Chernobyl - My memories from the Eastern Europe

Introduction - Essential knowledge

• The construction of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant began in August, 1972 and the first reactor was comissioned in 1977.
• Each of the reactors was constructed to produce 1000 MW of electric power. With 4 reactors the Power Station was capable of producing 4000 MW of electric power.
• The Power Plant itself is called Chernobyl Power Plant, but in fact it's located 10km away from Chernobyl. The nearest city is Pripyat.
• It's located about 16 km south of Belarus-Ukraine border and 110 km north of Kiev.
  
  [Location of Chernobyl - Source : softfern.com]
• The catastrophe of Reactor no. 4 was one of the biggest nuclear disasters
• The Reactor no. 3 was shut down in December, 2000, thus the Power Plant completely stopped generating electricity 17 years ago.

The Chernobyl Disaster

The explosion of Reactor No. 4 took place in April 26. 1986. The experiment that required to lower the power output of generator has gone wrong, resulting in pumps failure and explosion of the reactor. Whole lot of radioactive elements was released to the atmosphere, causing huge danger for people living anywhere near Chernobyl and the neighboring countries.

[Reactor No. 4 after the explosion - Source: US News & World Report]
Russian politicians wanted to keep the disaster a secret, but it was too dangerous for the health of people living in the nearby, so after 4 days they'd officially announced the evacuation of Pripyat. It took only a few hours to evacuate ~50,000 inhabitants.

[Evacuation of Pripyat city - Source : Youtube]
After the evacuation, thousands of Russians were offered huge money from the Government to work as liquidators.
The radiation level was so high, that people could only work a few minutes or hours, so they literally came from across the Russia in order to work. Many of liquidators were happy to help.
2 Months after the explosion, Russians made the decision to build a "sarcophagus", which was a massive steel and concrete structure, that blocked radioactive waves inside.
After 30 years, it's been replaced by the new structure called "NSC" - New Safe Containment, which costed about $2.5 bil.

[New Safe Containment Nowadays]

Pripyat - Now and then.

Pripyat was founded in 1970 as an estate for workers of Power Station.
It was thought to be a very luxurious. People that lived there could go to a cinema, restaurant, or go sailing. The shops always had everything people needed, as opposed to other Russian cities where people had to wait few hours in lines before they would finally buy bread. The city had a beautiful square and a hotel in the middle of it.
Nowadays, everything is covered in trees and it looks basically like a forest. Here are some photos comparing Pripyat of 70's and now.

• Polissya Hotel, located in the center of main square.
  
  [1. Before the disaster - Source : pripyat.com, 2. 2017, made by me]
• Main street
  
  [1. Before the disaster - Source : pripyat-city.ru, 2. 2017, made by me]
• Culture Center - Energetik
  
  [1. Before the disaster - Source : Oddviser, 2. 2017, made by me]

Summary

The whole area is safe right now, the radiation level is roughly 2x bigger than in any city. There's no danger of getting radiation illness by visiting Chernobyl for a few days. Visiting the zone was one of the greatest experiences in my life and I recommend everyone to go there if it's possible.

@catchup
!steemitworldmap 51.401508 lat 30.050955 long Pripyat, Ukraine D3SCR