Today, the Exclusion Zone is deserted streets, lifeless houses, a place stuck in time. Involuntarily, the question breaks from the lips: do people live in Chernobyl now? Because it seems that they have never been here, and all the buildings and roads are just scenery for a horror movie.

Who lives in Chernobyl now?

Before the infamous accident at the nuclear power plant, 13,000 people lived in the city. There was a forced evacuation after the disaster, and in 2016 the population was almost 25 times lower than in 1986 - just over 500 people.

The composition of the local inhabitants is very motley:

  • Employees of enterprises located within the exclusion zone. However, they cannot be called residents: almost all of them work on a rotational basis and do not consider the option of settling here for a long time;
  • Specialists in the field of ecology and biology: foresters, ecologists and other scientists studying anomalies occurring at the crash site;
  • Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine who guard the entrance to the prohibited territory;
  • Tourists coming from all over the world. The Chernobyl tragedy became one of the business cards» modern Ukraine. It has been widely popularized by the media, computer games and movies;
  • Employees who accompany tourists and provide them with services.

In this video, Vladimir Kostryukov will tell you what will happen to the human body if you live in Chernobyl:

Do people live in Pripyat?

On the eve of the accident, Pripyat could safely be called prosperous:

  • The population reached almost 50 thousand people. The number was constantly growing due to young enthusiasts who came from all over the vast Soviet homeland. Every year the population increased by one and a half thousand people;
  • The average age of the locals was only slightly over 25;
  • The national composition was very diverse (more than 25 different ethnic groups);
  • More than 13 thousand apartments and 160 houses have been built. The total area of ​​the housing stock reached 0.7 square kilometers;
  • The city was divided into 5 districts. Another one was planned;
  • There was a palace of culture, a cinema and an art school.

The settlement was founded in 1970 and was designed to accommodate 75 thousand people. According to current official data, the population of Pripyat is a figure equal to zero. The reason, as in the case of Chernobyl, was the mass evacuation of local residents. This city existed for only 16 years.

Who are self-settlers?

The letter of the law prohibits settling in the territories directly adjacent to the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant. However, some of the forcibly evacuated returned to their homes.

According to official figures, already in 1986 a little more than a thousand people decided to come to their homes. After 20 years, their numbers have halved.

Residents of the Exclusion Zone earned the name "self-settlers". They chose the following settlements as their place of residence:

  • Zalesye;
  • Ladyzhichi;
  • Ilintsy;
  • Teremtsy;
  • Chernobyl;
  • Opachichi and others.

These are mostly people of retirement age (about 65 years on average). At their own peril and risk, they grow fruits and vegetables on household plots for personal consumption. Hunting, gathering mushrooms, and fishing are also often practiced.

Reasons for illegal migration

There are several reasons explaining the population of lands not intended for this:

  • Consequences of a severe structural crisis in the economy. The result was a significant decline in income. In this regard, the benefits that the state gives to the victims of the catastrophe at nuclear power plants may have great importance for non-working pensioners;
  • The risk factor for one's life and health has ceased to play a dominant role in life. People have got used to the fact that they have already received “their” dose and it is almost impossible to cause more harm to health;
  • Reasons of an emotional nature - personal attachment to the places where childhood and youth passed, love for one's father's house;
  • State bodies are practically devoid of mechanisms to somehow influence overly stubborn citizens who ignore laws and a sense of self-preservation.

When will it be possible to live in Chernobyl?

After the accident, many radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere, the lion's share of which are cesium and strontium. The complete breakdown of these elements is 60 years. By simple arithmetic calculations, the estimated date of settlement of abandoned cities is 2046.

According to official Ukrainian authorities, the restoration of cities can begin now:

  • Radiological parameters are within the normal range. The radiation level is 20 times lower than the maximum allowable dose;
  • Settlement of the area has already begun, despite legal restrictions;
  • It is necessary to prepare for the future development of the territory in advance: to restore and partially rebuild the outdated Soviet infrastructure. No one will come to the city without hospitals and schools.

Specialists do not share the administrative enthusiasm. Scientists allow living in the area, since a long stay here will not cause fatal damage to the body. But it will be impossible to conduct agricultural activities here for many centuries.

There is a theoretical possibility of removing the top layer of soil and laying a new one, but the cost of such measures is unlikely to be supported by an economically exhausted country.

How much does a tour of Chernobyl cost?

The forbidden fruit is sweet, so there can always be a lot of people who, if not live in the Chernobyl area, then visit there for a while. Ukrainian businessmen have long found a gold mine here and are making good money on excursions to the places of a man-made disaster.

The usual tourist route includes:

  1. The collection of tourists takes place in Kyiv;
  2. Thrill-seekers are taken by bus to the Dityatki checkpoint, beyond which the Exclusion Zone begins;
  3. Walk through the villages of Kopachi and Zalesye;
  4. Inspection of the famous sarcophagus over the inactive station;
  5. A visit to the ghost town of Pripyat, including the headquarters of the liquidators, the Polesie hotel and other abandoned locations.

There are two options for tours - one-day and two-day. The first will cost 7 thousand rubles per person, the second - 21 thousand. The minimum age of the tourist must be at least 18 years old.

Thousands of people come from all over the world to the site of the most serious man-made disaster. These adventurers don't even know if people live in Chernobyl now. And, to their great surprise, they find here a rather high human activity.

Chernobyl now: unique footage (video)

In this video, historian Aleksey Ivanov will show how the exclusion zone currently looks like, who lives in it now:

Before the Chernobyl accident, Pripyat was a developing young city ( average age inhabitants was 26 years old), with a population of about 50 thousand people. Now it is a ghost town, located in the most polluted 10 km zone, the so-called regime sector - this is the territory of burial grounds, it was here that they hurriedly buried what was thrown out of the reactor.

Now this zone is contaminated with transuranium isotopes and is considered dead forever. People do not live in Pripyat, only twice a year special buses bring former residents here to visit the graves of their relatives. Life in these territories will be able to return only after several millennia - the period of decay 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 a dense forest. But, oddly enough, there are many who want to plunge into the atmosphere of the dead city and see with their own eyes what life after people can be like. Excursions to Pripyat are very popular. Although this is a rather dangerous and extreme type of tourism, because the level of radioactive dust that has firmly ingrained into the ground, trees, houses, is still off scale here.

In addition, under the influence environment, most of the buildings are collapsing and in disrepair. Only a few facilities operate on the territory of the city - a special laundry, special equipment, iron removal and fluoridation of water and a checkpoint at the entrance to Pripyat.

rebirth of life

A little further from the nuclear power plant, in a 30 km zone, life begins to glimmer. In Chernobyl, located 18 km from the source of radiation, there are workers of some enterprises working on a rotational basis, and already more than 500 self-settlers - people who, despite the existing legislative restrictions, nevertheless risked returning to their homes after the mass resettlement of 1986.

Every year the number of self-settlers is growing. Some use housing as summer cottages, others come to stay forever. Over the years, a unique natural reserve with rich flora and fauna has been formed here. People agriculture, fishing and without fear eat vegetables grown here, mushrooms and berries picked.

In the center of Chernobyl, one can occasionally hear the sounds of renovation, windows are being inserted in some five-story buildings. The only place in Chernobyl that lives and is buried in flowers is Elias Church. The family of the local clergyman is one of those who returned to their native lands.

AT last years the life of people living in the exclusion zone has improved somewhat: the state began to pay them benefits, restored lost documents, and organized the delivery of necessary products. Self-settlers do not deny the obvious environmental and radiation problems, so they are treated with tincture of galangal, believing that this herb has healing properties and helps to remove harmful substances from the body.

The man-made disaster that occurred in the spring of 1986 on Chernobyl nuclear power plant, changed the attitude of mankind to the peaceful atom once and for all. Huge masses of radioactive isotopes released into the atmosphere contaminated thousands of hectares of land adjacent to the station and claimed a huge number of lives of innocent people. You can read about the events preceding the disaster and what really happened in Chernobyl below.

Causes of the Chernobyl accident

The cause of the disaster is known: conducting experiments, the meaning of which boiled down to one thing - to get the opportunity to generate electricity for the needs of the station itself, provided that the main cycle of the reactor, in one way or another, is stopped (using the inertial rotation of the generator rotors).

A number of factors that led to the accident:

  • Rush. The experiment had to be made before May 1, and the results obtained should be submitted to the management by the May holidays.
  • Negligence. Seeing that the experiment was being carried out at non-standard power indicators, none of the station workers began to argue with the chief operation engineer. This promised the loss of his job and transfer to another, less prestigious position.
  • Reactor design. Already at the beginning of 1992, the newly created commission with the inclusion of foreign specialists in its composition, calls main reason accidents are not a human factor, but the imperfection of the design of the reactor itself.

After a series of investigations by the international agency INSAG, many of those responsible for the accident were released from prison. Reactors of the RBMK-1000 type installed at three more NPPs (Leningradskaya, Kurskaya and Smolenskaya) have been modernized and are under special control.

In this video, historian Vladimir Porkhanov will talk about the chronology of events and the consequences of the terrible accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant:

Chernobyl accident in numbers

From the very first days after the accident, the country's leadership kept silent about the true extent of the disaster. Only after the collapse of the USSR, all materials related to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were completely declassified:

  • The entire population of the city of Pripyat, and this is 47,683 people, was completely evacuated within 31 hours. In total, 116,000 people were evicted from the exclusion zone.
  • The territory of pollution is more than 200,000 square meters. km. The BSSR (Belarus) suffered the most - 65% of the jet cloud moved there.
  • In the first three months after the disaster, 211 units were involved in the liquidation Soviet army(about 345,000 military personnel).

Immediately after the explosion, the construction of the sarcophagus began, which, at the end of the same year, completely “covered” the reactor.

What do stalkers do in Chernobyl?

Stalkers are people who like to visit places abandoned by man. It can be empty houses, small villages and even cities.

This is what the Chernobyl exclusion zone attracts them to:

  • Enthusiasts. They get by with an official tour, which includes visits to: the city of Chernobyl, the sarcophagus of the shelter of the destroyed reactor, the empty city of Pripyat.
  • ideological. The usual tour, where the step away from the usual route is controlled by the guides, does not suit them. This category arbitrarily enters the exclusion zone, wanders through abandoned places, takes pictures.
  • Gamers. Fans of the popular shooter "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" visit the real locations depicted in the game.
  • Marauders. We thought for a long time - should this type be classified as stalkers? By the name, everything is clear - marauders bring all kinds of things to the “clean land” for subsequent sale.

For inexperienced tourists It is still not worth visiting the exclusion zone on your own. In addition to a strong dose of training, which will lead to serious changes in the body, there is a big chance to stumble upon a guard patrol.

What did Chernobyl researchers discover?

The Chernobyl exclusion zone attracts scientists from all over the world. We present to your attention list of unusual facts, which hardly anyone has heard of:

  • « red forest » . The plant mass, located directly next to the reactor, was the first to take the hit of radiation. Dead tree trunks of a reddish hue under normal conditions would have rotted long ago. Conclusion: radiation affects the bacteria responsible for the decomposition of organic material.
  • Animal world. Mutations in animals appeared immediately after the disaster. Now animals in the exclusion zone live comfortably: wild boars, wolves, foxes, elks, lynxes, and even the Przewalski's horse brought here for the sake of experiment, feel great.
  • Radiation. Despite the fact that the last radioactive isotopes contaminating the area near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (cesium and strontium) will decay by 2050, the area will be completely “cleaned up” by 3500.

The last block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down in December 2000. But more than one generation of people will feel the misfortune of the largest man-made disaster.

What is now in Chernobyl?

Now about 4,000 people live in the exclusion zone, mainly personnel who monitor the safety of the territory: firefighters, security guards and builders involved in the construction of a new sarcophagus.

Despite the bans, about 450 people returned to their homes - these are elderly residents of the countryside who, in spite of everything, continue to raise livestock, plant vegetable gardens, and pick mushrooms.

Regarding the sarcophagus, the construction of Shelter-2 was completed in November 2016. After test work and sealing of the structure, the world's largest mobile structure will be put into operation. The guarantee of safety is 100 years, and by that time, we hope, humanity will solve the problem of complete isolation of the reactor.

Do you know that:

  • About 600 thousand people participated in the liquidation of the accident, and in general about 8.4 million people received negative exposure.
  • In the period from May 5 to 8, 1986, mobilized workers from the Donetsk mines, mostly drillers, built a number of tunnels under the 4th power unit to supply liquid nitrogen to it. The created temperature environment of -120 ˚C made it possible to completely cool the boiling water reactor within two days.
  • May 2, 1986 Kiev Dynamo "takes" the final of the Cup Winners' Cup. Having defeated Atlético Madrid 3-0, the team's players became victims of unusual harassment from the foreign media: allegedly, the radiation received the day before helped the Soviet athletes win.

Having collected indisputable facts about the man-made cataclysm, one can easily explain what happened in Chernobyl: the incompetence of the officials who led the experiments at the NPP units, the imperfect design nuclear reactor and a series of unfortunate circumstances that led to the world's largest nuclear disaster.

The disaster forced the safety of nuclear power plants around the world to be reconsidered, and thanks to the terrible accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, similar incidents due to human fault may not happen again.

Video: Chernobyl disaster in 1986 - how it was

This short film fully reproduces all the events of that ill-fated day before the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, how it all happened:

Chernobyl exploded, as a result of the explosion, six million people from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were in a cloud of nuclear dust that circled our planet twice. Towns and villages surrounding the nuclear plant are first evacuated and then abandoned as the government has created a huge exclusion zone around the plant. The final exclusion zone has a radius of 30 kilometers and covers 81 settlements with its length. Unlike the city of Pripyat and the city of Chernobyl-2, residents remained in small villages at the time of the evacuation. They did not want to leave their homes. They were not afraid of the introduced liability and fines for being in the exclusion zone, nor were they afraid of radiation. They stayed, and then others returned.

Chernobyl now

Then people were taken out from nearby villages (a 10-kilometer zone from the source of the emission). Then the zone at a distance of 10-30 kilometers was empty. The most distant villages were the last: the inhabitants were taken out until June.


From that moment, according to the law, not a single civilian should be in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Only the staff working there had permission to stay.
However, the locals decided everything in their own way. So what is hidden in Pripyat? Do people live there now? Rapid settlement of the alienated territories In the same year, 1986, just two weeks after the start of the organized evacuation of the population from the contaminated territories, the first people began to return to their homes. The closeness of the zone did not become a hindrance to the locals, who passionately love their home.

Collection of answers to your questions

Attention

There were also those who, using "partisan" methods, avoided mandatory evacuation: they simply lost sight of the evacuation teams and remained in their native places. Thus, we found out what Pripyat has become. Life after people did not actually come here.


Locals never completely left the city, even if you do not take into account the specialists working there. Why did people return? The idea has firmly settled in our heads that it is necessary to run away from radiation without looking back.
Therefore, it seems strange and reckless that the inhabitants of the Chernobyl zone were drawn to their native infected places. The craving for home, painfully familiar lands was irresistible.

Important

The evacuated settlers, unable to find their place in the outside world, returned to the territory of the zone after a short time. Another factor that served as the reason for the settlement of the environs of Pripyat was the invisibility of radiation.

Do people live in Chernobyl now?

But do they live in Chernobyl now? Street art of local residents In Chernobyl now live as before Yes, life in Chernobyl continues. However, an excursion to this city of the exclusion zone will take you to the pages of the past.

Approaching the Dityatki checkpoint, tourists are looking forward to the start of excursions and adventures in the alienated land. From here to Chernobyl is another 25 kilometers, and the radiation level does not exceed 30 microR/h.
About 690 people now live in the area of ​​the city of Chernobyl. In addition, about 3,000 employees serve the enterprises of the exclusion zone and are permanently located in the city.

Post office in Chernobyl Entering the vicinity of Chernobyl, a person does not see advertising billboards or posters, but despite this, their usual life flows here. There is also a city hospital, several shops, police, an Ecocenter and a gym.

Pripyat now in 2018

Most of the necessary for life, they grow on personal plots. Harvest is tested for suitability for food in a special center. For the sake of meat and eggs, they keep poultry, some - cattle, even horses. In addition to self-grown vegetables and fruits, locals eat fish caught in the Pripyat River.
They also collect mushrooms, some even set traps for game. Food products are willingly exchanged among themselves, and the most popular “commodity” is fish.

The volume of farming depends on the physical capabilities and needs of people. These are mainly small gardens and a small number of domestic animals.

And there are whole mini-farms: farmsteads of several plots are combined and fenced. Part of this territory is allocated for crop production, part - for livestock.

Surplus grown "farmers" sell. But such cases are few.

Do people live in Pripyat? history of a city

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was hit by a powerful explosion, as a result of which the nearby territory was contaminated with radioactive substances. Do people live in Chernobyl now? This is a fairly relevant question. After all, the evacuation of residents after the accident was carried out not only in Pripyat, where the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located, but also in this city too. Streets in Chernobyl CONTENTS:

  • Evacuation and life after
  • In Chernobyl now live, as before
  • Features of life in Chernobyl
  • Young generation in Chernobyl

Evacuation and life after Before the tragedy, 13,000 people lived in Chernobyl.

All these people had their own way of life and habits. Someone taught children at school, someone drove a city bus, and someone hurried to the factory in the morning. Everyone was minding their own business. However, after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, people were united by a common cause - evacuation from their native city.

Leave native home it was hard.

Do people live in Chernobyl now, if 30 years have passed since the accident

The total area of ​​the housing stock reached 0.7 square kilometers;

  • The city was divided into 5 districts. Another one was planned;
  • There was a palace of culture, a cinema and an art school.

The settlement was founded in 1970 and was designed to accommodate 75 thousand people.

According to modern official data, the population of Pripyat is a figure equal to zero. The reason, as in the case of Chernobyl, was the mass evacuation of local residents.

This city existed for only 16 years. Who are self-settlers? The letter of the law prohibits settling in the territories directly adjacent to the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant. However, some of the forcibly evacuated returned to their homes. According to official figures, already in 1986 a little more than a thousand people decided to come to their homes. After 20 years, their numbers have halved.

Do people live in Pripyat? Is it possible to live in Pripyat now?

The idea of ​​drawings assumed the catastrophe "Heroshima-Nagasaki" and the tragedy in Chernobyl, nuclear danger in the world. Palace of Culture "Energetik" in Pripyat winter 2018: "Energetik" is one of the most popular objects in Pripyat. It is located in the city center. Before the accident, a variety of events were held here: concerts, the Edison disco, theatrical performances. The beauty of Pripyat today 2018 is simply mesmerizing: Pripyat is now 2018, fire department SVPCh-6: It was from this place that the firefighters-heroes left the second to extinguish the Chernobyl fire on the night of April 26, 1986. Not knowing that they were in great danger, the guys put out the fire at the station until the morning. After that, everyone was hospitalized with acute radiation sickness. Firefighters soon died from lethal doses of radiation.
How much does a tour of Chernobyl cost? The forbidden fruit is sweet, so there can always be a lot of people who, if not live in the Chernobyl area, then visit there for a while. Ukrainian businessmen have long found a gold mine here and are making good money on excursions to the places of a man-made disaster. The usual tourist route includes:

  1. The collection of tourists takes place in Kyiv;
  2. Thrill-seekers are taken by bus to the Dityatki checkpoint, beyond which the Exclusion Zone begins;
  3. Walk through the villages of Kopachi and Zalesye;
  4. Inspection of the famous sarcophagus over the inactive station;
  5. A visit to the ghost town of Pripyat, including the headquarters of the liquidators, the Polesie hotel and other abandoned locations.

There are two options for tours - one-day and two-day. The first will cost 7 thousand rubles per person, the second - 21 thousand.

Home Chernobyl (1 ratings, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading… Houses of Chernobyl residents The history of the city of Chernobyl dates back to the beginning of the twelfth century.

The picturesque territory, a good location near the spacious water resources attracted fearless land invaders. It is known that Chernobyl was both under the Principality of Lithuania and part of Russian Empire entered.

In the eighteenth century, this territory became the leading center of Hasidism. In the second half of the 20th century, Chernobyl became a model city of the Soviet standard. Tall five-story buildings, avenues and alleys, bright mosaics on the walls of buildings and swaying poplars along highways - this is how the city once was. The history of Chernobyl was shaken by the tragedy that happened in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

31 years ago there was a disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. For a long time there is no country in which everything happened, and the pain still unites people who suffered during the liquidation of the accident, who were forced to leave cities and villages in the zone, which has been called the exclusion zone for more than 30 years.

Alexander Vishnevsky - originally from these places, was born in the village of Ilintsy. In 1986 he played for a football team from Pripyat. On April 26, his "Builder" was supposed to hold a match for the Kyiv Region Cup, but the match never took place. Now Vishnevsky trains boys in the city of Slavutich, which is a few kilometers from Pripyat.

If there is still life in Chernobyl, then Pripyat is a ghost town. Tourists are brought here to look at a fragment of a country that no longer exists. Yes, and this fragment is in impenetrable thickets. Only with your head up you can see the upper floors of high-rise buildings above the crowns of trees.

Somewhere in the impenetrable wilds and the stadium where Vishnevsky with his “Builder” was supposed to play that match. Somewhere in the thicket, his native Ilintsy got entangled, which former local residents find almost by touch. On April 25, Alexander went there to see his native house with a stove; the garden, now quite wild; bow to the graves of relatives.

The route is familiar. These days - they are called memorial days here - entry into the exclusion zone is free. Relatives come to their native ashes (indeed, many villages burned down without a look), to their father's coffins.

Just returned, - says Alexander Vishnevsky, whom the correspondent of "RG" found in Slavutych - another satellite town of the Chernobyl station, fortunately not sharing the fate of Pripyat. - Arrived without problems. Now, on memorial days, you do not need to sign up to visit the closed area. Entrance is free. Just at the checkpoint they issue a pass, which must be returned upon departure.

- Do many people from your native village come there these days?

Less and less. Mostly children and grandchildren come, not parents. This time there were about 100 people.

- And how many people lived in Ilintsy in 1986, when the disaster happened?

The village was big. About a thousand people. And maybe more.

Did those who are usually called self-settlers remain in Ilintsy? That is, people who refused to leave the territory after the accident?

Remained. But the last local resident died this year. Yes, people lived, despite the fact that this is an exclusion zone. Until recently there were two people. But last year my grandmother died alone. And here in this.

- Were they provided with food?

Yes. In the exclusion zone people work - shift workers. They brought food. I don't know, twice or once a week...

More than 30 years ago, people here could not believe that they had to leave their homes. They couldn't watch the cattle being taken away. They could not imagine how it would be to leave their home forever and settle somewhere else, but not to come closer to home, closer than 30 kilometers. It was especially difficult for older people who have lived here all their lives. Therefore, many returned home, despite the ban. They became those self-settlers.

From the villages that were located on the road to Chernobyl, in some places there were brick buildings, signs with the name locality and mass graves of soldiers and officers who gave their lives for this land in the Great Patriotic War.

No, no, yes, and a white hut with blue architraves will flash in the lush thickets by the road, recalling that there was life here too.

The Vishnevskys' house in Ilintsy also had blue architraves. Now they are whitish. And the sign with the address has not faded - house 115 on Lenin Street. The house, although it has shrunk, is still holding on, invigorating. The stove, without the master's oversight, gradually collapses, but is still quite strong.

It seems that the hostess would be here - and she would instantly put things in order, kindle a light, move cast iron with fragrant and rich borscht into the familiar nook. There and the grip, as before, stands in the corner ...

But the mother of Alexander Vishnevsky has not been walking for several years. He can no longer come to tidy up the house, having sprinkled the floorboards that were familiarly creaking under his feet with tears.

Half of the village burned down last year. I don't know who set it on fire... But our house has been preserved, - says Alexander.

Preserved and meets its new spring without owners. Soon lush greenery will bloom and, together with silence, will swallow the old house.

Unless the early spring thunder will remind you of the boom that hit everyone then, in 1986.