It’s very difficult to get inside Pripyat, the Ukrainian city adjacent to Chernobyl. Previously housing more than 49,000 residents, the power-plant disaster rendered the entire city (and surrounding area) deserted and bathed in radiation that won’t dissipate naturally for almost 50,000 years. It’ll be 600 before it’s habitable for humans again. Various photography and film-making projects have been undertaken in the area (now a nature preserve), but the amount of time people are actually able to stay on the ground (especially nearer to the infamous reactor n0.4) is very limited.
Postcards from Pripyat is a new short film by freelance film-maker Danny Cooke. It’s an edit of footage he took for a feature used on 60 minutes. Cooke spent a week exploring the area armed with a camera and geiger counter, using any addition time to fly a drone over the abandoned city. The result is some of the most haunting, incredible footage you’ll ever see. You see piles of gas masks, the overgrown plant life that has claimed so many of the buildings, the park, the school and a few distant glimpses of the dome the government is constructing in an attempt to contain the radiation. It’s a fascinating insight into what humanity’s footprint looks like when we are forced out of our self-made habitat.
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site.
