Construction of the 5th unit of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant began in 1986. The power unit was scheduled to enter service in 1992. However, in 1989 construction was frozen, because the 5th power unit had been designed around the RBMK reactor (the type of reactor installed at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant). About $900 million had been invested in total. The reactor hall was 70% equipped, the RBMK reactor’s main equipment was 95% complete, and the turbine hall was 90% finished.
For many years, whether to complete and commission the 5th power unit was actively debated. In 2012, in the wake of the accident at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, it was decided that construction would not be finished. No radioactive materials were ever brought to the plant, so people who enjoy exploring abandoned buildings can visit this unique facility — a kind of replica of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant — without any risk to their health.
Where Is the Abandoned Kursk Nuclear Power Plant Located?
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Abandoned Kursk Nuclear Power Plant
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This unfinished power unit has the same type of reactor, the RBMK-1000, as the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which is situated in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where we sneaked in last summer.
Night is the best friend of illegal urbex visitors. These massive structures look impressive under the moonlight.
A pipe on top of the reactor. The Chernobyl biorobots who dropped radioactive graphite from the rooftop of the CNPP saw a similar view.
Pipe structures beneath the roof.
The pipe seen from below.
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It’s hard to imagine how big and complex this mechanism is.
Some blast-resistant doors can be up to half a meter thick.
These are industrial filters full of coal dust. We saw something similar in the abandoned bunker in the Kiev metro system; this model looks a little different but has a similar construction.
Pipes of the cooling system.
The main reactor hall.
The biological shielding of an RBMK-1000.
This reactor has no radioactive elements inside.
Utility tunnels around the reactor hall.
An old Soviet-made elevator hidden behind blast-resistant doors.
Stairs and ladders descend and dissolve into the darkness of this leviathan.
All photo credits to Lana Sator