On April 26, 1986, I turned seven years old. It was Saturday. Friends came to visit us and they gave me a yellow umbrella with a letter ornament. I have never had this, so I was happy and really looking forward to the rain.
It rained the next day, April 27th. But my mother did not allow me to go under it. And she looked scared. That was the first time I heard the heavy word "Chernobyl".

In those years, we lived in a military town in the small village of Sarata in the Odessa region. Chernobyl is far away. But it's still scary. Then cars with liquidators pulled out of our unit in that direction. Another heavy word, the meaning of which I learned much later.

Of our neighbors, who with their bare hands closed the world from the deadly atom, only a few survived today.

In 2006, there were more of these people. A week before my birthday, I received a task to talk to the remaining liquidators and collect the most interesting episodes. By that time I already worked as a journalist and lived in Rostov-on-Don.

And so I found my heroes - the head of the anti-shock department of the North Caucasian Civil Defense Regiment Oleg Popov, Hero of Russia Captain II rank Anatoly Bessonov and sanitary doctor Viktor Zubov. These were completely different people who were united by only one thing - Chernobyl.

I'm not sure they are all alive today. After all, eleven years have passed. But I have records of our conversations. And, from which the blood is still cold.

History first. abnormal summer.

On May 13, 1986, Oleg Viktorovich Popov, head of the anti-shock department of the North Caucasian Civil Defense Regiment, had a birthday. Relatives congratulated, friends called, even a messenger came. True, instead of a gift, he brought a summons - tomorrow morning he had to come to the military registration and enlistment office.

We quietly celebrated, and the next day I went on the agenda. I didn’t even suspect where they were calling me, so I put on a light shirt, took money to buy milk home. But my milk never came. I returned only at the end of the summer, Oleg Popov told me.

He remembered Chernobyl for its abnormal temperature. During the day already in May it was under forty, at night it was so cold that the tooth did not fall on the tooth. As protection, the liquidators were given canvas suits. Heavy and not breathable. Many could not stand it - they fell from heat strokes. But it was necessary to "remove the radiation", so the suits were removed and liquidated, as best they could - with bare hands.

People started getting sick. The main diagnosis is pneumonia.

Then I had another shock. We were delivered boxes with red crosses - medicines. We opened them, and there - beyond words - something that had lain in warehouses for decades. The bandages fell apart from time to time, the pills were yellow, the expiration date on the package was barely visible. In the same boxes were gynecological devices, devices for measuring growth. And that's all for the liquidators. What to do? How to treat people? The only salvation is the hospital, - Oleg Viktorovich recalled.

The fight went on day and night. And not only with the reactor, but also with the system, and with themselves.

On the site "Chernobylets Don" about Popov there is such a reference:

“In the 30-kilometer zone, I worked in my specialty, I had to treat and put on my feet mainly soldiers and officers of my regiment. There was a lot of work, and Oleg Viktorovich was actually the main person responsible for the health of the regiment's personnel. After all, soldiers and officers were called in a hurry, often without a medical examination. Popov O.V. recalls that there were cases of conscription for training camps with peptic ulcer and other diseases. Some even had to be sent to a hospital or a hospital. And, of course, it was possible to provide psychological assistance to soldiers and officers, because it is clear that there was no full-time psychologist in the unit. His work in the regiment was appreciated, and since then he has retained the warmest memories of his comrades-in-arms, of the commander of the regiment N.I. Kleimenov. and officers of the unit.
After the completion of special gatherings and returning home, Oleg Viktorovich, by profession and work, treated the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident and was always ready to help them in word and deed.
He has government awards: the Order of the Badge of Honor and the Order of Courage.

Only in May 1986, and only from the Rostov region, about thirty thousand liquidators arrived in Chernobyl. Many returned with a load of 200. Many carried a poison charge in their blood.

Oleg Popov brought leukemia to the Don. He came with tests that would not have accepted him even in an oncology center - 2,800 antibodies in the blood.

But I didn't plan to give up. Decided to live. And he lived - studied chess, English, I was drawn into photography, began to travel, wrote poetry, designed websites. And, of course, he helped his own - guys like me, who were sent to this inferno, - he said.

I typed the name of Oleg Viktorovich Popov on the Internet. And I was happy to discover that he also lives in Rostov, maintains his own website, his photographic art is valued with high awards, and his literary work has many admirers. This year, according to the website of the regional government, the liquidator was awarded another award. And in 2006, the head of the anti-shock department of the North Caucasian Civil Defense Regiment, Oleg Popov, was awarded the Order of Courage.
Then he told me that he thinks that he is not worth this high award.

The real heroes are those guys who were at the reactor, erecting the sarcophagus with their bare hands, doing, so to speak, decontamination. It was a criminal stupidity that claimed thousands of lives. But then who thought about it? Who knew that it was impossible to bury, neutralize, bury radioactive substances by digging up stadiums, washing the roofs and windows of houses?! At that moment, there was nothing else ...

The second story. Sweet roads of death.

Memories sanitary doctor Viktor Zubov a little different. When they first announced the collection to eliminate the accident, he joked that they would go to fight against tanks with sabers. It turned out that he was not mistaken. In fact, it was.
On the morning of June 21, sanitary doctors from the Rostov region left for Pripyat.

At first, to be honest, we did not understand the full scale of the tragedy. We drove up to Pripyat, and there - beauty! Greenery, birds sing, mushrooms are visible in the forests - not visible. The huts are so neat and clean! And if you don't think about the fact that every plant is saturated with death, then - paradise! Viktor Zubov recalled. - But in the camp where we arrived, I first felt fear - they told me that the doctor, in whose place I was sent, committed suicide. Nerves gone. Couldn't handle the pressure.

Of the vivid memories of Zubov - sweet roads. Ordinary roads that were sprinkled with sugar syrup to forge deadly dust under a sweet crust. But it was all in vain. After the very first car, the sugar ice cracked and the poison flew into the faces of the liquidators who followed.

We still didn't fully understand what we were going to do. And on the spot it turned out that we had few patients. And all seventy doctors came for decontamination,” he explained. - Of the protective equipment were an apron and a respirator. They worked with shovels. Bath in the evening. What they were doing? They washed the windows of houses, helped at nuclear power plants. We slept in rubber tents and ate local food. By that time we already understood everything. But there was no choice, hoping for the best.

Viktor Zubov spent six months in Chernobyl. At home, the doctor realized that now he, a young man, has become a regular client of the clinic and the owner of a bunch of diseases. You will get tired of listing the diagnoses.

At the time of our interview (let me remind you, it was 11 years ago), Victor was living on medication. But he did well - he played the Beatles button accordion, walked with his grandchildren, made something around the house. I tried to live so that it was not excruciatingly painful.

To be continued

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurred. The consequences of this tragedy are still being felt throughout the world. She spawned many amazing stories. Below are ten stories that you probably did not know about the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.

The buried village of Kopachi

After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) and the evacuation of the inhabitants of the adjacent territory, the authorities decided to completely bury the village of Kopachi (Kyiv region, Ukraine), which was heavily contaminated with radiation, in order to prevent its further spread.

By order of the government, the entire settlement was demolished, with the exception of two buildings. After that, all the debris was buried deep in the ground. However, the move only made matters worse, as radioactive chemicals entered the local groundwater.

Currently, the territory of the former village of Kopachi is overgrown with grass. The only thing left of it is the warning signs of radiation hazard, which are located near each place where this or that building was buried.

The cause of the Chernobyl accident was a successful experiment

The experiment using the reactor of the 4th power unit, which directly led to the disaster, was actually designed to improve the safety of its operation. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant had diesel generators that continued to power the cooling system pumps even when the reactor itself was turned off.

However, there was a one-minute difference between the shutdown of the reactor and the generators reaching full power, a period that did not suit the operators of the nuclear power plant. They modified the turbine in such a way that it continued to rotate after the reactor was shut down. Without approval from higher authorities, the director of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant decided to launch a full-scale test of this safety function.

However, during the experiment, the reactor power fell below the expected level. This led to reactor instability, which was successfully countered by automated systems.

And although the test was successful, the reactor itself experienced a powerful surge of energy, from which it literally blew the roof off. This was one of the worst disasters in human history.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant continued to operate until 2000

After the work to eliminate the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was stopped, the Soviet Union continued to operate the remaining reactors until its collapse and the declaration of independence of Ukraine. In 1991, the Ukrainian authorities announced that in two years they would completely close the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

However, chronic energy shortages forced the Ukrainian government to postpone the shutdown of the nuclear power plant. However, the country did not have money to pay workers at nuclear power plants, so at least 100 safety incidents occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant every year. In 2000, 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, the President of Ukraine, under strong pressure from the leaders of other countries, finally decided to permanently close the nuclear power plant. In exchange, he was promised one billion dollars to build two new nuclear reactors. The money was allocated, but no reactors, no money ...

In 1991, a second fire broke out at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Given the gross safety violations, poor maintenance and lack of professional training of the personnel of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it is not surprising that after the 1986 disaster, another tragedy occurred here at one of the remaining steam generators.

In 1991, a fire started at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the steam turbines that produce electricity at the 2nd reactor were transferred to scheduled maintenance. It was necessary to turn off the reactor, but instead, automated mechanisms accidentally rebooted it.

A surge of electrical energy caused a fire in the turbine hall. Due to the release of accumulated hydrogen, the roof caught fire. Part of it collapsed, but the fire was extinguished before it could spread to the reactors.

Consequences of the Chernobyl disaster cost national budgets dearly

Since the disaster was radioactive in nature, a huge amount of money was initially spent on protecting the exclusion zone, resettling people, providing medical and social assistance to the victims, and much more.

In 2005, almost twenty years after the catastrophe, the Ukrainian government continued to spend 5-7 percent of the national budget on Chernobyl-related programs, after the new president Poroshenko came to power, spending fell sharply. In neighboring Belarus, authorities in the first year after the collapse of the Soviet Union spent more than 22 percent of the national budget on reimbursing expenses related to the consequences of the Chernobyl tragedy. Today, this figure has decreased to 5.7 percent, but it is still a lot.

Obviously, government spending in this regard will be unsustainable in the long run.

The myth of the brave divers

And although the fire formed as a result of the first explosion was quickly eliminated, molten nuclear fuel continued to remain under the ruins of the reactor, which posed a huge threat. If it had reacted with the coolant (water) below the reactor, it could have destroyed the entire object.

According to legend, three volunteer divers, in the face of lethal radiation, dived into a pool of water located under the reactor and drained it. They died soon after, but they managed to save the lives of millions of people. The real story is much more mundane.

Three men actually went down under the reactor to drain the pool, but the water level in the basement of the building was only knee-deep. In addition, they knew exactly where the water drain valve was located, so they completed the task without any difficulty. Unfortunately, the fact that they soon died is true.

Swedish radiation detectors

On the day when the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the “Radiation Hazard” signal went off at the Swedish nuclear power plant Forsmark. Emergency protocols were activated and most workers were evacuated. For almost a day, the Swedish authorities tried to establish what was happening at the Forsmark, as well as other nuclear facilities in the Scandinavian countries.

By the end of the day, it became clear that the likely source of radiation was in the territory of the Soviet Union. It was only three days later that the Soviet authorities informed the world about what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. As a result, the northern countries received a significant part of the Chernobyl radiation.

The exclusion zone has turned into a nature reserve

You might think that the exclusion zone (the vast territory around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, prohibited from free access) is something like a nuclear desert. Actually it is not. The Chernobyl exclusion zone has actually turned into a wildlife sanctuary. Since people no longer hunt here, all kinds of animals thrive in the exclusion zone, from wolves to voles and deer.

The Chernobyl disaster had a negative impact on these animals. Under the influence of radiation, many of them have undergone genetic mutations. However, three decades have passed since the tragedy, so the level of radiation in the exclusion zone has been steadily declining.

The Soviet Union tried to use robots during the liquidation of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Radiation killed the lives of thousands of brave people who took part in the aftermath of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Soviet authorities sent 60 robots to help them, but the high level of radioactivity destroyed them instantly. Also, remote-controlled bulldozers and modified moon rovers were involved in the aftermath of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Some of the robots were resistant to radiation, but the water used to disinfect them rendered them useless after the first use. However, robots by 10 percent (the equivalent of five hundred workers) were able to reduce the number of people needed to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident.

The United States of America had robots that could have done a better job than the Soviets in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. But since relations between the USSR and the USA were tense, America did not send its robots to Chernobyl.

self-settlers

You will be surprised to learn that people continue to live in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone decades after the disaster. The houses of most of them are located ten kilometers from the 4th power unit of the nuclear power plant. However, these people, mostly elderly, are still exposed to high levels of radioactive substances. They refused resettlement and remained abandoned to their fate. At the moment, the state does not provide any assistance to self-settlers. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and hunting.

Many self-settlers are already 70-80 years old. Today, there are very few of them left, because old age does not spare anyone. Oddly enough, but those who refused to leave the Chernobyl exclusion zone, on average, live 10-20 years longer than people who moved to other places after the accident at the nuclear power plant.

Almost 25 years have passed since the terrible event that shocked the whole world. The echoes of this catastrophe of the century will stir the souls of people for a long time to come, and its consequences will touch people more than once. The catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant - why did it happen and what are its consequences for us?

Why did the Chernobyl disaster happen?

Until now, there is no unambiguous opinion about what caused the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Some argue that the reason is defective equipment and gross errors during the construction of nuclear power plants. Others see the cause of the explosion in the failure of the circulating water supply system, which provided cooling for the reactor. Still others are convinced that the experiments on the permissible load, carried out at the station that ominous night, during which a gross violation of the rules of operation occurred, were to blame. Others are sure that if there was a protective concrete cap above the reactor, the construction of which was neglected, there would not be such a spread of radiation that occurred as a result of the explosion.

Most likely, this terrible event occurred due to a combination of these factors - after all, each of them had a place to be. Human irresponsibility, acting "at random" in matters relating to life and death, and the deliberate concealment of information about what happened by the Soviet authorities led to consequences, the results of which will long echo back to more than one generation of people around the world.

Chernobyl disaster. Chronicle of events

The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant happened late at night on April 26, 1986. A fire brigade was called to the scene. Courageous and courageous people, they were shocked by what they saw and immediately guessed what had happened from the off-scale radiation meters. However, there was no time to think - and a team of 30 people rushed to fight the disaster. From protective clothing, they were wearing ordinary helmets and boots - of course, they could in no way protect firefighters from huge doses of radiation. These people have long been dead, all of them at different times died a painful death from cancer that struck them ..

By morning the fire was extinguished. However, pieces of uranium and graphite emitting radiation were scattered throughout the territory of the nuclear power plant. The worst thing is that the Soviet people did not immediately learn about the disaster that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This allowed them to remain calm and prevent panic - this is exactly what the authorities were trying to achieve, turning a blind eye to the cost of their ignorance for people. The ignorant population, for two whole days after the explosion, calmly rested in the territory, which had become deadly dangerous, went out into nature, to the river, on a warm spring day, children were outside for a long time. And everyone absorbed huge doses of radiation.

And on April 28, a complete evacuation was announced. 1100 buses in a column took out the population of Chernobyl, Pripyat and other nearby settlements. People abandoned their houses and everything in them - they were allowed to take only identification cards and food for a couple of days with them.

A zone with a radius of 30 km was recognized as an exclusion zone unsuitable for human life. The water, livestock and vegetation in the area were deemed unfit for consumption and a health hazard.

The temperature in the reactor in the first days reached 5000 degrees - it was impossible to approach it. A radioactive cloud hung over the nuclear power plant, which circled the Earth three times. To nail it to the ground, the reactor was bombed from helicopters with sand and water, but the effect of these actions was meager. There were 77 kg of radiation in the air - as if a hundred atomic bombs were simultaneously dropped on Chernobyl.

A huge ditch was dug near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was filled with the remains of the reactor, pieces of concrete walls, the clothes of the workers who liquidated the disaster. Within a month and a half, the reactor was completely sealed with concrete (the so-called sarcophagus) to prevent radiation leakage.

In 2000, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was closed. Until now, work is underway on the Shelter project. However, Ukraine, for which Chernobyl became a sad "legacy" from the USSR, does not have the required money for it.

The tragedy of the century that they wanted to hide

Who knows how long the Soviet government would have covered up the "incident" if it hadn't been for the weather. Strong winds and rains, so inopportunely passed through Europe, carried the radiation around the world. Ukraine, Belarus and the south-western regions of Russia, as well as Finland, Sweden, Germany, and the UK most of all “got it”.

For the first time, unprecedented figures on the radiation level meters were seen by employees of the nuclear power plant in Forsmark (Sweden). Unlike the Soviet government, they rushed to immediately evacuate all people living in the surrounding area before establishing that the problem was not in their reactor, but the USSR was the alleged source of the outgoing threat.

And exactly two days after the Forsmark scientists announced a radioactive alert, US President Ronald Reagan was holding pictures of the Chernobyl disaster site taken by the CIA artificial satellite. What was depicted on them would make even a person with a very stable psyche horrified.

While periodicals around the world were trumpeting the danger posed by the Chernobyl disaster, the Soviet press escaped with a modest statement that there had been an "accident" at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Chernobyl disaster and its consequences

The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster made themselves felt in the very first months after the explosion. People living in the territories adjacent to the site of the tragedy died from hemorrhages and apoplexy.

The liquidators of the consequences of the accident suffered: out of the total number of liquidators of 600,000, about 100,000 people are no longer alive - they died from malignant tumors and destruction of the hematopoietic system. The existence of other liquidators cannot be called cloudless - they suffer from numerous diseases, including cancer, disorders of the nervous and endocrine systems. The same health problems have many evacuees, the affected population of the adjacent territories.

The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster for children are terrible. Developmental delay, thyroid cancer, mental disorders and a decrease in the body's resistance to all kinds of diseases - that's what awaited children who were exposed to radiation.

However, the most terrible thing is that the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster affected not only people living at that time. Problems with pregnancy, frequent miscarriages, stillborn children, frequent birth of children with genetic abnormalities (Down's syndrome, etc.), weakened immunity, a striking number of children with leukemia, an increase in the number of cancer patients - all these are echoes of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the end of which will come yet not soon. If it comes...

Not only people suffered from the Chernobyl disaster - all life on Earth felt the deadly force of radiation on itself. As a result of the Chernobyl disaster, mutants appeared - the descendants of people and animals born with various deformations. A foal with five legs, a calf with two heads, fish and birds of unnaturally large sizes, giant mushrooms, newborns with deformities of the head and limbs - photos of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are horrific evidence of human negligence.

The lesson presented to humanity by the Chernobyl disaster was not appreciated by people. We are still careless about our own lives, still striving to squeeze the maximum out of the riches bestowed on us by nature, everything we need “here and now”. Who knows, perhaps the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the beginning, to which humanity is moving slowly but surely...

Film about the Chernobyl disaster
We advise everyone who is interested to watch the full-length documentary film "The Battle for Chernobyl". This video can be watched right here online and for free. Happy viewing!

Women and children were the first to be evacuated. In this corner of the former Soviet Union, there was a shortage of buses. Buses from other regions of the country came here to take 50 thousand people out of the city. The length of the bus column was 20 kilometers, which meant that when the first bus left Pripyat, the pipes of the power plant were no longer visible to the last one. In less than three hours, the city was completely empty. And so it will remain forever. In early May, the evacuation of people living in the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl was organized. Disinfection works were carried out in 1840 settlements. However, the Chernobyl exclusion zone was not developed until 1994, when the last inhabitants of the villages in its western part were moved to new apartments in the Kiev and Zhytomyr regions.

Today Pripyat is a city of ghosts. Despite the fact that no one lives there, the city has its own elegance and atmosphere. It did not cease to exist, unlike the neighboring villages, which were buried in the ground by excavators. They are marked only on road signs and maps of the countryside. Pripyat, as well as the entire 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, is guarded by the police and patrol service. Despite their constant watch, the city was repeatedly subjected to robbery and looting. The whole city has been looted. There was not a single apartment left, no matter where the thieves who took away all the jewelry would visit. In 1987, residents had the opportunity to return to collect a small portion of their belongings. The military plant "Jupiter" worked until 1997; the famous swimming pool "Azure" operated until 1998. At the moment, they are looted and destroyed even more than the apartments and schools in the city combined. There are three other parts of the city that are still in operation: a laundry room (for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), garages for trucks, and a deep well with a pumping station that supplies water to the power plant.

The city is full of 1980s graffiti, signs, books, and images mostly associated with Lenin. His slogans and portraits are everywhere - in the Palace of Culture, a hotel, a hospital, a police station, as well as in schools and kindergartens. Walking around the city is like going back in time, the only difference is that there is no one here, not even birds in the sky. One can only imagine a picture of the era when the city flourished, during the tour we will show you historical photos. To give you a vivid idea of ​​the times of the Soviet Union, we offer a Soviet form, a retro walk in our RETRO TOUR. Everything was built from concrete. All buildings are of the same type, as in other cities built under the Soviet Union. Some houses were overgrown with trees so that they were barely visible from the road, and some buildings were so worn out that they collapsed from a large amount of snow that had fallen. Chernobyl is a life example of how Mother Nature takes her toll over the efforts of many people. In a few decades, only ruins will remain from the city. There is not a single place like this in the world.

Much has been told about the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there are many legends and rumors about this place, so I decided to pack my things and go to the exclusion zone to see this legend with my own eyes. The main difficulty for me was to cross the border with Ukraine. Relations between our countries are quite tense, so I had to penetrate the territory of a neighboring state with the help of a small amount of bribes.

Arriving in Kyiv, I left my things at the hotel, and took everything I needed with me and went directly to the “exclusion zone” itself.

I needed to get there, it was to the village of Peski, and from there I had to get to Chernobyl itself. Upon arrival at the place, they concluded an agreement with me that I would not make any claims in case of deterioration of my health, it is understandable, the radioactive background in some places is quite high, and if I get involved somewhere it will only be my problems.

Tour guides I found myself quite easily, to go alone through the albeit bad, but the protected area is quite dangerous. In total, I paid my guides $ 200 and we were taken on an excursion.

The route for all tourists is the same for everyone, the most non-radioactive paths are chosen, along which you can walk without problems without putting on special protection.

The first thing that catches your eye is, of course, the mysterious echo of the USSR throughout the territory. Abandoned houses, playgrounds, cemeteries. Almost original nature, where in the forest you can meet quite ordinary animals, unlike urban living creatures, no one touches these, and therefore they can multiply and expand their habitat without problems.

The first object that we met was Elias Church. Quite a well-preserved building, unlike the rest, the building has not changed much. In the 30s, they tried to demolish it, but the locals were able to defend the church and now it is considered one of the symbols of the dead city.

Before the accident, the number of inhabitants was at the level of 12-13 thousand people, but now only shift workers and people who settled here independently live there. Each building, each monument reminds of the consequences of the disaster. In honor of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which eliminated the consequences of the accident, a monument was erected, unfortunately, almost all members of the team died from a dose of radiation.

As I said, the entire territory of the zone, 30 km away, is guarded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, there are not enough employees, so not everyone succeeds in catching everyone.

A river flows in Pripyat, some "special" citizens even tried to swim in it, but the guide stops them in time, everything here is saturated with radiation. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant released about 50 tons of harmful substances into the air, they polluted the environment more than Hiroshima with its atomic explosion.

In the same place, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, one can see the very fourth block, which is covered with an already rotten sarcophagus. Now a new one will be built on top of the old one, but then it didn’t exist yet and you could see from afar a pipe with the building of the third power unit, which is often captured in photographs.

Walking along the trails, I really want to move away from them and see the city from a different angle, but, alas, you can enter into a radioactive spot. In Pripyat itself, after the accident, the city was so polluted that the houses had to be demolished and, digging under each individual pit, level the building with the ground.

We were allowed into some high-rise buildings that could not be demolished due to their size, and there we were able to find the remnants of the ordinary life of Soviet people: certificates of honor, children's toys and other utensils that almost every inhabitant of the USSR had.