Already two weeks has passed after our trip to the Zone, and I still can not sit down and write for a site more or less intelligible report and lay out my photos... Something disturbs, something in me... Something not clear for me... What have I seen in Pripyat?... What did I expect to see?...
The city Pripyat, even by the Kiev measures – is a small town, not more than one Kiev district. To pass from the beginning and up to the end takes only couple of hours. Absolutely young city... Was... Even too young... 16 years old...
The new houses, the new streets, all too new, not had time to embody on itself THE TIME... I went on snow-covered streets, came into houses, trying to imagine as it was here before... And could not. Twenty years has passed, and the city has left from us. He leads the life, overgrown by trees, by grass, becoming covered by patterns of animal traces... We, people, any more owners here. We have lost this city for ever, it is necessary to reconcile to this and to release Pripyat, it already has other life far from us... It is not necessary to disturb it, we may only pass cautiously and silently on its overgrown streets having felt silence and rest fallen on this distressful city. Farewell Pripyat, we will remember you. We will visit you, we will observe, how you become a part of the Great Nature which we, fortunately, I hope, are powerless to change.
We wandered by a city marking numbers of houses, for a map of the city which we, by common efforts, try to restore. About 6 PM... Darkens... I have a strong headache... Radiation?... I don’t know... Probably, simply overabundance of fresh air :). Gamma background level in a city fluctuates from 15 mсR/h to 3 mR/h. Park of the side-show, stadium, area of river-boat station, polyclinic...
Pripyat "Public amenities centre"... Underfoot crackle debris of beaten eight-millimeter plate glasses. We are on the second floor... "here I was photographed on the passport" - Vlad says, showing on the bare warped door...
Behind a House of Culture "Energetik" - park of the side-show, one of "the dirtiest" places in a city... We squat near an autodrome platform. Max puts radiometer on a faded grass. Two our radiometers deafeningly peeps in the centre of an empty city... 1 mR/h... Snow partially extinguishes... In the summer here up to 2 mR/h... We go further... The hostel №19, stadium, a cinema "Prometej".
River-boat station... Also "a dirty" place... This part of Pripyat was hooked by so-called "Northern trace"... Ten more meters further... Gamma background level sharply increases to 1 - 3 mR/h...
Mooring of the former Pripyat river-boat station... In funeral days here former Pripyaters like to arrange picnics... With children... Gamma background level here even in the winter 0,7 - 3 mR/h...
Polyclinic... Radiometers oppositely peeps, we are still in area of "Northern trace". Druzhby Narodov Street, Pripyat high school №1, a children’s playground in a court yard, school №5.
After the whole day spent in the Zone, you start to silently hate caustically peeping radiometer. It seems that this peep for ever "stick" in your brain. On Pripyat falls twilight. The easy delusion begins - it seems that in windows of empty houses light is switched on, on streets people walk... In a complete silence along the street silently humming the car was creeps in the opposite direction?!. No, it is not a mirage! Struggling with snowdrifts to us drive claret "Lada" with the Russian, Petersburg numbers. Two guys jump out of the car in khaki colour suits: "You from a site Pripyat.com? We are journalists from "Komsomolskaya Pravda”. We were on your site and have learnt that soon will be an anniversary - 20 years of failure.” And here already we all together stand in the centre of a deserted city near a House of Culture "Energetik", we drink beer, eat smoked fish, presented by natives of Novoshepelychi - grandfather Savva and the grandmother Lena, we speak about Pripyat, about the Zone, about failure on ChNPP, which so changed our life... Has absolutely darkened... Guys from " Komsomolka" remain to spend the night in Pripyat, they have a camera with infra-red illumination and wish to photograph local living creatures at night... We say goodbye and sit down in cars...
Good-bye Pripyat, good-bye the Zone... Soon we will return.
