To enter the city of Pripyat, Suess passed through three security checks. "Entry into the zone of exclusion is only allowed with proper authorizations and a tour guide."
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
A couple of minutes later, we arrived in the heart of the city: Lenin square in the middle of Pripyat, where two of the main city axes cross.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
To the west are the big restaurants and the market and the high rise of the Voskhod building with its hammer and sickle insignia on top.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
To the east, Pripyat’s Hotel Polissya. To the north, the Palace of Culture with the arched walkway and its white columns.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
Visiting the Palace of Culture was a strange experience, not only because of the urban exploration aspect, but because I had played the Pripyat level in the Call of Duty 4 game shortly before the trip. The Palace of Culture is one of the buildings featured in the game, so I was visiting a place that I knew virtually.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
Underneath the apartment block was a former supermarket, which was used as a storage for a lot of furniture.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
Our guide Yuriy led me around the Palace of Culture, where he first showed me a room full of Communist party member portraits.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
"We then moved on to the Pripyat amusement park where the big Ferris wheel, the bumper car and two other rides stood lonely on a large, flat field of asphalt."
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The amusement park was an unsettling place. The Ferris wheel loomed underneath a cloud-scattered sky and every few minutes gave off guttural creaking noises.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The evening sun tinted the hall"— containing a public pool — "in a warm yellow through the enormous windows, which contrasted its otherwise blue hue.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The building also contained a gym hall with wooden floors.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
Just next to the pool was 'school #3,' a huge complex of two buildings full of classrooms and halls.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
In the dining hall we found a large number of children's respirators on the floor, their empty eyes staring at the paint chips in the ceiling like little grey elephant heads.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
School #1 was falling apart; its west wing had succumbed to the elements and reduced to a pile of rubble a couple of years ago.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
A long corridor used to be the school’s wardrobe, a maze of teal-colored metal skeletons; on the muddy floor, boxes full of children’s gas masks.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
In front of the school, I found a small glass building which turned out to be the school’s greenhouse.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The old Pripyat hospital was one of the biggest and most rewarding locations we visited. It consisted of 5 large buildings, about 6 stories high, all interconnected.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The rusty-white baby cribs standing in a paint-shedding room under observation of two lonely chairs were a sight both sad and peaceful.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
As opposed to the twisted ob/gyn chair in the room next to them. Somebody had even put one of the chairs outside in front of the entrance, which felt artificial and unnecessary.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The reactor itself didn't look like you would imagine a nuclear reactor, as there were no dome-shaped concrete structures that are associated with nuclear power. Instead, it was an unspectacular, long, rectangular building, its only two outstanding features being the chimney and the bluish-gray sarcophagus.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The Chernobyl power plant consisted of 6 reactors, two of which were never finished building. Those two (reactors 5 and 6) were located on an artificial island east of the power plant.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The vast area around the power plant was surprisingly lively; of the original four reactors, the three surviving the accident remained operating until the year 2000.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
Since then, the reactors are slowly being decommissioned, which will take at least until 2020. For this reason, a lot nuclear workers are still employed in Chernobyl.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
Pripyat’s old militia station was full of old vehicles: Cars, buses, trucks, dredgers, even a small tank.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
The last location we visited before returning to the research station was the old shipyard north of Chernobyl. The rusty boats looked beautiful in the evening sunlight.
Photographs and text by Timm Suess. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and DeviantArt.
