Although the damaged reactor in its crumbling “sarcophagus” is still an extremely hazardous site, radiation levels in the town of Pripyat and in the surrounding countryside are considered safe enough for brief visits. Alex (“Sasha”) Sirota has visited his former home town several times and documented in these haunting photos images of a city drained of its inhabitants by nuclear disaster.
Entering Pripyat April 26, 1998
Behind the barbed wire
Many of the bus drivers who heroically helped the residents of Chernobyl flee died of radiation sickness shortly thereafter. This picture of the old bus terminal was taken April 26, 1999.
Hotel “Poliss’a,” central Pripyat
City center (May 9, 1999)
The reactor is dimly visible on the horizon, in back of the overgrown city center. (April 26, 1999)
Culture center where Lyubov Sirota worked. May 9, 1999
Behind the trees on the right: the apartment building where Lyubov Sirota lived with her son Sasha. (Photo taken April 26, 1999)
Cinema “Prometej” April 26, 1999
Overgrown sidewalk by apartment building. (April, 26 1998)
May 9, 1999
Sasha’s former school is the two-story building on the right; in front of the school there is football field overgrown with young trees. The reactor dimly visible on the horizon. (May, 9, 1999)
The village of Zaliss’a near Pripyat (April 26, 1999)
Sasha Sirota with his fellow pupils near school No 1 (He is the boy in the front row on the right, holding the flower.)
Sasha & a former schoolmate at the entrance to the same school, now abandoned and overgrown. (April, 26 1999)
Children’s playground near apartment complex, before the disaster.
The playground today, abandoned and overgrown.
Sasha Sirota with his friends on the road from Pripyat to Chernobyl, with the reactor visible in the background.
