Chris Higgins
Video: Inside the Chernobyl “Zone of Alienation”
by Chris Higgins - February 9, 2010 - 2:14 PM

On April 26, 1986 a massive accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in what is now the Ukraine. A nuclear reactor exploded, sending radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and killing more than 50 people, with another 800,000 exposed to radiation and increased risk of cancer. Around the Chernobyl plant is a 30-kilometer Zone of Alienation (I’m not making this name up), established to prevent people from entering the most heavily contaminated area (and hurriedly evacuated, as you can see by what has been left behind). But people go there anyway, and when they do, what they find is super creepy. It’s your typical post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, where nature is slowing retaking the cities, and human activity is frozen where it stopped in 1986. Below is a recent video of the Zone of Alienation (also called the Zone of Exclusion). Warning: lonely and creepy, but also beautiful and wistful.

Tropisms > Chernobyl > Lost Souls from POLYMORF on Vimeo.

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Comments (12)

  1. Thanks for this video. It’s beautiful and yet haunting, like the Diaries of Anne Frank, so much beauty and so much tragedy. I’ve been captivated by stories of Pripyat for a long time. Would love to see/read more. Thanks again.

    posted by stephanie on 2-9-2010 at 3:36 pm

  2. So, what is safe background radiation and when do they think most of the area would be inhabitable again? The Geiger counter was at .200. What’s that 200 micro Rads?

    posted by Big Jonny on 2-9-2010 at 3:46 pm

  3. Wow that is so crazy how everything is still ‘stuck’ in 1986 there. The photographs are intriguing. I wonder who the people are in those photos.

    posted by Emma on 2-9-2010 at 4:05 pm

  4. Beautiful video… just so sad. You wonder about the people not just in the pictures, but in the town itself… whatever happened to them.

    posted by Nikki on 2-9-2010 at 4:44 pm

  5. im actually working on a 20 page paper about cleaning up nuclear contamination sites and I keep getting distracted by chernobyl. so this doesnt really help lol. i would love go tp Prypiat some day just to see it.

    posted by Austen on 2-9-2010 at 4:59 pm

  6. I served in the Navy for a few years working on the repair of the nuclear reactor components on subs. 200 ‘micro’ rems maybe a mistranslation since radiation is not normally measured that low. It is usually measured as Millirem (mrem)or 1/1000 of a Rem. A mrem is a small dose of radiation usually found in a clinical setting such as a dental x-ray. The radiation danger is dependent on several criteria: type, distance from source, and time exposed to source. I worked on the reactors and subs for 7 years and had a total of 997 mrem. I do not glow in the dark. The acceptable level of radiation exposure at that time by the Navy was 5000 mrem a year and 40000 mrem per life time.

    posted by Owen on 2-9-2010 at 5:24 pm

  7. Very haunting. I remember when this happened, and the complete lack of information that the Soviets were sharing and the guesses that our media and government were making.

    It’s tragic any way you look at it.

    posted by shirleyfeeney on 2-10-2010 at 2:21 am

  8. The video is very touching, and eerie. Could’ve done without some of the sound effects, though. They made what should have been haunting grating and annoying instead.
    Urban exploration is a hobby of mine, Pripyat is like Mecca, being able to explore it would be the closest I’m likely to get to a religious experience.

    posted by sammylee on 2-10-2010 at 10:43 am

  9. While working in Ukraine, I took the opportunity to visit Chernobyl and Pripyat. There are still a couple of thousand workers in the area, cleaning up the contamination (although, it’s really being left in place), and rebuilidng the sarcophagus(sp?)around reactor 4.

    The amusement park area was truly the most haunted area. Construction on it had just been completed right before the accident. It had never been used.

    It was worth risking the radiation exposure, mostly cesium contamination (it is mostly now an injestion an inhalation hazard), an absolutely fascinating tour.

    posted by Cathy on 2-10-2010 at 11:29 am

  10. very creepy and eerie. but I couldn’t help but think of that level in Call of Duty 4.

    posted by travels on 2-10-2010 at 11:56 am

  11. @Owen

    thank you, that helped.

    posted by Big Jonny on 2-10-2010 at 2:50 pm

  12. living in Ukraine now; have never been to Chernobyl or Pripyat but have visited the Chernobyl Museum on Kyiv several times. It is eerie, haunting and tragic.
    One thing that was interesting in these pix- so much of the furniture you see in the pix is still what you see in many people’s homes. The new stuff is different, but many still have tables, cupboards, fold down sofa beds, etc, just like these pix.
    I love Ukr but it is very much a place of conflicting iterests and emotions.. was then and is now.

    posted by ann on 2-12-2010 at 4:24 pm

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