Pripyat Amusement Park was set to open on May 1st, 1986, just in time for the May Day parades. It was to be a celebration for the population to enjoy leisurely filled with excitement and thrill. Five days before the set grand opening, the Chernobyl disaster ignited, forcing the park to abandon its opening. As radiation exposure rose, the population was forcibly evacuated leaving behind the brand new park. Over the years the radiation has continued to rampage through the park and the park never reopened leaving behind a ghost of happiness and decay.

Pripyat Amusement Park

Virtual Tour of the Chernobyl Disaster without the Risk

The explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986, is considered the worst nuclear accident in world history. On the International Atomic Energy Agency's International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, it shares the highest rating with only Japan's 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster. In the early hours of Saturday, a botched safety test caused a series of explosions and fires in Reactor 4.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Chornobylʹsʹka Atomna Elektrostantsiya)

Three hospitals cared for the Chernobyl victims and attended to their excruciating radiation pain. The hospital located in Pripyat was one of them that tried to save as many as they could in hopes of saving those that were delivered to the hospital. Doctors were informed to remove any current patients as the radioactive victims were delivered and to treat them as best as they could. Due to a lack of information, many were not aware of how radioactive everyone was and anything they possessed would be.

Pripyat Hospital 

Around dawn on Saturday, April 26, 1986, firemen who had been working on the fire at the CNPP were taken to Medical-Sanitary Center Number 126 (Pripyat’s 400-bed hospital) for treatment. The staff were not sure what they were dealing with at first but by 6:00 am they realized it was radiation sickness and notified the Institute of Biophysics in Moscow. Ninety people were admitted by morning, their radiation-soaked clothes were put in the basement where they remain. To avoid panic, no one in the city was alerted to the radioactive fallout being blown by the fire at the CNPP.Believing the fire at CNPP was under control and not dangerous to them, the citizens prepared for a normal Saturday by sending their children to school, enjoying the warm weather, and looking forward to the opening of the new amusement park during their May Day celebration. In these first few hours after the explosion, people should have been given stable iodine to protect their thyroid glands from the radioactive iodine filling the air. Although stable iodine is most protective 3-6 hours before exposure to radioactive iodine, within two hours protection is still 80% and after eight it is 40%, after 24 hours it is only about 7%. Because of the secrecy surrounding the event, dispensing tablets was delayed until nightfall on Saturday, 8-10 hours after radioactive iodine was first released. This delay led to people who were 0-18 years old at the time having more thyroid cancer than normal. Something preventable became a main health consequence.It was not until 10:00 AM Sunday morning that the order to evacuate was given. A combination of disbelief, a desire to avoid panic in the population, and not wanting to look foolish in the world spotlight meant hours passed without the city’s people being properly informed. Even after the order to evacuate was given, people did not know the extent of the disaster or radiation. They were told to leave their pets at home, take their papers, and pack enough clothes and food for three days. About 2:00 PM evacuation began and three and a half hours later 1,225 buses, 250 trucks and other vehicles like ambulances, repair trucks, and fuel tankers took the inhabitants of Pripyat away.While thick radioactive dust coated everything in Pripyat, workers tried to scrub buildings, sidewalks, and roads clean and trap radioactive particles under polyvinyl glue hoping to make the city ready for people to return. Most of the cats and dogs left behind were shot and buried because the radiation levels in their fur was so high. Finally, on June 3rd it was decided to stop trying to make the city habitable again. People trying to sneak in to retrieve papers, money, and belongings were turned away by the military, and soon, the city was fenced off in barbed wire.From July 25th to October 25th, a few residents at a time were given four hours to collect some of their belongings and say goodbye to their homes. Children’s items and items with high radiation levels were not allowed to be taken. The government gave each single person 4,000 rubles and each family 7,000. New cars at that time cost 5,000.The roses that were once placed in tended beds are wild, trees fill the soccer stadium, and the Olympic sized pool is empty. A sign proclaiming, “Hai bude atom robitnikom, a ne soldaton! (Let the atom be a worker, not a soldier!)” can still be seen. Levels of radioactivity in the area vary greatly. Walking through the city for a couple hours is generally the equivalent of flying in a plane for an hour, but the water on River Pripyat near the hospital is still highly radioactive. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is now the most popular tourist attraction in Ukraine, with about 300 people a day and up to 1,000, and Pripyat has both legal and illegal tourists. While many tourists are fans of books and video games based on the exclusion zone, others just want to be free to experience the area up close and learn about it. Photographers and filmmakers try to preserve it at least digitally even while tourists and Scrapers continue to rob it of materials and sometimes bring new items, like dolls, into the area to stage photographs. Illegal tourists, known as Stalkers, come for the experience and many are children of the 300,000 liquidators who helped clean up the area after the disaster. Frequent stalkers set up apartments and create areas to make food, giving little regard for radiation levels. Since Chernobyl and Fukushima have a nuclear accident in common, Japanese tourists and authorities visit Pripyat to study the economics of turning nuclear disaster into business as well as using it as a tool for psychological and social recovery.

Located in Ukraine 2.5 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) and founded in 1970, Pripyat was the ninth Soviet atomograd (atom city). It was designed for workers at the CNPP and their families. In 1986 Pripyat was home to 47,500 people and was expected to hold 75-85 thousand someday. Known as the City of Roses, 30,000 Baltic rose bushes were planted there to enhance the already beautiful setting where nature and science lived together in peace. That peace was tenuous and following the explosion of reactor four at the CNPP, the city was evacuated and remains a ghost town. In recent years, tourism has taken hold and Pripyat has become a model for Japanese officials hoping to revive the area around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Pripyat (Pryp'yat)

Before the Chernobyl disaster, the natural landscape around the CNPP was complimented by a monoculture plantation of Scots Pine. The citizens of Pripyat felt like they were part of the environment and many people built summer houses and tended vegetable gardens in the area away from the city. Unfortunately, the Scots Pine is highly radiosensitive and after the explosion at CNPP the trees absorbed the radiation. The chemical reaction that occurred inside the trees made them glow at night for about a month. When the pines died, their green needles became copper colored. The extreme change in coloration prompted the soldiers and scientists working there to nickname the area, “Red Forest.” Other trees with a high die off rate were birches and Black alders. In efforts to clean up the radiation in the forest, many trees were cut down by liquidators and buried in concrete lined tombs.Some animals in the area died immediately, others further away died when their thyroid glands disintegrated, and others stopped reproducing. Cattle near the area at the time of the disaster that did not die had a decline in birth rates and calf mortality went up. Mutations in the DNA of area animals have been found, but they do not seem to be ones that affect physiology or reproduction. Some have shorter lifespans than those outside of radiated areas, and some do better than others.Directly after the disaster, plants absorbed radiation on their surfaces, as that threat lessened, radiation was brought up by the plants root systems. The soil is still highly contaminated and cannot be used for large scale crops. Wheat grown in the radioactive soil mutated into several unstable strands, but soybeans seemed to change at a molecular level and be able to protect themselves from damage. Mushrooms absorb large amounts of cesium-139 and should not be eaten, but most of the apples grown in the area can be if the skin is removed. Stands of broadleaf trees that reseeded themselves and replanted pines are doing well. Some of the trees that survived the disaster have much larger needles and leaves than normal.One likely reason the flora and fauna are rebounding is that humans were taken out of the area. With the people and their companion animals and livestock gone, and hunting halted, the environment has had time to repair and revive itself. There is an increase in diversity of wildlife and many of the Ukraine’s threatened animals thrive here. Some, like wolves, elk, and lynx have repopulated themselves, while European Bison and Przewalski’s horse were introduced in 1998. The next generation of cattle from the area were smaller but the generation after that seemed to be normal. They are still too radioactive for human consumption. It seems removing humans from the area was a bigger benefit than the radiation was destructive.Despite the area still being unsafe, some people have been allowed to return to ancestral homes where they live off the land growing and harvesting their own food. They cannot have children with them, and children cannot visit. Many of those who returned are now in their 70s and 80s and although dangerous, they roast the mushrooms that grow wild in their ovens fired with radioactive wood. The smoke from their cooking fires causing mini fallouts over the area.One of the biggest concerns today is the large wildfires that frequent the area. Every fire releases radiation captured by trees into the air. Firemen are still stationed in the area and make do with little protective gear and old soviet era trucks. Although they have always been present, global climate change has been increasing the number of wildfires and their sizes. In 2020 firemen battled a gigantic blaze with the help of helicopters and other equipment. Rainfall finally put the fire out within a mile of the CNPP.

The forest surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) was an area the citizens of Pripyat cherished. After the explosion at reactor four, the environment was changed forever and the 10 square kilometer (3.86 square mile) area surrounding the CNPP became known as the Red Forest. With the people in Pripyat and other affected villages evacuated, the forest became a living lab to study the long-term effects of high radiation levels on ecosystems. The area has caught fire often in the years since the disaster and when it burns, radiation trapped in the trees is released into the air.

Red Forest

The Monument was made in memory of the liquidators: the power plant operators, emergency and nonprofessional workers that helped to contain and decontaminate after the explosion. There is an estimated total of 600,000 to 800,000 people involved with the consequences in some way.The monument is composed of a centered Christian cross held high on a double pillar, a globe below that representing the fragility of the world, the chimney that served reactor blocks 3 and 4, and a plaque dedicating the monument to those that saved the world. Each side of the monument has four figures. On the right are four firefighters extinguishing the blaze. On the left are a dosimetrist, an engineer, and a doctor treating a patient succumbing to the effects of the radiation exposure. The monument has become an important symbol to remember the liquidators and the sacrifices they made.

In 1996, on the 10 year anniversary of the disaster, the Monument to Those Who Saved the World was unveiled. The Monument was funded and created by Chernobyl firefighters. With sculptures made of concrete, which is rumored to be the same concrete fed to the Sarcophagus when the structure was built, it stands in front of the fire station that sent the team of first responders to the site.

Chernobyl Walking Tour

Pripyat Amusement Park

Introduction

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