Call me an oddball, but one of my lifetime goals is to be able to go to Pripyat in the Ukraine and photograph it.  Prypiat was a city built to house the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant.  It was completely evacuated in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster.  The city is situated in the Zone of Alienation in Northern Ukraine, a 30km exclusion zone around the reactor. Most of the area is concidered relatively safe, and many Ukraine companies offer guided tours.

What intrigues me about the area is its not just a singular abandoned building (and I love abandoned buildings) but an entire abandoned city, complete with an enitre amusement park, all of it just slowly rotting and decaying.   It’s hard for me to put into words my desire for abandoned structures, but I find them interesting.  In this decaying ruin of a city, people used to walk and go about their lives and then suddenly they left, and the buildings themselves, the ferris wheel, the childrens’ playground… all of it was left to just slowly rot back to the earth.

Here are some photos of Pripyat:

2 Responses to “Before I Die: Pripyat or Bust!”