Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 6 A City in Numbers

Pripyat the Forgotten City

View of Pripyat – Jan Smith 2011

Pripyat Jewel of Soviet Urban Planning

At the time of the accident Chernobyl, was about 800 years old and had c.15,000 people.  Today it has about 3,000 inhabitants. Down the road, the City of Pripyat was built in 1970  to house the plant workers. It was a planned city, and if one looks at it from above, the shape of a sickle becomes evident in the main plaza.  On April 25th, 1986, Pripyat had about 49,400 inhabitants.  Had the accident not occured, estimates place Pripyat’s population in 2010 at close to 80,000. Continue reading “Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 6 A City in Numbers”

Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 5 Wandering in Pripyat

Pripyat 25 Years After Chernobyl

Pripyat Cafe Stained Glass - Jan Smith 2011

There are discreet spaces in Pripyat where things are hardly touched since they were abandoned. This is a small sample of my most recent work and some of the stories from the buildings I entered. Continue reading “Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 5 Wandering in Pripyat”

Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 3 Computer Games and Denial

Video Games and Pripyat

View of Pripyat from Watchtower - Jan Smith 2011

Computer Games in Pripyat and Chernobyl

In the Ukraine, I was surprised at how nobody who was organizing the trips had actually been to Chernobyl.  Perhaps this has to do with the high cost of visits in relation to local salaries. What most people were familiar with, and they kept on mentioning to me was “stalquer”.  It took me nearly a week to realize that they were saying “S.T.A.L.K.E.R”, a well know, Russian developed computer game that takes place in Chernobyl and Pripyat.  Gradually I realized, that although most had been affected directly or indirectly at the time, for the Ukrainian generation under 30, much of what they knew about Chernobyl after the fact was through association.  Computer games, outside media, and foreign interest fill a void left by the lack of an established Ukrainian educational system and an older generation that was often quiet about the topic. Continue reading “Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 3 Computer Games and Denial”

Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 1 Correcting Misconceptions

Chernobyl, Diorama Chernobyl Museum Kiev, Jan Smtih 2011

Chernobyl – 25 Years Later

“When I was invited to come work in the Exclusion Zone, the first words that came to mind were: Chernobyl, radiation, mutations, and cancer.” — Max relating how he came to work in Chernobyl.

I found those four words to be common associations made by many people when I mentioned I was embarking to document Chernobyl 25 years after the accident.  In this sense there are a few misconceptions worth correcting about Chernobyl. Continue reading “Chernobyl 25 Years Revisited – Chapter 1 Correcting Misconceptions”