‘learn from the lame goat, and lead the herd home’ rumi - february 2009

Pripyat, Ukraine - once home to 50,000 people was swiftly abandonded immediately after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (Wiki).

For the past 22 years the city has been totally uninhabited with the exception of a few (about 300 or so) elderly people who returned to their homes in surrounding villages.

Today Pripyat remains an empty and dreary desert of concrete, wild animals, and rampant flora. There are plants busting through pavement to reach the sky and wild horses roam free through vast open fields…untouched for 22 years by manking, perhaps for the better.

These are some photos I pulled together from various sources around the interwebs - enjoy!

Photo of the control board at Chernobyl…before the disaster

(May be from Reactor 3…but not Reactor 4)

Pripyat before the disaster…it was a well-planned city - you can see the Pripyat pool in the backdrop:

Look at this amazing photo of the Pripyat city center…after the nuclear disaster:

The abandoned Pripyat Ferris Wheel:

Children were affected physically and mentally by this tragedy…so many of them got Thyroid Cancer from simply drinking milk that originated from cows that ate contaminated grass…Here are some children drawings that depict the disaster:

Another child’s depiction

Decontamination Team

Even better prepared

A Child After Radiotherapy

Relics of the Soviet Era…still remain — who would even care to take them down?

Toys are strewn about all over… Items were scattered around by looters in the event’s aftermath.

Rogue art drawn inside the Pripyat pool…that use to stand in city center.

Life still thrives in Pripyat…twenty-two years later (Chernobyl happened in 1986)…wildlife like these Mongolian horses roam the open fields…and continue to breed

More wild horses.

Why are there still buildings that are boarded up? The doors haven’t been touched for twenty years!

After evacuation about 300 elderly people returned to Pripyat’s surrounding villages - to continue living their lives, however lonely, in their old homes. This lady went back to live near her son’s grave…he was a ‘liquidator’ - one of the people that went back to help clean up the disaster.

This was a basketball court:

Pripyat cultural palace…COMPLETELY Abandoned

Pripyat Central Square — You can see that the woods have come into the city - most of the vegetation pictured is new…and only started growing after the disaster.

http://machete.gummyprint.com/the-abandoned-city-of-the-chernobyl-disaster-pripyat-ukraine/