It was on April 26, 1986 when disaster struck the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant — the most devastating catastrophe in history. Cleanup costs billions of dollars, and thousands have died, been injured, or left sick.
Although Chernobyl’s Atomic Legacy: 25 years since disaster was published several years ago, it is just as haunting today. The book’s narrative is by Daniel Barter, and the photos are a collaboration of eight photographers from all over Europe.
Chernobyl is about 60 miles north of Kyiv in Ukraine (former USSR). Before its evacuation, the city had about 14,000 residents.
Chernobyl today is indeed a place long since abandoned, yet it is still full of relics of its tragic past. Pripyat, the town forged next to the nuclear plant, was meant to be a model nuclear city.
Now it’s known only as the Chernobyl exclusion zone, forcibly devoid of humans and since retaken by animals and nature.
Thirty-seven years have passed. The area itself remains a ghost town.
The coffee table book contains 74 poignant photos over 96 pages. The book documents the current state of Chernobyl and the neighboring workers’ town Pripyat.
The 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl, reclaimed by nature, and Pripyat is now a site of negative heritage, a decaying monument to the lives and memories lost by the people that once inhabited it.
The book aims to illustrate what is left behind, the objects, rooms, schools, hospitals, and homes. It documents the changes the area has undergone since its near-total abandonment—an empty shell haunted by its disastrous past.
This photo book and a large variety of other photo books, including Abandoned Italy, Abandoned Japan, and Abandoned Spain are available on Amazon and through Jonglez Publishing. For more information on all the titles, click here.
