The best time to visit the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone illegally is the “Golden Autumn” — the period between mid-September and mid-November. No mosquitoes or other insects, only foggy landscapes along the way through abandoned villages to the ghost town of Pripyat.
Every year we make an expedition to Chernobyl. This time we brought a drone to take some shots while climbing the Duga-3 radar station, but our main goal was to enjoy the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of this no man’s land.
We took the same road as last time, which you can read about in the article Going long in Chernobyl
On the edge of the abandoned village of Zamoshnia.
For 30 years, nobody has watched over these houses.
The Old Believers’ Church in the village of Zamoshnia. Traces of bullets and shells from the Second World War can still be seen on the walls.
If you stay in Kyiv on the way to Chernobyl Book our Kyiv Urbex Tour is waiting for you!
The fog dissipates over the autumn field.
I love the Chernobyl zone at night. Walking in silence along the night road, you get a very real feeling that for tens of kilometers there is not a single person around. Sometimes we help other adventurers and travelers get this experience; you can read about how it goes here Sneaking into Chernobyl
A beautiful pattern on the wall of the soldiers’ canteen in the Chernobyl-2 military city. It captures all the dreams of the future — impressive, fleeting art.
In the evening we climbed the Russian Woodpecker. A beautiful sunset from a height of 150 meters.
Climbing to the top usually takes around 20 minutes.
A Soviet over-the-horizon (OTH) radar system used as part of the Soviet anti-ballistic missile early-warning network. The system operated from July 1976 to December 1989. Two operational Duga radars were deployed: one near Chernobyl and Chernihiv in the Ukrainian SSR (present-day Ukraine), the other in eastern Siberia.
The Duga systems were extremely powerful, over 10 MW in some cases, and broadcast in the shortwave radio bands. They appeared without warning, sounding like a sharp, repetitive tapping noise at 10 Hz, which led shortwave listeners to nickname them the Russian Woodpecker.
The sun is setting, which means it’s time for us to head down. There is a long road ahead to the abandoned city of Pripyat.
Pripyat is a ghost town in northern Ukraine, near the Ukraine-Belarus border. After the disaster, the city was evacuated in two days. On a foggy morning, we walked through its empty streets.
Pripyat was founded in February 1970 as an atomograd, the satellite city of an atomic power plant. It was home first to the construction workers, then to the plant operators and their families. The “Rostok” grocery store. All the buildings in Chernobyl are empty inside, unlike the buildings in the Fukushima exclusion zone which we visited in May.
Val taking some drone shots near the Ferris wheel.
The Soviet coat of arms on a 16-storey building in the center of Pripyat. Within its boundaries, the now-abandoned city contained all the amenities of a thriving community — dozens of stores, schools, a hospital, parks and recreation areas. A theme park was due to open less than a month after the accident, but all those plans collapsed on the eve of April 26th that year.
During the day we hid from police patrols, but now the sun is going down, so it’s the best time to walk the ghost streets and explore the abandoned town.
Nature reclaims every area where people once lived. Now the streets of Pripyat look like a jungle.
An abandoned telephone booth in the city center of Pripyat.
Svitanok — a sculptural relief with a mosaic on the “Kolosok” store, 1979 (artist — Ivan Litovchenko)
We will definitely come back here next year.
Hi Vlad, impressive and beautiful pictures! I like to be there!