On the night of April 26, 1986, at the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, nuclear scientists tested one of the safety systems. This experiment failed already 4 times, the fifth attempt became fatal, ending with two thermal explosions of unprecedented power and the complete destruction of the reactor. The first city on the path of a cloud of radioactive isotopes and transuranic elements was the "pearl" of the USSR - Pripyat.
Dead zone
Before the Chernobyl accident, Pripyat was a developing young city (the average age of residents was 26 years old), with a population of about 50 thousand people. Now this is a ghost town, located in the most polluted 10 km zone, the so-called strict security sector - this is the territory of burial grounds, it was here that in a hurry they buried what was thrown out of the reactor.
Now this zone is contaminated with transuranic isotopes and is considered dead forever. People do not live in Pripyat, only twice a year special buses bring former residents here to visit their relatives' graves. Life in these territories will be able to return only after several millennia - the decay time of plutonium is more than 2.5 thousand years.
Today's Pripyat is a terrifying sight. It looks like a huge architectural cemetery, hidden in the thickets of dense forest. But, strangely enough, there are many who want to plunge into the atmosphere of a dead city and see with their own eyes what life can be like after people. Excursions to Pripyat are very popular. Although this is a rather dangerous and extreme type of tourism, the level of radioactive dust, which has firmly eaten into the ground, trees, houses, is still going through the roof here.
In addition, under the influence of the environment, most buildings collapse and are in disrepair. Only a few facilities operate on the territory of the city - a special laundry, a garage for special equipment, a station for iron removal and fluoridation of water, and a checkpoint at the entrance to Pripyat.
