The Orthodox Church, wherever she is - sometimes in places not at all intended for life - transforms everything around her. A vivid example of this is the temple of the prophet Elijah in the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Destruction and desolation reigns throughout the Zone, and the church, thanks to the efforts of the rector and a handful of parishioners, is well-groomed, and services are being held in it. Correspondents of Neskuchny Sad, Deacon Fyodor KOTRELEV and Konstantin Shapkin, were convinced that an Orthodox church is the only island of normal life in Chernobyl.

Every year on April 26, next to the same 4th power unit, a meeting is held in memory of all those who died from the disaster. For several years now, through the efforts of Father Nikolai Yakushin, the ceremony has begun with a memorial service.
And at 1.23 am on April 26, the bell, installed in the courtyard of the Ilyinsky temple in Chernobyl, rings as many times as many years have passed since the day of the disaster. This year the bell rang 21 times

The construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (ChNPP) began in 1970, 19 kilometers from the regional center of the Kyiv region, the city of Chernobyl. In the same year, the city of Pripyat was built two kilometers from the nuclear power plant, in which the service personnel of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant settled - at the time of the accident, the population of the city was 60 thousand people (15 thousand people lived in Chernobyl). On September 26, 1977, the first power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant produced the first kilowatts of electricity. Nineteen years later, on the night of April 26, 1986, for reasons that have not yet been clarified, an explosion occurred at the 4th power unit, which resulted in the release of a huge amount of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. About 500 thousand people took part in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. From the first days of the accident to this day, a 30-kilometer exclusion zone has been operating around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which can only be entered with a special permit. Inside the zone, special zones of a smaller area are established around various objects.

A board installed in the courtyard of the temple of Elijah the Prophet. "Sound of sorrow. Stop and bow your head - in front of you is the Drevlyane land in the mountain of a nuclear catastrophe. Before the people who lived here for centuries and, like sand, scattered all over the world. God, help us sinners overcome this misfortune.

In Chernobyl (19 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), unlike Pripyat (3 km), people return

Pripyat was built in 1970, just three kilometers from the nuclear power plant, so that the Chernobyl employees living in the city could easily get to work. This proximity ruined the city: here radiation background so high that life is completely impossible

It has been 21 years since Pripyat, the city of nuclear scientists, has been strictly forbidden entry: the 1986 disaster, the causes of which have not yet been clarified, made the city dangerous for people. Only marauders and other adventurers enter the Zone. It was they who left their drawings on the walls of the Pripyat house of culture overgrown with forest.

Chernobyl silence

Empty houses, overgrown with small, weedy forest and ivy-covered jungle. Dozens, hundreds of empty houses. If the windows are closed with shutters, the house looks like a dead man with his eyes closed. And if the shutters are open and the window openings gape with emptiness, then it looks like a death cry. There are practically no cars here, and therefore there is complete silence, broken only by the singing of birds, which makes it even more creepy.

The city of Chernobyl is the Zone. Someone calls it dead, someone in the official exclusion zone, but everyone says "zone". You always remember Tarkovsky's Stalker.

From time to time, people dressed in camouflage uniforms pass through the overgrown undergrowth streets. On the chest there is a patch with a blood type, in the pocket there is a small dosimeter, which you regularly need to check in order to find out how much radiation you got. These people work at Chernobylservice and are needed here to service the sarcophagus. These are dosimetrists who constantly measure the radioactive background in the Zone, these are engineers and builders who maintain in order the reinforced concrete sarcophagus covering the 4th power unit of the station, these are drivers of special equipment that takes radioactive objects to special burial places. With one of the employees of "Chernobylservice", dosimetrist Nikolai from Taganrog, correspondents of "NS" met shortly after their arrival in Chernobyl.

Walking around the city, we found ourselves in the Memory Park - on the site, overgrown with grass, there are freshly painted fire engines, armored personnel carriers and other special equipment. We decided to attach a pocket dosimeter to the cars, which immediately showed increased radiation. At that moment, a loud cry was heard: “What are you doing there?! Back immediately!” A middle-aged man in a camouflage suit and a large dosimeter slung over his shoulder was shouting. “There may be an increased background,” Nikolai told us. But looking at the numbers recorded by our device, the dosimetrist was seriously frightened: “This, lads, is something too much!” Nikolay ran to the equipment and turned on his dosimeter. However, he failed to find the “dirty spot”: apparently, the spot was small, and we could not show its exact location.

People in camouflage - engineers, dosimetrists, builders - work on the sarcophagus that covers the 4th unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. "Somebody's got to do the job," they say

Control over the level of radiation in Chernobyl is mandatory

Monument to the heroes of Chernobyl. The prototype of this monument was the Chernobyl fire brigade, who was on duty on the night of the disaster. Almost all of his fighters died

There are several hundred people like Nikolai here in the Zone. They come for a few days and return home - this is called a shift method. “Well, someone has to do this work,” they calmly say. “And the salaries here are higher than on the other side of the zone.”

April 26 marks 21 years since the day when a very pretty Ukrainian town became one of the synonyms for misfortune, horror, catastrophe. The night of April 26, 1986, when the reactor of the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, divided the lives of thousands of people into “before” and “after”. And this furrow went so deeply through the lives of people that until now, almost twenty-one years later, they remember every minute of the tragedy. For example, one recalls: “On the morning of the 27th, at half past eight, I leave the house, and people in chemical protection meet me…” - “No, at half past eight they had not yet been brought up, it was already in the afternoon, closer to twelve!” And so Chernobyl and Pripyat can tell everything every minute. Many say that they have been dreaming of the catastrophe all these years, and the Zone, as it were, does not want to let them go. “I was thirteen years old when the explosion happened,” recalls Roman from Kiev. - We lived in Pripyat: my parents worked at the station. I remember as soon as I heard from the guys about the accident, I wanted to take a moped in the garage and go to the station - we didn’t understand anything then. But he could not open the garage door: the lock jammed, and did not go. Maybe that's why I'm still alive. The next day we were evacuated. So many years have passed, but I still come every year to Chernobyl and Pripyat. Why? I don't know, it pulls, that's all. I have been dreaming of Pripyat every night for all these years! And only a few years ago I had a constant feeling of anxiety, which was all the years after the accident. Now Pripyat is completely empty. The radiation background in the city is very high, it is absolutely impossible to live there. Block high-rise buildings are empty, the streets are overgrown with forest. The apartments are littered with broken furniture, pieces of wallpaper, clothes, shoes. The floor is littered with broken glass. This is the result of 20 years of time and looters. According to engineers, these houses will never become residential: too much destruction.

self-settlers

Having learned that we are interested in everything in Chernobyl, our new acquaintance, the car mechanic of Chernobylservice Petro, decided to show the most important, from his point of view, the most important - self-settlers: “Imagine, some of them even during the days of general evacuation, when everyone didn't leave. That's where we're going!" Along the Chernobyl streets, Petro leads us somewhere deep into the quarters. Twilight rapidly turns into night darkness, at nine o'clock in the evening. Only later we were told that there is a curfew in Chernobyl, 20.00, after which any movement in the city is strictly prohibited. But either we were lucky, or Petro knew where to go, we were not caught. Only with the onset of night in Chernobyl do signs of human habitation become visible - in some places the lights are on in the windows. There are, however, several five-story buildings where shift workers live - it is always crowded and light there. But basically Chernobyl is all one-story, private. Before the revolution, the city was in the Pale of Settlement, and there were more than half of the Jews. In Chernobyl, they still show the grave of one of the founders of Hasidism, Naum Chernobyl. During the years of the Great Patriotic War most of the Jews were exterminated by the Germans. And all the same, if not for the catastrophe, the city could resemble Vitebsk from the paintings of Chagall: small, once whitewashed houses, some sheds woven from branches ...

And the light in the windows is self-settlers, people who, for various reasons, chose life between the spots radioactive contamination, with a dosimeter in hand. Basically, these are old pensioners who, as they themselves say, have nothing to lose. There are two or three dozen of them.

Petro has been working in Chernobyl on a rotational basis in a car repair shop for all twenty years that have passed since the disaster. “Firstly, I love Chernobyl, and secondly, there is work here, but not outside the Zone,” he explains. With the confidence of a frequent visitor, Petro jumps over the fence, opens the gate from the inside, knocks on the window: “Semyonitch, open it!” The owner, an old, but still not decrepit man, lets us into the house: "Stepan Semyonitch," he introduces himself, "and my little lady, grandmother Natalka." Grandmother is somewhat frightened, but, seeing the familiar face of Peter, she smiles and invites us to enter. Everything in the house is somewhat dilapidated and a little neglected, as happens with old people. But in each red corner there is a solid large icon, and this gives rise to a feeling of solidity and comfort. On the bookshelf there is a photograph of the owners in their youth - everything is as it should be - on the table there are fresh rolls baked by grandmother Natalka.

Stepan Semenovich and Baba Natalka are native Chernobyl people. “After the accident, they gave us an apartment in another city,” Stepan Semenovich said, “I went, looked and realized: we won’t be able to live in a foreign land. So they stayed here, in Chernobyl. And nothing, we live "

After the Holocaust, they were given housing in one of the cities of Ukraine, but after going there for a couple of days, Semenych realized that I would not live. And they returned to Chernobyl.

- How did you live? Was it not scary?

- And so they lived. When the station exploded, we were planting potatoes and tomatoes. So they didn't die of hunger. Yes, and the store worked: the liquidators also had to somehow live, - Stepan Semenych recalls.

The city was rapidly emptying, by the beginning of May women, old people and children were taken out, a little later than men. In order to avoid panic, people were told that they were leaving their homes for two or three days, so they took money, documents and a change of clothes with them. As soon as Chernobyl was empty, looting began. First, the police went home in search of good things, then the military, and only later “specialists of a general profile” began to visit. “I remember,” says Semenych, “in the early days I fought with the police more than once. Yes, yes, I used to go out with an ax and just say so: well, they say, put back everything that you took, otherwise I’ll smash your whole car!

Self-settlers live on pension and from the garden. Of course, before digging a new bed, they “ring” the earth with a dosimeter. If the dosimeter shows an increased background, dig a few meters away. They also catch and eat fish from the Pripyat River, on which the city stands. They assure that the radiation in the fish is even less than in the one bought in Kyiv at the market. They also eat mushrooms from the surrounding forests. But only white ones: for some reason they are the only ones that do not accumulate radiation. “We are not afraid of radiation,” say the self-settlers, “after all, we are still alive, which means that it is not so scary! And those who then left their native places, where are they now? Yes, most have already died, but we lived here, we live and will live until we die of old age!

I will build my church

Ask any person in Chernobyl, even if he is a shift worker and came here for the first time only yesterday, how to get to the Ilyinsky Church. You will be shown. Because the temple of the prophet Elijah is, without any exaggeration, the most lively place in the entire 30-kilometer exclusion zone. The self-settlers have life, and in the church fence of the Ilyinsky temple - truly Life with capital letter. If Chernobyl and all the settlements of the Zone, the farther, the more they sink into thickets and fall apart, then here flowers bloom along neat gravel paths, here is a mowed lawn on which tables for summer meals are placed. There are freshly whitewashed walls and domes shining with gold. After a walk through the empty and silent Chernobyl, you feel like the ambassadors of Prince Vladimir in St. Sophia. Even the birds seem to sing louder here.

And just seven years ago, the temple was a match for the general Chernobyl landscape: boarded up windows, rickety domes, peeling walls. And so it was until Nikolai Yakushin, a former parishioner of the Ilyinsky Church, had the strength to look at it. Now Archpriest Nikolai Yakushin is the rector of the Ilyinsky Church, and then he was just a machine operator, an employee of one of the agricultural complexes. “You understand,” says Fr. Nikolai, I am a native Chernobyl, and my wife, mother Lyubov, is also from here. Of course, we left after the accident, they gave us an apartment in Kyiv, but we still regularly came to Chernobyl: to visit the graves at the cemetery, to look at our native places. And Ilyinsky Church is especially dear to us: we were baptized and married here, both my mother and grandmother were parishioners here. In general, we love him very much.
Once arriving in Chernobyl, Nikolai Yakushin saw that the temple simply began to fall apart: the dome on the bell tower was about to fall, the porch had broken off the wall and was growing into the ground. He realized that something had to be done. I went to the administration of the exclusion zone: give me boards, give me roofing iron, give me paint. “They were surprised: who are you? - recalls about. Nikolay. - I told them: yes, I am a parishioner of this temple! And they say: you should go from here. So I went to Vladyka Mitrofan.”

The Vicar of the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Archbishop Mitrofan of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, greeted Nikolai cordially. “And I told him: is it possible to appoint a rector to Chernobyl, otherwise everyone is chasing me, as an unofficial person? Vladyka says: we will search. A month passes, Vladyka calls me and says: But you study at our seminary, don't you? I really studied at the seminary then: I did it just like that, to improve my education. And he: so you accept the parish in Chernobyl, otherwise no one wants to go there, they are afraid. So Nikolai Yakushin became a deacon, and then a priest.
Just such a person should be the rector of the temple in Chernobyl. Father Nikolai combines incredible energy (after all, Chernobyl is a city of power engineers after all!) with amazing good nature: a smile never leaves his face, and it is simply impossible to imagine him angry! All secular skills - engineering, technical, mechanization, construction - were very useful to the new rector of Ilyinsky Church. “I leveled the dome personally,” says mother Lyubov with undisguised pride. “It was scary to watch, but he built some kind of scaffolding, tied himself with a rope, prayed and climbed.” Repairs in the temple were also supervised by the father rector himself. He also decorated the temple himself: no matter what you ask in the temple - about the bizarre metal flowers on the doors, about the tombs in which particles of holy relics rest - there is only one answer to all: but the priest himself did it. Of course, his mother helps Father Nikolai in everything. She is behind the box, and on the choir, and in the parish hotel, where guests like the correspondents of the National Assembly or the clergy, who sometimes come to concelebrate with Father Nikolai, stay, and in the refectory. In a word, harmony. The only thing to regret is the very small parish. But how can he be big here, in Chernobyl? Self-settlers are old and infirm, shift workers are loaded with work. And yet there is a parish, although small, in Chernobyl. At the Sunday liturgy there are five or six people, on holidays - more. On such days of the church year as Holy Saturday, Pascha and Radonitsa, which is called “Grobki” here, several hundred people come.

Of course, Father Nikolai has a hard time: a small parish means a small income. And a lot of work is required in the Ilyinsky Church: to install heating, to cover the roof, and to cut down the undergrowth, which over the years that have passed after the Catastrophe, overgrown the churchyard. Three years ago, the rector went to his bishop for advice: what to do? And Vladyka Mitrofan blessed Fr. Nikolai to make a religious procession through the Ukrainian dioceses with the venerated icon of the Elias Church - the image of St. Nicholas. According to the temple inventory, this icon was revered as miraculous already in the 18th century: cases of healing were repeatedly recorded from it. It is with this icon that Father Nikolai passes through the parishes. All donations go to support the Ilinskaya Church: “We say so: St. Nicholas sent us heating in the temple. A very big help!" says Mother Love.

And last year, on the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, the Metropolitan of Kyiv granted another shrine to the Ilyinsky Church: the icon of the Chernobyl Savior - perhaps one of the most unusual icons we have ever seen in terms of iconography. Christ, the Mother of God, Archangel Michael, the souls of those who died in the Holocaust, rescuers in gas masks, doctors and power engineers in white coats - unusual, too "modern" characters very convincingly remind how recently the Chernobyl tragedy occurred. The image was painted in 2003 with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv. Last year, Father Nikolai, with two icons, traveled from Sevastopol to Chernobyl: there is a legend that St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called. “Since Chernobyl has affected every family in one way or another, people come to this image with great excitement and with great faith,” says Father Nikolai.

“Father, how many parishioners do you have?” “You know, sometimes it seems to us that there are very few, three old men. And sometimes we directly feel that we have hundreds of parishioners! After all, Chernobyl is a worldwide phenomenon!”

The staff of the Elias Church is small: father, matushka, two stokers and ... their own, "regular" bell-ringer - rotational worker Nikolai. He comes from Kyiv not only during his watch, but also on his free days. It is he who, on the night of April 26, at exactly 1.23, when the anniversary of the Holocaust is celebrated, rings the bell hanging in the churchyard near the worship cross. Calls as many times as years have passed since the accident. And this ringing announces to the entire Zone: in Chernobyl there is a Church that the gates of hell will not overcome! The Divine Liturgy is celebrated in Chernobyl. And this means that in Chernobyl there is a place where Life conquered death. So Chernobyl has hope, Chernobyl has a future. Whether normal life will return to Chernobyl - no one knows: whether it is possible to clean the entire area from radioactive stains - is unknown. But there will be Orthodox life in Chernobyl, people will come to Ilyinsky Church. As long as there is a temple, there will be life.

On the day of the anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a prayer service was served right on the territory of the station. A lot of people always come to such prayers. This time, among the clergy was the correspondent of the National Assembly, Deacon Fyodor Kotrelev.

Epilogue

On the threshold of the Church of the Archangel Michael in the village. Krasno, three kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the dosimeter shows a 4-fold excess of the maximum permissible level of radiation. But as soon as you cross the threshold of the temple, the radiation background becomes normal - the same as in Moscow

Traveling around the Zone, we visited a village abandoned by the inhabitants, three kilometers from the reactor. In the village stands the wooden church of Archangel Michael. On the street, near the church, the level of radiation exceeds the maximum allowable four times. In ordinary buildings, radiation is less, since radioactive dust does not get there from the street, but still, the dosimeter readings are far from normal. Inside the temple, the dosimeter shows “normal”. Indeed, there is simply no place for death in the Church!

We bring to your attention a few more photos brought by our correspondents from Chernobyl, Pripyat and the surrounding area

In the temple of the Archangel Michael (village Krasnoye)

In Pripyat...

... the streets have long turned into groves

Where there are almost no people, animals thrive. They walk here, almost without fear of anyone.

Since the mid-90s of the last century, the exclusion zone has attracted tourists and so-called stalkers who illegally enter the contaminated territory. The first of them began to visit the zone after the creation of the agency for information, international cooperation and development "Chernobylinterinform" (existed from 1995 to 2013), which was also involved in organizing tours to the exclusion zone. Officially, her visit was allowed for everyone from December 2010 to June 2011, then the rules were tightened. On the this moment Tourists must be at least 18 years of age. According to the Chernobyl-tour company, a three-day individual trip around the territory will cost $249. The founder of the company, Chernobyl radiation intelligence officer Sergei Mirny, told RT about tourism in the exclusion zone.

“Tours to Chernobyl are extremely popular. Last year, 15.5 thousand tourists visited the Chernobyl zone. This direction of tourism, despite the current situation in Ukraine, has experienced only a short-term decline. We represent the destination at the largest tourism fairs in the world, in particular at the recent ones in Berlin and London, and we plan to continue this activity in the future. The flow of foreign tourists is increasing. The geography of tourists is more than 60 countries, countries are represented from New Zealand and Australia to Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Pakistan, India, South Africa and China, not to mention Europeans, residents of the USA and Canada,” Mirny said.

Those who visit the zone are not even afraid of mutated living beings.

The details of the preparation of trips to the Chernobyl exclusion zone were shared by the coordinator of the go2chernobyl.com project, the organizer of visits to this territory Dmitry Malin.

“Who is going there? Miscellaneous groups categories of citizens - persons from 18 to 21 years old, these are people who at one time played computer games of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, where the location was the Chernobyl exclusion zone. People also go there to hold certain events there, including Scientific research, journalists and documentarians are coming to make films, people who directly lived in those places before the accident are coming. For all these groups of citizens, we also organize trips there. Today, according to Ukrainian legislation, a person in the exclusion zone for familiarization or research purposes can stay no more than five days,” he informed.

Reason for inspiration

The zone often appears in works of art and literature: films are made (“Decomposition”, “Forbidden Zone”) and TV series (“Chernobyl: Exclusion Zone”, “Moths”), a series of computer games S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was created, a series of books based on it was released.

Screenshots: game seriesS.T.A.L.K.E.R.

For security reasons, almost no films are made directly in the zone, but there are exceptions to this unspoken rule. In particular, during the filming of the Russian series Chernobyl: Exclusion Zone, some scenes that did not involve the participation of actors were filmed in Pripyat.

Place to live

Officially, personnel involved in maintaining the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in a safe condition, as well as employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine who protect scientists and technicians, live on the territory of the exclusion zone. However, the list of inhabitants of the zone does not end with them. The so-called self-settlers returned to their homes after the liquidation of the consequences of the accident, someone even purposefully occupied ownerless lands.

Place for a wedding

The exclusion zone can also serve as a place for rather unexpected ceremonies. American Philip Grossman signed with his fiancee during a trip to Chernobyl.

Grossman has been interested in the history of the disaster for a long time and even made a documentary film about this zone.

Non-zero danger

At the moment, the risk of the spread of radiation contamination remains low. Work is underway to build a new sarcophagus for the fourth power unit, where the accident occurred. It should replace the current one, called "Shelter". Initially, the Ukrainian authorities planned to complete the project in 2015, but construction has not yet been completed.

Recently, I once again visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and decided to make a big report about the life of the city of Chernobyl. Many often confuse this city with Pripyat, but these are two completely different settlements - Pripyat was modern city energy workers, whose population of almost 50,000 was evacuated on April 27, 1986, this now abandoned city is located just a couple of kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Chernobyl itself is Old city, located 12 kilometers from the station and now only partially abandoned - the residential buildings of Chernobyl have now been turned into hostels in which workers of the Exclusion Zone live.

So, under the cut - a photo story about how the city of Chernobyl lives today.

02. First, a little history. The city of Chernobyl is located in the Ivankovsky district of the Kyiv region of Ukraine and is a rather old city - the first mention in the annals of it refers to end of XII century, by 1193. In the 16th century, Chernobyl was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, at that time a defensive castle was built in Chernobyl, which has not survived to this day - only the moat remains.

In 1793 Chernobyl became part of Russian Empire. According to the 1897 census, 10,700 people lived in Chernobyl, most of whom (7,200) were Jews - they subsequently suffered greatly from the Black Hundred pogroms of 1905, and the remaining small community was almost completely destroyed during World War II.

In the 1970s, the first nuclear power plant in Ukraine was built near Chernobyl, which was named after the city. "Chernobyl nuclear power plant named after Lenin" - that is how the nuclear power plant, where the world's largest nuclear accident occurred in 1986, was fully called. Many are trying to find some connection between the "gloomy" name of the city and the subsequent nuclear disaster- they say, "black reality" and all that, although in fact the name of the city came from the Chernobyl plant - wormwood.

After the accident in 1986, the entire population of the city of Chernobyl was evacuated, however (unlike Pripyat), the city is now not completely abandoned - employees of the Exclusion Zone live there on a rotational basis. There are several cafes and shops on the territory of the city, for example, tourists are usually brought to such a cafe called "Ten":

03. Inside there is a bar counter and a dining room, and on the second floor there are living rooms for those who came to the Chernobyl zone on a two-day visit.

04. Cafe staff. Girls working here are also considered employees of the Exclusion Zone and they are also subject to the "shift method" rule - they can be inside the perimeter of the Zone for no more than 3 months within six months.

05. A large part of the city of Chernobyl is now abandoned - as a rule, these are the old pre-revolutionary quarters in which Jews once lived. There is also a more modern "abandoned house" in the city - for example, here is a former hostel:

06. Before the accident, it was an ordinary apartment building, which later became a hostel for the workers of the Novarka enterprise, who were building a new sarcophagus. At the moment, the building is completely abandoned, but locals in Chernobyl say that it will be renovated.

07. Let's take a little walk around the building and see how everything was arranged here. The floor has a rather large hall, on the sides of which there are doors to the apartments. There are also electric input boxes painted blue. These are traces of the already "post-accident" repair of the building, as can be seen on the inside of the doors of the electrical cabinets - previously they were green.

08. Apartments in the building are quite small, with 1-2 rooms. Inside, the typical interiors of the building of the 1970s have been preserved - white painted doors, characteristic wallpaper, and linoleum tiles on the floor.

09. The bathroom in most apartments was combined, rather small in size, about 3 square meters

10. And this is what the kitchen looked like.

11. Another apartment, view from the hallway.

12. Living room with a balcony and the remains of old furniture:

13. Old TV:

14. Kitchen.

15. Staircase between floors. There are practically no marauders in the Chernobyl "abandoned house", and all the available furniture was taken to some other residential hostels on the territory of the ChEZ.

16. And this is what an ordinary residential courtyard in Chernobyl looks like. The workers live here for several months and try to create a semblance of home comfort - all the yards are clean, small flower beds are laid out around the entrances. Only the almost complete absence of cars in the yards and the complete absence of children are striking.

17. Chernobyl janitor. In general, Chernobyl gives the impression of a very clean city, you will not see excess dust and dirt here - not least because any dust and dirt here can be radioactive.

18. Benches and a table for relaxing:

19. Another courtyard, here is a five-story dormitory built in the 60-70s from sand-lime bricks - these buildings now make up the main housing stock of Chernobyl.

20. Chernobyl landscaping of the local area:

21. Blue building caps, used in Chernobyl, probably as warehouses for tools:

22. Trash Cans:

23. Another residential courtyard. Practically no different from the "ordinary" city - except that there are no people and cars in the yard.

23. And one more very characteristic difference - all the heating mains in Chernobyl were laid "through the air", you will not find buried working pipelines here. Why did this happen? The fact is that with relatively "clean" air, the land in Chernobyl is quite heavily contaminated with radionuclides, and all pipelines in the city are laid in an open way.

24. The same courtyard from the side of the street. On the left is a residential building of a hostel, in the center of the frame is a footpath, and to the right is a roadway.

25. Everything is almost like on " big land", except that the streets are unusually quiet. Moreover, among the residential buildings, buildings that have been abandoned since the time of 1986 suddenly come across, for example, this is a veterinary pharmacy:

26. But do not think that everything in the city is so gloomy and bad. Despite its "special" status, the city of Chernobyl is also developing and changing. Fresh Ukrainian fashion for urban graffiti captured Chernobyl as well, recently the following picture appeared on the wall of one of the buildings:

27. The drawing is very peculiar, with Chernobyl flavor)

28. And recently a real hostel was opened in Chernobyl! Yes, yes, you heard right. True, it will be impossible to book a room here on Booking.com - after all, Chernobyl is a closed city, and the hostel will be intended for those workers of the Zone who came here for a couple of days and do not have an official registration to the hostel, as well as for official tourist groups.

29. The hostel is located in one of the city's five-story buildings, in such a neat entrance on the first floor. The hostel premises are occupied by several apartments located on the site.

30. The floor plan looks like this - this is an evacuation plan in case of fire, which hangs on the wall in the entrance.

32. This is how the living room of the hostel looks like, where the renovation has just been completed - new linoleum has been laid here, wallpaper has been glued, and a fire alarm has been installed. Looks very good.

33. But this is already a habitable room. New wallpaper, floor, sockets, switches. Even the plastic window is installed! The only thing left of the old is the furniture. As a rule, these are "clean" beds, chairs and tables from the pre-accident era.

34. Bathroom in the hostel. Interestingly, the plumbing is all new, and new tiles have also been laid.

35. There is also Wi-Fi in the hostel, simply called "Hotel". It will not be possible to confuse, since there are no other hotels in Chernobyl.

36. And this is the Chernobyl store. Here, those who live and work in the city usually buy everything they need. Moreover, a few tourists from time to time run in.

37. Utility rooms and shop counters. Of manufactured goods, watches, razors, small mirrors, irons and detergents are popular.

38. And on the counter is an old TV that broadcasts last year's "Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk." On the old screen, all these songs, artists and tunes look like a real hello from 1986.

32 years ago there was a terrible catastrophe - at the fourth unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant there was an explosion that forever changed the city of Pripyat. Now the words "Chernobyl" and "Pripyat" are associated with something terrible and tragic, but once the city lived peacefully and happily. Today, it is slowly overgrowing, clearly showing a person that he is not at all the king of nature.

Now organized excursions are led to Pripyat, so getting into the “exclusion zone” is not at all difficult. Radiation in some places still exceeds the prescribed norm by a thousand times, but this does not deter curious tourists who want to visit the past. The city is gradually overgrown with forest, and after all, only 30 years have passed! This is what the city looked like before the accident.

And this is how it looks now:

It will not work to come to Pripyat as a "savage" - tourists are allowed only as part of organized groups. Tours are sold both via the Internet and in Kyiv. The cost is relatively low - $ 100-150, but you need to follow all the instructions of the guide and not engage in amateur activities. And it's not just the radiation, but also the fact that some buildings are starting to crumble.

If a tourist does not comply with clearly established rules, then he is quickly expelled from the territory. True, on the Internet you can find many videos and photos from "free" trips to the "zone", when people skillfully hid from security and other tourist groups. True, even such tourists understand that there is nothing to do here without a dosimeter. Radiation is a terrible thing. The worst thing is that you can't see it. Walking through the overgrown streets of the city can cost years of life if safety rules are not followed.

By the way, there is an opinion that there are no inhabitants in the "exclusion zone". This is not entirely true. In Chernobyl, for example, there is a shop, a cafe, and even a laundry. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant stopped generating electricity only in the 21st century, since the other three reactors were operational. They were gradually closed. The last block was also closed at the request of Europe. But the station is still functioning, so its workers live in the city. But in general, of course, the whole city looks neglected.

The city forever remained in the Soviet Union. Here and there you can find reminders of the past. But the hardest thing is to look at children's toys.

People left their apartments for three days, not knowing that they would not be able to return home even after thirty years.

Despite the danger, looters actively traveled to the city. This can explain broken windows and disorder in the apartments. Marauders tore out the contents of electrical panels, mailboxes, pulled out iron stained-glass windows and windows (for example: the main stained-glass windows of the Energetik Palace of Culture, a shopping center, the Polesie Hotel, etc.), and pulled out furniture from apartments. Vandals smashed windows, threw down elevators, sawing down cables (some elevators can still be found stuck between floors).

The disaster occurred a week before May 1, Workers' Day. There are reminders of this in the city: posters, postcards.

The most famous photographs of Pripyat are, of course, shots from an amusement park with a yellow wheel. The park is quite small, it did not even have time to work, because the opening was scheduled for May 1. True, the locals still managed to ride it before the holiday.

The attractions of the park have collected all the radiation, so the guides do not advise staying here for a long time. This is one of the most "dirty" places in Pripyat.

Pripyat was a very young city. Average age of residents was only 25 years old, and the city itself was only 16 years old at the time of the accident. After the disaster, there was talk that the locals might be allowed to return. For these purposes, the liquidators even “laundered” it, but then scientists found that the “zone” would be closed to life for a long time to come.

Immediately after the accident, it was decided to close the reactor. By November 1986, a “shelter”, better known as a “sarcophagus”, was erected over the fourth power unit. It took 400,000 cubic meters of concrete mix and 7,000 tons of metal structures to build it. Erected in a hurry, he, nevertheless, for 30 years held back the further spread of radiation from the reactor. Then the walls began to collapse, so in 2007 a new Shelter project was launched.

The new sarcophagus became the largest above-ground mobile structure: since it was dangerous to build an arch directly above the old sarcophagus, it was built in parts at an assembly site near the power plant. The assembly and lifting of the elements of the first half of the arch lasted from 2012 to 2014, by 2015 the second half was also assembled. After that, both parts were combined into a single structure. By November 2016, the installation was fully completed.

Despite all the difficulties, the "exclusion zone" continues to live. For example, in April 2017 a group of Polish enthusiasts for the first time in 30 years

There are an infinite number of questions regarding the moment when it will be possible to live in Chernobyl, when it will be possible to live in Pripyat, and whether it is possible to live there at all.

In order to understand these issues, it is worth remembering how it all happened and what happened all the same.

Chernobyl

A small city with a population of more than 10 thousand people was and is located forty kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The city is ancient, founded back in 1193 and has a fairly vivid history, this story is briefly described in the article "".

The area in which the city is located, at that time was recognized as ineffective and was chosen as the territory for the construction of a nuclear power plant.

So the station was named. After the accident at the station, the city fell into the exclusion zone, and its residents were evacuated.

Together with the residents of the city of Chernobyl, all residents of the settlements that fell into the exclusion zone were evacuated, there were a total of 80 settlements.

Exclusion Zone

The city was designed for 80 thousand inhabitants, but did not have time to exhaust its resources, at the time of the evacuation the city's population was 47 thousand people, 17 thousand of them were children, 80 thousand people of retirement age and bedridden patients, 500 women were pregnant at the time of the accident.

The city existed for 16 years.

If the city of Pripyat had the status of an atomograd and was a partially closed object, then the settlement was an absolutely secret and closed city.

Even more of a garrison with several houses for military families. It is difficult to find it on the map even now, it is easier to get acquainted with the memories of the evacuated people and their pictures.

What the garrison of the closed city did is still not known. The existence of this object became known at the time of the accident, and more extensively from the memories of children who once lived in this city.

What happened

It had four ready-made power units, two were under construction.

The construction of the station itself began in 1970, the station worked for 14 years.

April 26, 1986 at 1:23 an explosion occurred in the fourth power unit of the station. As a result of the explosion, the nuclear reactor was completely destroyed, a fire started.

As a result of the explosion, radioactive isotopes were released into the environment:

• uranium
• plutonium
• iodine-131 (half-life - 8 days)
• cesium-134 (half-life - 2 years)
• cesium-137 (half-life - 30 years)
• strontium-90 (half-life - 28.8 years)

As a result of the explosion, two people died, after the fire signal was given to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, two guards of the fire department moved forward, one of which was traveling from Pripyat.

No one will ever be fully prepared for an accident of this kind. The firefighters did not have any unique means of protection against radiation.

Many of them received a very large dose of radiation, but it was necessary to extinguish it anyway.

In addition to the release of radiation and the existing fires, there was another problem, it was necessary to urgently measure the level of radiation.

For measurements, high-precision equipment was used, one device was disabled as a result of an explosion, and access to the second device was blocked.

Part of the staff and firefighters were sent to clean up access to the device, which was done two hours later. At 3:30 a.m., radiation was measured, and at 6:00 a.m. the fire was completely extinguished.

The collapse and the consequences of the fire made it impossible to assess the state of the reactor; it took several more hours to see the extent of its destruction.

For the first time there was still hope for a good outcome of events, a report on the normalization of the situation was sent to Moscow.

Only by 23:00 information was received, the indicators went off scale, it was decided to immediately evacuate the population.

How was the evacuation

Of course, those who understood the spread of radioactive substances hurried to leave the contaminated zone on their own in the morning, but few succeeded.

There are several obvious reasons for this:

There was no cellular communication then, and pagers appeared a little later. Phones were not installed for everyone, but there was a problem with them, the telephone connection simply did not work. And not only in the affected area, there was no connection with Kyiv. Most of the population, especially males, was involved in the aftermath and was at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. There was no way to call home and say that you need to leave.
Low information content of the population. No one really knew the extent to which pollution occurred. Of course, this was the era of atomic research, but they did not keep their own dosimeters at home.
Until recently, everyone hoped for a positive outcome.

Evacuation of Chernobyl-2

How the closed object was evacuated can be judged from the memoirs of Andrey Shabanov. At the time of the accident he was 10 years old.

That morning he went to school, all classes were held, and only at the last lesson the teacher announced that an accident had occurred in the city of Pripyat.

No one explained what happened, not even the parents. All students were ordered to return home and not leave their apartments.

At night there was a family council, Andrei was not present at it, but in the morning his mother took him away from the city.

Together with them, my mother's friend with her children and several neighbors' children, whose parents were absent from the city, left the city.

All those liable for military service could not leave the city voluntarily. The entire garrison participated in the liquidation of the accident, after which it was transferred to a new duty station.

Evacuation of Pripyat

In order to evacuate 47 thousand people, two thousand buses are needed.

Not every city can boast such a large car fleet. It took the district administration time to collect the required amount of transport, refuel it, instruct drivers, coordinate their actions with the military, and finally get to the city.

Buses were taken from everywhere, even from bus stations in Kyiv. The country has plunged into a transport collapse, no one says anything, they don’t sell tickets at railway stations, I advise people not to leave their homes.

Already by 12 noon on April 27, the required amount of transport was collected in the area of ​​​​the city of Chernobyl.

At night, the administration of the city of Pripyat conducted a limited briefing of the administrative staff, the conversation was held with the attendants of hospitals, schools, and kindergartens.

Until the morning, all public places were disinfected as much as possible. Laundry soap and additional water tanks were placed in all toilets of the city.

It was necessary to repeat the processing of the premises every hour. In the morning all schools were opened, without fail all the children were measured with a radiation device, the medical staff issued tablets containing iodine.

Two hours later, the students were sent home. The general briefing began in the city.

Evacuation timeline

At 12:20 a briefing was held at the city police department. The city was divided into six sectors. A responsible person was assigned to each, two police officers were assigned to each entrance of a residential building.

At 12:30 the police officers arrived at their places and began briefing the residents.

At 13:10, an official announcement was broadcast on the radio:

“Attention, dear comrades! The city council of people's deputies reports that in connection with the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the city of Pripyat, an unfavorable radiation situation is developing. The necessary measures are being taken by Party and Soviet bodies and military units. However, in order to ensure the complete safety of people, and, first of all, children, it becomes necessary to temporarily evacuate city residents to nearby settlements Kyiv region. To do this, today, on the twenty-seventh of April, starting from fourteen zero-zero hours, a bus will be served to each residential building, accompanied by police officers and representatives of the city executive committee. It is recommended to take with you documents, essential things, as well as, in the first case, food. The heads of enterprises and institutions have determined a circle of employees who remain in place to ensure the normal functioning of the city's enterprises. All residential buildings for the period of evacuation will be guarded by police officers. Comrades, when leaving your home temporarily, please do not forget to close the windows, turn off the electrical and gas appliances, and turn off the water taps. We ask you to keep calm, orderliness and order during the temporary evacuation.”

At 14:00, the placement of residents on buses began, by 16:30 the city was evacuated.

At 18:00, police officers made a second round of the apartments to make sure that there were no residents.

Together with the police officers among the last, the city was left by the administration and members of the expert commission. A cordon was set up on the borders of the city.

Evacuation Chernobyl

He was evacuated later, as he was not much further from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The evacuation of residents took place according to an already worked out scheme.

Police officers went around the apartments and houses, explained everything to the residents. Appointed the time of collection, placed the residents on buses.

Evacuation of pregnant women

If the residents of the villages where the citizens were evacuated felt sympathy for them, then the medical staff felt fear in front of these people.

All pregnant women of the city of Pripyat and Chernobyl were collected in the sanatorium "Ukraine".

Accommodation took place in two buildings. In the first building, women who had already given birth were placed, those who were preparing for discharge at the time of the accident.

In the second building placed pregnant women with different terms. The attitude was difficult, the medical staff was convinced of the need to terminate the pregnancy at any time.

Women did not share such beliefs. Some of them, especially those who had a short pregnancy, agreed to a medical interruption, which, unfortunately, had irreversible consequences for the female body.

Women who were at an advanced stage of pregnancy were subjected to attempts at premature birth, but this practice was discontinued.

Medical personnel simply had to catch women in labor who pulled out IVs and escaped through the windows.

Dosimeter readings went off scale, everyone had to hope for the best. After a successful delivery, the women were under the supervision of doctors for several more months.

As test subjects, they were examined. And the doctors did not know what to do with them after all.

Those pregnant women who managed to avoid staying in the sanatorium "Ukraine" also had to experience a similar attitude.

Some were wanted by the police, some were hiding until the last moment, appearing in the hospital at the time of childbirth.

Where were they evacuated

All residents were placed in nearby villages, the heads rural settlements were informed in advance.

Two or four buses were brought to the village, and the head of the settlement distributed the evacuees to their homes.

As people who survived the evacuation note, there were no quarrels, everyone treated with sympathy and understanding, shared food and things.

Some then went to relatives, those who had no one to go to wait for new houses. New houses were built at an accelerated pace in the Kyiv region.

Radiation in Chernobyl

To date, some of the radioactive substances have already decayed, but the zone remains contaminated.

If we make a comparison with the pollution of the territory, then it can be noted that as a result of a bomb explosion in these cities, a wave was formed that spread harmful substances.

Some of them burned down at the time of the explosion, and the distribution over the territory was simultaneous. As for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, its power exceeded the Hiroshima bomb hundreds of times, and the emissions of substances occurred over 30 days.

The level of radiation in Chernobyl is now much less than in the first days after the accident, the isotopes of Iodine-131, Cesium-134 and Cobalt-60 have by now almost completely decayed.

But Americium-241 and Plutonium-239 will be in the soil for thousands of years. So we are unlikely to catch the moment when the radiation in Chernobyl completely disappears.

When Chernobyl becomes safe, the number of inhabitants in it will increase, one cannot say that by much. But still it will not be so deserted.

You can already live in Chernobyl or Pripyat, but you can’t grow agricultural products and use local water.

it the main problem for settlement and main reason why you can not live in Pripyat.

Does anyone live in Pripyat

The city does not have a large number of inhabitants, mainly the so-called stalkers, hunters for thrills. Employees of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are located in the city of Chernobyl.

Does anyone live in Chernobyl

Yes, people live in Chernobyl. Some of them live on a permanent basis, some come here on a rotational basis. The shift lasts no more than two weeks, after which the workers are examined.

When Chernobyl will be restored

Of course, if people live in the city, you can restore it. But this requires huge financial resources, and Ukraine, exhausted by political strife, does not have such opportunities.

When can I return to Pripyat

Some people returned to Pripyat two weeks later and settled in rural houses. It is impossible to say that it is legal and safe, but people refuse to leave, and the government does not announce a new wave of evacuation.

There are about 500 such people in total.