fifty thousand people lived, first comes to mind, should a person hear this word.
- A village whose population did not exceed one thousand people.
- Pripyat is a river. This natural object with fresh water is the largest in the contaminated area. In addition, the river is full of radioactive substances, which are gradually carried out of the alienated zone.
Town
This is one of the nine cities of nuclear scientists built in the USSR. By the time of the accident he was sixteen years old, because he appeared in 1970. He was not populated to the limit: in the city could accommodate another twenty-nine thousand people.
The city of Pripyat in Ukraine was created for the normal functioning of the population. Wells functioned in it, a communications center was located, medical facilities, various enterprises, twenty-five shops and about the same number of canteens worked. There were ten kindergartens and several schools, one school, a palace of culture and a cinema, as well as an art school. Its inhabitants could play sports, because there were sports stadiums, one of the buildings was reserved for a swimming pool. All this suggests that Pripyat before the accident was a village with well-developed infrastructure.
Location
Speaking about where Pripyat is located, it is necessary to mention that this city is located in Ukraine, to be more precise - in the Kiev region. It is part of the so-called exclusion zone.
The dead city called Pripyat is dangerously close to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It and the reactor are separated by only three kilometers. Before the accident, NPP workers lived here, for which Pripyat was called the satellite of the power plant.
Answering the question of where Pripyat is located, it must be said that it was built on the banks of the river of the same name, which is located on the territory of two countries at once: Ukraine and Belarus.
River
As mentioned earlier, the Pripyat River is located in the infected zone. It is the largest water body in this territory. Its length is 775 kilometers, but only one third flows in Ukraine. On the banks of the river are cities such as Mozyr, Pinsk, Chernobyl and, of course, Pripyat. The source of the river is in Ukraine - in the swamp massif in the Volyn region.
This water body, spilling every year, removes strontium and cesium from the exclusion zone. In addition, fish living in the river are also contaminated with radioactive substances.
Crash
Pripyat is the city that suffered the most from the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On April 26, 1986 , an explosion occurred, about which the whole world learned. The fourth reactor failed during the planned procedure.
In the book of one of the employees of the power plant it is written how this happened. On the night of April 26, it was ordered to shut off the reactor. At first, everything went as it should be: its power decreased. Suddenly, she began to grow, and nothing could stop her. Alarm triggered. It was decided to turn off the system, but it did not work: two explosions of enormous power destroyed the reactor, throwing an incredible amount of radioactive substances into the environment - everything that was in the reactor at that time. The authorities of the USSR hastened to classify what had happened, but this did not work out: the radiation leak was so great that it was noticed in other countries.
This amount was enough to form an exclusion zone. Pripyat and a number of other settlements have become part of it. They still have not returned to normal levels of radioactivity. They are closed from strangers for security reasons and will be in this state for more than a dozen years.
The victims
Directly during the accident, only one person was killed at the workplace. The next morning, his colleague passed away. Over the next month, twenty-eight people died who helped stop the fire at a nuclear reactor.
In order to eliminate the fire, 69 firefighters arrived on the territory of the fourth reactor. They did their job, not knowing what the level of pollution was, because one of the radiation background meters was broken, and the second was under the rubble.
A few minutes later (at two in the morning - a little less than forty minutes after the explosion), firefighters showed signs of radiation sickness. They were brought to Pripyat, and twenty-eight people were transported to the Moscow Radiological Hospital. They were unable to help, and they died within one month.
Speaking about the consequences of the accident, it must also be said that not only people died. Plants and animals within Chernobyl and Pripyat did not withstand the level of pollution. A "red forest" was formed. Now he is buried under a layer of soil in a special repository.
Exclusion zone - what is it?
Pripyat in the exclusion zone is only a small part of the vast territory affected by the explosion at a nuclear reactor. Since this kind of explosion was the first on the territory of the USSR, two circles were outlined, in the center of which is a nuclear power plant. The radius of one of them is ten kilometers, and the second is thirty. It is believed that the territory of the outer circle may become safe for housing, but the inner circle will never accept a new population. Pripyat and the Chernobyl NPP building constitute the third exclusion zone, the smallest in area and the most dangerous.
Chernobyl and Pripyat are the most famous cities located within the exclusion zone. In addition to them, a number of other settlements are located here, which also suffered from an explosion in the fourth unit of the reactor. Among them is the village of Vilch, the village of Thick Forest. This already uninhabited area had a long history - from the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, people lived in it, and after the accident it turned into one of the places affected by radiation.
Evacuation
On the day of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant , an attempt was made to keep the incident a secret. However, on April 27, the entire population of Pripyat and nearby settlements was evacuated. Subsequently, cities and villages were built in other areas, where residents of the exclusion zone were stationed.
It was planned to evacuate the population for three days. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and people left their homes forever. All they had was documents and penny savings. The smartest villagers took the jewelry, the rest went to the looters.
Many people think that life in Pripyat has stopped after the accident. This is actually not the case. Three reactor blocks worked until 2000, and the people serving them lived in this city. Until the beginning of the third millennium, one store worked here, a sewer functioned, water and electricity were supplied here. People even swam in the pool. True, it was processed with plastic. Cleaning in busy places of the city was carried out up to ten times a day in order to carry away the settling particles.
Tourist routes
Currently, the dead city is one of the most popular tourist routes in the world. Not only residents of the CIS, but also foreigners want to visit this place, the atmosphere of which is imbued with sadness and silent silence. According to those people who managed to visit this city, now even birds do not sing in Pripyat. The only source of sound is the wind and the rustling of leaves. The most courageous travelers manage to get to this city. You can do this in many ways.
Official excursions
Indeed, there are a number of agencies that provide customers with the opportunity to visit this place with a group of other tourists. This legal way of penetrating into Pripyat allows you to choose a suitable route, consisting of a journey of one, two or three days. There is an opportunity to participate in an individual excursion and enjoy the view of the city alone. However, an experienced guide will be next to the tourist anyway.
What else to consider when choosing an excursion to Pripyat is that many buildings will not be able to visit. Some of them are in poor condition, there is a threat of their collapse. However, when traveling to this city with a group you can not be afraid to get lost, because a tourist will always be under the supervision of an experienced guide and he will simply not be allowed to leave other travelers. Such excursions are made in the safest way for health, and the risk of exposure to radiation is equal to zero.
Independent tourism
This illegal way of penetrating into Pripyat is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there are no restrictions - you can visit any building and not be dependent on other tourists. On the other hand, there is a risk of getting lost, running into wild animals that are slowly occupying the city, or entering a place with an increased level of radiation that is hazardous to health.
Most popular places
Any tourist who has visited this city knows that Pripyat is a very quiet and mysterious settlement. There are a number of places that do not go unnoticed by travelers and often become locations for photography:
- Residential buildings. Pripyat before the accident was a populated city, so its housing stock was quite rich. Here houses of various heights were built. Among them are five-, ten- and sixteen-story buildings, on the roofs of which the coats of arms of the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR are still preserved. There were two such houses. Five-story buildings are almost completely hidden under the canopy of overgrown trees. Behind the thick branches you can make out only the black holes of window openings without glasses. The fact is that during the evacuation things were dumped from houses, often without even opening windows. But high-rise buildings are available for visiting. The roofs of many of them are platforms for panoramic viewing of the city. Unfortunately, time takes its toll and buildings collapse. Perhaps soon they will not leave a trace.
- The "Azure" pool, a stadium and a sports hall. Now Pripyat is compared to a seedy village in which few people once lived. However, this is a real city in which sport has been actively developed. Created conditions for the popularization of physical education. There was a number of large sports facilities.
- Secondary school No. 3. The building of an educational institution often becomes the subject of photography. Not only the slogans on the walls, but also the inscriptions on the blackboards are noteworthy. Here the people who once lived in Pripyat leave contacts to contact fellow countrymen.
- Ferris wheel and amusement park. The authorities of the city called Pripyat planned to launch a new Ferris wheel in May, in honor of the Day of Spring and Labor. However, in order to divert the attention of the population from the Chernobyl accident, it was launched on April 26, 1986. The huge attraction worked only one day, and on April 27 it stopped forever.
- House of Culture "Energy". Here was a fighting ring where training and competitions took place. The scene of this building was advanced in equipment and was considered the largest in Pripyat and nearby settlements. In addition, in the house of culture were warehouses of various posters and portraits of politicians of the USSR. Some of them are still preserved.
- In 1986, the military lived in the Polesie Hotel. By the way, getting here was just so difficult - it was necessary to present a document stating that the person was really sent to Pripyat for a while and he had nowhere to live.
- Graffiti. Dutch artists, illegally sneaking into the city in 2006, painted the walls of the city buildings with graffiti in the form of shadows. Their drawings were called "Shadows of Hiroshima." It is believed that they are the shadows of people who died from the accident.