Chernobyl and Pripyat

Day Two - Part One

My favorite meal most days, hands down, is breakfast. After our dinner of questionable content, I was excited to start the day off with something new and substantial. I was rather surprised when the food that was placed before me for my favorite meal of the day was identical to the food we had had for dinner, our previous meal just 13 hours before.

We learned to call this a meal, as it was to be our food for the next few days with very few alterations between breakfast and dinner. It wasn't bad food, per se, but it was rather bland - and eating near-identical meals twice a day for four days was strange. I can't imagine continuing on for weeks, months or years.

Abandoned Shipyard

Our first after breakfast on day two was the abandoned ships that are anchored in the Pripyat River. These are boats and ships that were brought in to house workers after the disaster, and abandoned due to the radiation levels on the ships after the cleanup.

I ventured through the snow to get a better vantage of some of the boats. It was unsettling, walking on ice on to floating structures in a less than inspiring state of buoyancy. At one point, I looked to Arek with caution as I tip-toed my way further on the ice. I asked him if he'd ever been that far on to the river before, and he just smiled back and said, "No, but you first!"

Big mistake on my part. I got to spend the rest of the day wringing out my wet socks and praying that my boots would dry out at some point in the humid weather.

Walking on, we found a few more ships in dry dock, as well as a ship repair facility with a catchy slogan.

Our Goal -- Communism

Firefighter Monument

After getting back to the car (with the heat turned up to dry out my boots) we made a very brief stop at a monument erected in honor of the firefighters who first responded at the accident site. Officially, only 28 people died from acute radiation poisoning, most of which were firefighters unaware of just how bad the radiation was going in.

Children's Camp

Venturing further in to the woods, we four-wheeled our way on a snow covered road to a children's camp just outside the Pripyat city limits. There are the remnants of dozens of cabins where children used to stay in and play around, including a gymnasium and playground. The brightly colored buildings stood out in the bleakness of the early spring, with well over a foot of snow still on the ground. The Land Rover was a champ, though, and got us there and back with no issues.

There was a water tower in the middle of the camp, with a sketchy looking ladder going up the side of it. I wanted oh-so-badly to climb it, but I got just two rungs up when one of the steps crumbled under my feet and I was left dangling in the air. I decided the unique vantage it would give me was not worth the broken leg to get it!

In to Pripyat

We ventured in to the town of Pripyat for the first time since arriving.

Hospital

Our first stop in the abandoned city would wind up being perhaps my favorite of the trip: the hospital.

The hospital is broken out in to three separate buildings, each several stories high. The harsh weather during the 27 years of abandonment has not been kind to the hospital, but there were enough remains to keep my eyes wide and my jaw on the floor. Never in my years of exploring have I seen anything like the vast hallways full of records, medical equipment, gurneys and bedpans.

There were even drugs, still in their containers, sitting on shelves ready for use. I wandered, giddy as I've ever been, up and down the halls pushing open doors wondering what was behind them. Door after door, floor after floor, I was never disappointed. Behind each door, in every dark corner there was more mystery and all sorts of equipment littering the floors.

I went through the maternity ward, recovery, surgery, the waiting rooms, and everything in between. Most rooms hadn't been touched aside from open windows letting the harsh winters through.

I traveled fast and light through the hospital. Leaving most of my kit behind in my bag, I grabbed my wide angle zoom and stuck my 50mm in my front pocket. Excitedly, I sometimes ran from room to room, soaking up as much as I could put to memory. Along the way I happened to hold my camera up and snap some photos. I didn't spend a ton of time in any one place as I didn't want to miss out on any particular room or area. I could spend every day for a month in the hospital and maybe be satisfied that I've seen it all.