For as long as I can remember I have always had a fascination (and unhealthy obsession) with ghost towns. There is something so unnerving yet intriguing about visiting a completely abandoned place where people once used to live before something happened to change their lives forever.
On the morning of 26 April 1986 at precisely 1:23am reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant experienced an unexpectedly huge surge of power, which caused explosions in the core of the reactor. The fire which resulted from these events sent a large cloud of extremely radioactive particles into the atmosphere. This cloud was then blown over most of the western Soviet Union and Europe. The town known as Pripyat was affected substantially and now exists as a ghost town.
It has been estimated that around 985,000 premature cancer deaths have occurred since that day as a result of radioactive contamination received from the incident.
After seeing some pictures of Chernobyl online and learning that you could actually take a tour of Chernobyl and the ghost town of Pripyat, I knew that I wanted to work this experience into my time in Eastern Europe.
It was probably the thing I was most excited about on my entire trip.
Paying our respects to the Chernobyl firefighters who lost their lives.
After congregating in Independence Square a group of around 20 of us boarded a coach to begin the two hour trip to Chernobyl. The first checkpoint was the 30km exclusion zone checkpoint, marked by a barrier across the road. It was guarded by policemen who checked all of our passports before allowing us to continue on.
Throughout the drive a DVD was playing giving a history of Chernobyl and showing horrific photos and video of the aftermath, with unsettling interviews with the survivors.
Needless to say we were all starting to feel a little bit apprehensive by this point.
As we approached the 10km exclusion zone I began to notice more and more derelict buildings in the distance. No longer occupied, they had trees growing in and around them, and some were completely destroyed. We all grew silent as we imagined how the rooms looked now. On the DVD they showed one lady returning back to her old home for the first time 25 years later. Everything was just how she left it.
When she was evacuated she was told to take nothing and that she would return in a few weeks.
Before heading into Pripyat we were taken into a small room to sign a waiver stating that if any one of us were to contract cancer or any other health issue the tour company was not to be held liable.
As an extremely anxious hypochondriac, I was beginning to wonder if taking this tour was such a good idea after all…
But there was no going back now. I signed the form and we returned to the coach to drive to the town of Pripyat.
Pripyat 1970 sign
The town of Pripyat was founded in 1970 and its main purpose was to house the workmen of Chernobyl. At the time of the accident, almost 50,000 people were living there. In true Soviet Union fashion, the streets were typically named Lenin Avenue, International Friendship Street, Heroes of Stalingrad Street.
It’s hard to put into words exactly how it felt walking around Pripyat, and even now I don’t think I’ve completely managed to digest the experience.
Part of you just feels like you’re walking around a building site with smashed windows, books thrown everywhere, broken floors and ceilings. It’s impossible to understand the enormity of what happened.
Yet the other part of you starts to wonder how this town looked before the incident. You imagine the people going about their everyday lives, happy and completely unaware of the devastation that was about to occur.
This used to be their home, and now it’s just a graveyard of past lives and memories.
Our tour of Pripyat took us around apartment blocks, and hotels, to the community centre, the swimming pool, school and amusement park.
Pripyat apartment block
Hotel in Pripyat
The Pripyat Energetic community centre, which housed a theatre, library, and dancing room.
A faded mural on the wall at the community centre.
We stepped outside and went to visit Pripyat’s famous amusement park. I found it interesting to learn that the amusement park actually opened on the day of the incident. It was used to calm down and distract the residents of Pripyat whilst they were waited to be evacuated, so it was only ever used for one day.
The famous Pripyat ferris wheel
Broken down swing
Dodgems at Pripyat
I actually found visiting Pripyat’s swimming pool the most harrowing and unsettling experience of the tour. Just something about wandering around, looking in the changing rooms and seeing old swimming pool equipment lying around. For a moment I just stood there and closed my eyes and imagined what it must have been like 25 years ago – full of children laughing and playing without a care in the world.
Noticeboard outside the swimming pool
Diving boards at the swimming pool
We then got to explore one of the schools of Pripyat.
As a final stop we drove to the sarcophagus of reactor 4 – a massive concrete structure built around the reactor to prevent the radiation from being released into the atmosphere.
After a quick test to confirm that I was not radioactive, we were free to leave the exclusion zone and that concluded my tour of Chernobyl!
When I got back to my hostel at the end of the day, I wasn’t sure how I felt, and I’m struggling to put it into words now. It was an unsettling and uncomfortable day, and I felt strangely numb by the end of it.
Over the following weeks and months I definitely feel that it helped to put my life in perspective, and now whenever I’m feeling down and grumpy about something, I think back to the people of Pripyat who lost everything that day. Before I took the tour I read the following quote online “If you choose to visit these places you will never be the same person as you once were” and I think that sums it up perfectly.
A few days ago the Ukraine government cancelled all tours to Chernobyl, and it will no longer be possible for anyone to visit the site. I’m glad I got the opportunity to see it for myself and I hope my photos have given you an insight into what it’s like to wander around the ghost town of the worst nuclear fallout site in history.
What do you think? Given the opportunity would you have liked to have visited Chernobyl and Pripyat? Or am I completely insane for even wanting to go in the first place?!
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I am totally jealous I wish I had had the opportunity to do this, but your post sums it up well. I think it is very brave of you to go. It really does put things in perspective xx
George recently posted..In it for the long haul: Budget vs Normal Airlines.
It definitely does, and it was a lot harder than I was expecting it to be.
Why is that, Lauren? Was it harder emotionally? Physically?
How about the cost? How much was the tour?
That’s interesting that they canceled the tour after having just opened it up. Weird. I sneaked in 2004. :)
Francis Tapon recently posted..Belarus
What an eerie experience! It definitely is a ghost town. I can’t even imagine what it was like for the people there or for any of them to come back and visit. I don’t even know how I feel about all of this but thanks for sharing. It’s creepy, sad, and tragic.
Jeremy Branham recently posted..Where in the world am I?
That sums it up perfectly. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have to leave your home and never be able to return.
Good post, obviously a moving experience!!!
It was indeed!
Great photos, Lauren! Bummed to hear they cancelled the tours – glad you got in while you could.
Micah recently posted..Hammer and Sickle: Thoughts and Photos from Saigon
Thanks Micah! I freaked out when I’d heard they’d cancelled the tours as I thought it was due to unsafe levels of radiation! Apparently it’s just because the tour companies keep all the money instead of donating it to Chernobyl!
My sister used to be obsessed with ghost towns too, funny stuff! Hope you don’t have radiation poisoning now! ;)
Chris recently posted..Am I a Bad Traveler?
I had the longest shower of my LIFE when I got back to my room!!!
Very interesting to read. I too am a little obsessed with this sort of stuff. The movies like On The Beach really draw me in. Scary but so so interesting at the same time. Probably because it could happen and what would the survivors do if it happened on a large scale. Makes you think alot.
…Especially when you think that nearly a million deaths resulted from the incident. It changed so many lives forever.
They’ve already suspended tours to Chernobyl? Didn’t they JUST start offering them in like February? That’s odd.
But this topic is interesting. I’m actually planning to write my master’s thesis on this idea of “dark” tourism, so reading your responses to your visit to this place is very intriguing!
Amanda recently posted..New Zealand Smackdown: North Island vs. South Island
Hey Amada, I think they’ve been doing them for a few years but the government keeps disagreeing with the tour companies, as they’re keeping all the profits for themselves and not using the money to improve the situation in Chernobyl. They might open it again in the future.
Glad my post could help, don’t hesitate to contact me if you need anymore information for your thesis! :)
Hey Amanda!
I would love to her more about “dark” tourism – am going to Pripyat this autumn, and am interestad in hearing about other places you consider “dark”.
Thanks!
holy crap- that room with the gas masks is super creepy! I actually love the signage in that one photo, but all the rest give me the hebejebees!
jade recently posted..The Japanese Rainbow Bridge Fiasco
It’s funny, one of my biggest phobias ever is of gas masks! It took A LOT of courage to walk into that room, and i ran back out squealing straight afterwards! Shudder!
The amusement park, gas mask and the classroom photographs are definitely the most harrowing and poignant.
I commend you on having the bravery to go there. The place really looks like the cities they show on Discover Channel’s series about what would happen if humans no longer existed.
Great post!
I Hart Travel recently posted..I Like Mine Animal Style: Top 5 Places To Eat Like A Local In Los Angeles
I know, it felt like walking around the set of a zombie movie!
Eerie….just a preview of where the genius of MANkind is heading.
Thank you for sharing this experience….
No problem :)
Well it’s sad that they have cancelled the tours because now people can’t pay their respects at the site. As harrowing as these experiences are I’m totally with you on the whole wanting to see them thing. After visiting Auschwitz a few years ago and then the War Remnants Museum in Vietnam last year I felt very sombre and it really does put things in perspective for you, especially when we all have a tendency to moan about such insignificant things sometimes, then realising that other people lose their whole lives over something out of their control. So sad, but you’ll be so glad you made the trip.
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I really am glad I got to experience it for myself. I hope they open the site back up again soon.
You are so lucky to squeeze yourself onto one of those tours before they got cancelled. Excitement!
Sarah recently posted..The Time with the Moral Dilemmas in Chiang Mai
I know! If I’d have arrived in Kiev a few weeks later I would have missed out!
Man, I would have loved to visit the site. Too bad they closed it. Your pictures definitely made me feel numb as well, I can’t imagine experiencing it in person. The pool would have really haunted me as well. Something about empty pools. I took a tour of the Queen Mary in California and one of the stops was at the pool and it just sent an eerie feeling all through me. Thank you for sharing!
Allison recently posted..Explore the World’s Largest Natural Bridge in Arizona
Yeah, I think it’s because you associate pools with echoing sounds of laughter, so it feels really eerie to be near one where there’s complete silence.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it, Rachel! :)
I’ve seen lots of images of this place, it really feels like a post-apocalyptic world. You’re brave for going in there!
Jordan recently posted..I’d Rather be Beaching
Definitely! Very very bizarre walking around it and hard to describe what it’s like too.
Oh no! they have stopped doing tours? I really want to go there….darn! But then again who knows… it may very well be open again before I actually make it back to Europe
Jade Johnston recently posted..Why I’m Not Working At Rugby World Cup
Yeah, they were stopped for a while earlier this year and started back up again a few months later, so you might get lucky! :)
This looks like a remarkable thing to do. Nice job sharing the experience with your readers.
Erik recently posted..I Left My Heart in San Francisco
Thanks so much, Erik. I’m so glad I got to do it.
I am so, so jealous. Visiting Pripyat is one of my all time travel dreams. Makes me a bit morbid maybe, but these photos just fascinate me.
Ghost towns have been my thing since I spent a few years living outside of one in the Aussie outback.
Aussie on the Road recently posted..Friday’s Recommended Reads – September 23rd
Hopefully it’ll reopen and you’ll be able to visit then :)
this is so creepy, the complete desolation. i am glad you went – thank you SO Much for sharing!
wandering educators recently posted..Technology Enables Global Collaboration in Classrooms
Glad you liked it. It was very creepy!
We totally get why you did this. Those are awesome pics. I just wrote a post about trying to get my wife to travel to Chernobyl for our 25th anniversary. Here’s the post: Maybe your pics will convince her!
BTW, we just got back from Pyongyang, North Korea which sort of looked like some of your photos.
Michael recently posted..How can I convince my wife to visit Chernobyl for our 25th anniversary?
Awesome!! I REALLY want to go to North Korea!
Great post, fantastic photos. I came to your blog via “My walkabout.”
Glad you liked the post and photos! :)
It’s so eerie seeing how things slowly crumble and nature eventually encroaches. It’s like people never lived there to begin with…
Audrey recently posted..The Green Gables & My Green Lobster
Yeah, that’s exactly it! It made me wonder how it will look in another 25 years..
Growing up we used to drive down to Missouri for summer vacation. We always passed a beach town called Times Beach. An environmental disaster caused the spread of dioxin in the town and caused the evacuation of the area. We could see the town from the interstate, and we always looked to check it out, so I understand your infatuation with ghost towns.
These photos and this post do a great job of taking us along on the tour. How eerie to see the classrooms and other buildings completely empty.
Traveling Ted recently posted..Stuck in Carate, Costa Rica with Alvaro
I just had a look at Times Beach, it sounds so interesting and now I want to go check it out! :)
This is a really great account of your tour! I work in the industry and have wanted to visit Chernobyl for a long time. I hope they resume the tours soon! It sounds like a very eerie, dark experience.
Laura recently posted..Egyptian Man – Thursday Travel Photo
Thanks, Laura! I hope so too! It’s a shame that others wont be able to experience it..
Crazy photos! Were areas in the buildings roped off, or could you walk around anywhere?
Matthew Karsten recently posted..The Betty & Barney Hill Incident
You could walk anywhere you wanted! Literally they just took you to the buildings and we all went off walking in random rooms and taking photos. As long as you didn’t touch anything (so you dont get cancer!) then it was fine.
This is fascinating! I’d love to visit, but am of course very apprehensive… on a rational level I know it’s meant to be safe when visiting for a short period, but it’s hard to get past the concerns about radiation.
I enjoyed going there vicariously through you!
Reena @ Wanderplex recently posted..How to save your seat when you’re dining alone
I know the feeling, i had the longest shower of my LIFE when I got back to my hostel! A few days afterwards I got a cold and all the glands in my neck swelled up, and I was convinced it was cancer from the radiation! Hahaha.
But seriously, they have people there that work there every single day. It is much less radiation than you receive on a plane so it’s pretty safe :)
Great photos and great story…. I wonder why they decided to cancel the tour. Sad, I would’ve loved to visit.
Thanks Jill! They closed it as the tour companies were keeping all of the money for themselves as opposed to using it to help the Chernobyl site. Hopefully they can come to some sort of resolution and reopen it in the future.
Very interesting article. It must have been so strange walking around here. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Alison! It was definitely a strange feeling.
All the experiences we live they are good or not they are our … Living all that you lived there served to think and rethink how fragile we are … You must be aware, and increasingly value our time, we do not know what’s coming … You can live it and certainly will never be the same … Now surely you’re better … Congratulations … kisses
Definitely agree with you there!
These photos made me shiver a little! I find haunting places fascinating too, just that feeling of how desolate they are. The disused fairground looks particularly spooky!
The fairground was really creepy!
How eerie! you’re very brave to have visited this site. Truly appreciate that you also took the time to capture your experience and share it with those of us who may never step foot in that area in our lifetime!
Shirlene from Idelish recently posted..{Thailand} Wat Arun in Bangkok
Glad you liked the post, Shirlene :)
Definitely sounds like an interesting and creepy experience. Shame they canceled the tours because I think it would help people understand what happened better if they could see it. I saw your comment about why they canceled the tours, hopefully they’ll start up again with tours that will actually donate the money.
Ali recently posted..The Big Trip Starts Today!
Definitely agree. Hopefully they will open back up soon as it’s something that everyone should be able to experience if they wish.
A good read, and very similar to my experience. I was there during March and there was about 10″ of snow everywhere.
Our tour company let us walk around by ourselves and as such we visited some buildings that we were not supposed to, and it is very unsettling to see how the homes have been plundered, and other places have been left as is (such as the school, the swimming pool, the gym).
The snow I thought made it even more creepy, you’re in a ghost town with 12 people in total, the snow cracking under every step you take. Absolutely amazing experience, I’m very glad I took the opportunity I had when I was in Kiev.
Today October 12th Children’s Day in Brazil, here is my tribute to Chernobyl children who dreamed of a future and could not have …
Song of the New World – Beto Guedes:
stellamaris recently posted..O amor é fashion! – Lennon e Yoko
Thank you for a really wonderful post–you photos really captured it. I didn’t realize that the tours had been discontinued–glad you go to go.
NLM recently posted..Why I Sometimes Take the Bus
Wow! Cool photos! Great post.
Natalie T. recently posted..Social Media Mondays: Crafting a Clickable Headline – Learning from Gawker
Wow, this was a great post. Sounds like a sad but inspirational tour. I had never heard of this place until I stumbled across it… thank you for sharing your experience.
Wow, what a unique experience! I’m not sure whether I would have had the courage to go, but your account was great to read.
A Lady in London recently posted..Lady on a Cocktail Crawl
Wow, great post, amazing photo’s!
Amazing post – your photos really sucked us in to your mood of that day – THAT’s what great photography is all about. We’ll be talking about this for the rest of the day. -David & Veronica
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I think many people don’t understand and hell I may be wrong. However I think you still can visit. I just think its limitation is much stricter and you must apply through whomever you choose to take you through this tour 11 days in advance at least. They have to get you a pass into the exclusion zone and only then can you enter. So I do still think tours are being given, it’s just much stricter in how you gain access to the zone. If I’m gathering my information right. It seems very complicate but something I am interested it. Which may be strange considering im only a 15 year old kid who has just some fascination with deserted places such as Pennhurst and Pripyat. I really wish I were interested before Pennhurst was converted into a haunted attraction. Just fascinates me with the story and history behind the places and to think what happened.
Yes, you can now visit Chernobyl but at the time I wrote about this (September 2011!) you couldn’t.
I have been fascinated with Chernobyl for years. When I was much younger we were collecting for a Chernobyl charity and I asked why they needed the money, “Their town blew up” was the response I received, No Kidding
I always had a fascination with Chernobyl. Being a Physicist must have been part of it for you. . .
Nuclear power is a frightening force.
There are no words to describe this !! I couldnt take my eyes of this page !!
Lauren you are just phenominal !! Xxxx
just watched Chernobyl diaries an it scared the crap outta me your brave going there
mint boy: Chernobyl diaries is a crap film, made in Serbia, by ppl who’ve never been to Ukraine or read anything about Chernobyl. At all. There is NOTHING correct about that movie!
I admit, I would not willingly go in person to tour a nuclear meltdown area, either in Chernobyl or in Japan. Your eerie and evocative photos are fascinating and cautionary at the same time. You have made it possible for everyone to catch a glimpse of the forbidden. Thank you for sharing this strange journey with us.
everytime i see the FAMOUS FERRIS WHEEL and the SWIMMING POOL with DIVING BOARD…and the APARTMENT blocks…
i remember CAPT. JOHN PRICE in CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE….
^_^
Hi Lauren,
Thanks for sharing!
I read your writing after having watched ‘chernobyl diaries”. Started researching more on it, yours write up was one among my few google search results.
Thank you once againg for sharing your experience and your pics give more insight!
Cheers!
Your pics gave* more insight of what you were expressing in your writing!
NARESH RAMINI recently posted..Ginger Sugar Crystals (allam murabba)
Short term exposure isn’t anything compared to living in the “Zone” .
I think more people should be interested in these modern phenomena.
Cancer is an “industrial-age” disease.
If the U.N. chooses to ignore and/or discredit Cancer rates from this Corporate-Fallout it is their Hell to enjoy.
Fukishima dropped off the Media Radar, & O said we’re damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead with Nuk.
If you put 150 Nuks on-line tomorrow, they’d only reduce “fossil” fuels required by 17% for the U.S.A.
So now, 3mile was a quality control issue, where a new valve replaced failed to work. Chernobyl, well, incompetant Humans, not understanding what the design was of their reactore, created the runaway China Syndrome. The we have Fukishima, where our best laid plans to protect against problems from Natural desaster were undone by an earth quake and ftsunami double punch.
Hmmmm.
Nuk fuel rods, the area they mine is from becomes toxic, the rods themselves when spent are still 1000x-deadly for thousands of years.
How is it peoiple don’t think how stupid this is?
France has a 50BILLION waste problem, all Nuks.
Lowell recently posted..Watchdog asks Gov. McCrory to disclose value of Duke Energy stock holdings
They are now operating 3 of the 4 reactors on that EXACT power plant
I have always been fascinated by nuclear stuff, I tried to build a reactor out of the old smoke detectors once at age 12, had 50 or so of the radioactive discs of Americium-241 out of them but it never even got warm, later found out it was the wrong type of radiation. I always wanted to visit the site and playing Call Of Duty on the PS3 where one level is played in Pripyat is pretty realistic to some of the picturs of the swimming pool and fair ground, it’s horrible to think the people in the station died within a few mins once the reactor blew even though they were unharmed by the explosion the shear dose of radiation they got killed them, it’s increadable (but extremely sad) that something you can’t see could do this, also sad to see that peoples stuff is still there and the people lost everything they had, like you said it looks ok and a lick of paint and new windows it could be lived in but can’t because of an invisible deadly force, would still like to go one day, thanks for sharing your pictures.