So, before the 'zone ban' this week I managed to get in a few more cheeky 'splores!
...Rumour has it that there is a creepy laboratory, set in an old kindergarten in downtown Pripyat down by the greenhouses, that’s enough motivation for me so off I went.
The greenhouses are HUGE! Pripyat wanted to be a self sustaining city, so built several acres worth of glass greenhouses to grow their own crops:
There is more broken glass than you can imagine. I’m not sure if this has been done by vandals, or liquidators breaking the glass to prevent the buildup of radioactive pockets. Or more likely, have broken on their own from years of heavy snow, and scorching summers expanding the metal framing
But this isn’t why I’m here. I urge my guide to take me to the lab:
We enter the building through what must have been an old potting shed
These have been stacked for nearly 30 years…
Well insulated pipes:
Following the disaster: scientists wanted to take soil samples from all over the city to test their radioactive content, and study how they deteriorated. The biggest building near to the greenhouses was the old abandoned kindergarten:
Signs of it’s former use were everywhere: Old Piano:
Radioactive soils samples are everywhere, there is no option but to walk across them as carefully as possible. Occasionally one would pop open underfoot, spewing its radioactive black contents onto the floor.
Flesh in formaldehyde :
Room upon room of samples:
Radioactive crop samples:
From 1996, a full decade after the disaster:
Machinery:
Interior panoramic, typical room:
Scientists handwritten notes still piled high on shelves:
And the obligatory empty vodka bottles.
Cheers for looking, the adventure continues….
...Rumour has it that there is a creepy laboratory, set in an old kindergarten in downtown Pripyat down by the greenhouses, that’s enough motivation for me so off I went.
The greenhouses are HUGE! Pripyat wanted to be a self sustaining city, so built several acres worth of glass greenhouses to grow their own crops:
There is more broken glass than you can imagine. I’m not sure if this has been done by vandals, or liquidators breaking the glass to prevent the buildup of radioactive pockets. Or more likely, have broken on their own from years of heavy snow, and scorching summers expanding the metal framing
But this isn’t why I’m here. I urge my guide to take me to the lab:
We enter the building through what must have been an old potting shed
These have been stacked for nearly 30 years…
Well insulated pipes:
Following the disaster: scientists wanted to take soil samples from all over the city to test their radioactive content, and study how they deteriorated. The biggest building near to the greenhouses was the old abandoned kindergarten:
Signs of it’s former use were everywhere: Old Piano:
Radioactive soils samples are everywhere, there is no option but to walk across them as carefully as possible. Occasionally one would pop open underfoot, spewing its radioactive black contents onto the floor.
Flesh in formaldehyde :
Room upon room of samples:
Radioactive crop samples:
From 1996, a full decade after the disaster:
Machinery:
Interior panoramic, typical room:
Scientists handwritten notes still piled high on shelves:
And the obligatory empty vodka bottles.
Cheers for looking, the adventure continues….