Chernobyl: Pripyat #4 – Swimming Pool ‘Lazurny’, Piano Shop, Post office, Police Station, Jupiter factory, Vehicle Graveyard, Apartment Block, and Cafe ‘Pripyat’. – April 2015

March 5, 2016

Chernobyl & Pripyat, Industrial & Commercial Sites, Leisure Sites, Ukraine

Welcome the the last of my 4 posts from the three days I spent exploring Pripyat, which are:

1. Avanhard Stadium, Fairground with Ferris Wheel and Bumper Cars, Palace of Culture ‘Energetik’, Polissya Hotel, and Music School.

2. The schools of Pripyat – Kindergartens #13 ‘Goldfish’, #4 ‘Golden Cockerel’, #15, Elementary Schools #1, #3, #2 and #5.

3. Hospital No.126.

4. Swimming Pool ‘Lazurny’, Piano Shop, Post office, Police Station, Jupiter factory, Vehicle Graveyard, Apartment Block, and Cafe ‘Pripyat’.

As always, click on a photo to VIEW LARGE

Swimming Pool ‘Lazurny’ (Azure)

Not every building in Pripyat was completely abandoned after the evacuation of 27 April 1986. The city’s swimming pool was still used by the liquidators tasking with decontaminating the region up until 1996, a decade after the disaster.

Here’s what it looked like in October 1996…

And today…

Piano Shop

Post Office

The Soviets loved a good mural – preferably one which showed off their love of peace, solidarity, and technological advancement… this is one of the best preserved examples which still remains in the City.

Here’s how it used to look before the evacuation came…

There wasn’t much left to see upstairs…

…so I went back to the mural. I recommend clicking on this photo to view in better detail.

Police Station

Given the generally well educated, employed, and privileged population, crime was relatively low in Pripyat. The majority of problems were alcohol related – making illegal home-brew moonshine, drink driving, and public drunkenness.

One of the old holding / processing cells…

Jupiter Factory

Officially the huge Jupiter Factory on the Western edge of the City made cassette recorders and other mundane household items. However, it is thought that the plant actually secretly produced military computers, ‘black boxes’, and other components for use in submarines, fighter jets, and even the space industry. Such was the level of secrecy surrounding the factory that even today it is not entirely certain exactly what was produced there. These days there is little left…

Vehicle Graveyard

Near to the Police Station and Jupiter Factory is this small dump of discarded vehicles and machinery…

Apartment Block (Northwest Pripyat)

There are seven 16-storey buildings in Pripyat. We explored one of these apartment blocks to the far Northwest of the City…

As with the apartments I explored in Duga, most of the flats had long since been stripped of anything of worth except for the odd heavy item like this sofa.