The Pripyat or Prypiat is a river in Eastern Europe. The river, which is approximately 761 km (473 mi) long, flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and Ukraine again, draining into the Dnieper.
Pripyat, also known as Prypiat, is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, located near the border with Belarus. Named after the nearby river, Pripyat, it was founded on 4 February 1970 as the ninth atomgrad to serve the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which is located in the adjacent ghost city of Chernobyl. Pripyat was officially proclaimed a city in 1979 and had grown to a population of 49,360 by the time it was evacuated on the afternoon of 27 April 1986, one day after the Chernobyl disaster.
Gorky Park is a 1981 crime novel written by American author Martin Cruz Smith.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation is an officially designated exclusion zone around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster. It is also commonly known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the 30-Kilometre Zone, or simply The Zone.
Gorky Park is a 1983 American mystery thriller film based on the book of the same name by Martin Cruz Smith. The film was directed by Michael Apted.
Arkady Renko is a fictional detective who is the central character of ten novels by the American writer Martin Cruz Smith.
The Chernobyl disaster began on 26 April 1986 with the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR, close to the border with the Byelorussian SSR, in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The initial emergency response and subsequent mitigation efforts involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion roubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, and the costliest disaster in human history, costing an estimated US$700 billion.
The Chernobyl disaster is the world's worst nuclear accident to date.
Stalin's Ghost is a crime novel by Martin Cruz Smith set in Russia circa 2005. It is the sixth novel to feature Detective-Investigator Arkady Renko, published 26 years after the initial novel in the Renko series, Gorky Park.
The Red Forest is the ten-square-kilometre (4 sq mi) area surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant within the Exclusion Zone, located in Polesia. The name "Red Forest" comes from the ginger-brown colour of the pine trees after they died following the absorption of high levels of ionizing radiation as a consequence of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on 26 April 1986. The site remains one of the most contaminated areas in the world today.
The Pripyat amusement park is an abandoned amusement park located in Pripyat, Ukraine. It was to have its grand opening on 1 May 1986, in time for the May Day celebrations, but these plans were cancelled on 26 April, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred a few kilometers away. Several sources report that the park was opened for a short time on 27 April before the announcement to evacuate the city was made. These reports claim that the park was hurriedly opened to distract Pripyat residents from the unfolding disaster nearby. However, these claims remain largely unsubstantiated and unsupported. Pripyat residents have not been able to recall for sure if the park was opened following the disaster, but considering the lack of panic at the time of the disaster and subsequent evacuation, there would seem to be no need to distract people. In any case, the park—and its ferris wheel in particular—have become a symbol of the Chernobyl disaster.
Alexander Yukhymovych Sirota is a Ukrainian photographer, journalist, filmmaker. He writes in Russian and Ukrainian. As a former resident of Pripyat, he is an eyewitness and a victim of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. He has devoted many articles, photographs, and video reports to the city of Pripyat and to the Chernobyl catastrophe. He is the editor-in-chief of the internet project "pripyat.com" and the president of the International Public Organization "Center Pripyat.com". In May 2008, he became the winner of the ІХ-th international competition "Golden George" of films, TV-programs, and internet projects about protective law and law enforcement. In that competition, Alexander won "The Big Tape of George" award for his website devoted to Chernobyl. He is a member of the Union of Journalists of Ukraine since 2008 and a member if International Federation of Journalists.
The Chernobyl disaster, considered the worst nuclear disaster in history, occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, then part of the Soviet Union, now in Ukraine. From 1986 onward, the total death toll of the disaster has lacked consensus; as peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet and other sources have noted, it remains contested. There is consensus that a total of approximately 30 people died from immediate blast trauma and acute radiation syndrome (ARS) in the seconds to months after the disaster, respectively, with 60 in total in the decades since, inclusive of later radiation induced cancer. However, there is considerable debate concerning the accurate number of projected deaths that have yet to occur due to the disaster's long-term health effects; long-term death estimates range from up to 4,000 for the most exposed people of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, to 16,000 cases in total for all those exposed on the entire continent of Europe, with figures as high as 60,000 when including the relatively minor effects around the globe. Such numbers are based on the heavily contested linear no-threshold model.
The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear disaster that occurred in the early hours of 26 April 1986, at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. The accident occurred when Reactor Number 4 exploded and destroyed most of the reactor building, spreading debris and radioactive material across the surrounding area, and over the following days and weeks, most of mainland Europe was contaminated with radionuclides that emitted dangerous amounts of ionizing radiation. On the night of April 25th and the early hours of April 26th, there had been 160 personnel on duty across the facility, while 300 more workers were on site at the building site of reactors 5 and 6.
Chernobyl Diaries is a 2012 American disaster horror film co-written and produced by Oren Peli and directed by Brad Parker, in his directorial debut. The film stars Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse McCartney, Devin Kelley, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Nathan Phillips, and Dimitri Diatchenko, and was shot on locations in Pripyat, Ukraine, as well as Hungary, and Serbia.
Volodymyr Pavlovych Pravyk was a Soviet firefighter notable for his role in directing initial efforts to extinguish fires following the Chernobyl Disaster. Following the event, he was hospitalized with acute radiation syndrome and died sixteen days later. He was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin by the Soviet Union, and later the Ukrainian Star For Courage in recognition of his efforts.
Chernobyl: Zone of Exclusion is a Russian mystery, thriller, drama TV series that focuses on five friends going to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to return stolen money. There they come across the dangers and mysteries of the Zone. This is the first feature film to be partly filmed in Pripyat.
The Chernobyl disaster remains the major and most detrimental nuclear catastrophe which completely altered the radioactive background of the Northern Hemisphere. It happened in April 1986 on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The catastrophe led to the increase of radiation in nearly one million times in some parts of Europe and North America compared to the pre-disaster state. Air, water, soils, vegetation and animals were contaminated to a varying degree. Apart from Ukraine and Belarus as the worst hit areas, adversely affected countries included Russia, Austria, Finland and Sweden. The full impact on the aquatic systems, including primarily adjacent valleys of Pripyat river and Dnieper river, are still unexplored.
Vasily Ivanovich Ignatenko was a Soviet firefighter who was among the first responders to the Chernobyl disaster. He worked as an electrician before being conscripted into the Soviet Armed Forces in 1980, where he completed his two years of service as a military firefighter. Afterwards, he took up employment as a paramilitary firefighter with Fire Brigade No. 6, which was based out of Pripyat. On 26 April 1986, Ignatenko's fire brigade was involved in mitigating the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster; fighting the fires that broke out following the initial explosion of Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. While on site, Ignatenko received a high dose of radiation, leading to his death at a radiological hospital in Moscow eighteen days later.
