"Forty years ago, the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, also called 'Atomgrad,' was the pride of the Soviet nuclear energy industry. The future looked promising. Pripyat was just 3 kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which the leadership of what was then the Soviet Union planned to make the biggest of its kind."
"When Reactor 4 exploded on April 26, 1986, the city had only existed for 16 years. Pripyat was made up of 160 buildings, with 13,500 apartments, 15 kindergartens, and five schools."
"Volodymyr Vorobey leads a DW reporter through the undergrowth. 'Here's Lesya Ukrainka Street, and our house, number 18A, where I lived on the ground floor with my parents and elder brother,' the 58-year-old says."
"'That was my chair, with a padded foam seat,' Vorobey recalls as he stands on the balcony of his former apartment, surrounded by the remnants of daily life untouched since the sudden evacuation."
Pripyat, established as a model city for the Soviet nuclear industry, was abandoned following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The city, which housed 13,500 apartments and various amenities, is now overgrown and derelict. Volodymyr Vorobey recalls his childhood home, where he lived with his family. He reflects on the memories tied to the remnants left behind, including personal belongings and the state of the buildings. The once-promising future of Pripyat has been overshadowed by the consequences of the nuclear explosion.
Read at www.dw.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]