Welcome to Pripyat, a city in Ukraine that had to be evacuated in emergency situation during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The forgotten city was explored from air by a photographer and although the infrastructure is rotting away, the forces of nature are reclaiming the land.
The city was once home to 50,000 folks and ever since 1986 has been deserted. Danny Cooke has recently released a video that has been titled, ‘Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl’. Cooke is a freelance photographer from the UK and his findings of the ghost town turned out to be more than what he had expected them to be. Golden flowers are visible, swaying in the wind while trees are growing up on roofs and on a half-sunken boat. Ivory colored birds have started patrolling the skies and you can actually spot some graffiti that implies human activity.
However, if you had to use one word for the description of the city, it would be desolation. Cook writes, “Chernobyl is one of the most interesting and dangerous places I’ve been. The nuclear disaster, which happened in 1986 (the year after I was born), had [an] effect on so many people, including my family when we lived in Italy. I can’t imagine how terrifying it would have been for the hundreds of thousands of locals who evacuated…. There was something serene, yet highly disturbing about this place. Time has stood still and there are memories of past happenings floating around us.”