Pripyat Post Office & Shops, Chernobyl

Pripyat was seen as a modern and luxurious Soviet city before the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. The large city was purpose-built to house the personnel working at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. This city was home to many highly educated and highly paid people numbering around 49,000 people.

There were large and modern schools such as Middle School No. 3, and many sports facilities such as Azure Swimming Pool and its associated sports halls. There were also several enormous hospitals that occupied entire city blocks, such as Hospital No. 126.

Lazareva Street Supermarket

A large abandoned Supermarket sit on Lazareva Street, across from Lenin Square. The ground  floor originally sold food, and the huge freezers and cabinets lie empty and broken. Shopping carts are scattered among the aisles. Decades of vandalism and looting have taken their toll, but the checkout signs can still be seen attached to the roof, with a lonely shopping cart below them. In the early 1980s this would have been a state of the art supermarket, very large by usual standards. This Supermarket formed part of a larger shopping mall, the upper floors selling none-food items. This prestigious supermarket apparently was one of the only places where luxury items such as Chanel No. 5 perfume could be bought in the Cold War-ear Soviet Union.

Café on the River Pripyat

Located on the River Pripyat, this café featured a large round dining terrace that overlooked the picturesque passenger dock. Large stained glass windows remain curiously intact along one wall of the café. Numerous bottles little the floor and the few remaining intact tables. Outside a covered walkway would have led down to a viewing platform on the lake edge, with several areas of rotting benches and picnic tables.

The Post Office

A large colourful Soviat-era mural decorates the wall inside the abandoned Post Office. Postcards and letters litter the floor. The Soviet mural also features on the DVD cover for Pink Floyd’s “Marooned” single, as well as the music video.