This is the second of four posts about my time in The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. In this post, I’m going to focus on a handful of schools in the city of Pripyat.

None of my Exclusion Zone posts need to be read in chronological order, but you may want to read the intro in my first post. In it, I talk about my thoughts on posting about this subject.

PRIPYAT KINDERGARTENS

Pripyat was a city full of young families. Many adults were in their late 20s to early 30s, which in turn meant that there were a lot of kids, too. There were 15 kindergartens and elementary schools in the city, which is a lot considering that the population was around 48,000 at the time of the accident.

GOLDFISH KINDERGARTEN

My guide took us through this kindergarten mid morning – the sun was streaming through surprisingly in-tact windows. Everything was light and bright, and the group all seemed to have their spirits lifted in this building. It’s weird…sometimes this happens in The Zone. Like, you know that you’re at the site of the worst nuclear accident in history…but then the sun will shine in just the right way, or a refreshing breeze will whisk by…and the mood somehow lightens.

The only kinda disappointing thing about Goldfish Kindergarten is that everything has been staged by other photographers. I’m not much into the “forgotten doll” type photography, but this is the place to go if you are. No judgement, by the way. Everyone has their favorite photographic subjects…who am I to judge what is worthy or not?

YABLONKA KINDERGARTEN

Now this is an interesting building. One minute you think you’re exploring a regular old abandoned kindergarten…

…the next minute, you stumble upon a soil and plant research facility. Yup…you’re at Yablonka Kindergarten, also know as the Radek Laboratory. Until 1999, soil and plant samples were tested for radiation here. There are still a ton of samples around, mostly scattered all over the floors.

PRIPYAT MUSIC SCHOOL

The music school in Pripyat housed many practice rooms and a large auditorium. There’s still a grand piano in the auditorium, slowly rotting by the day. Probably the most striking characteristic of this building is the mosaic tile installation along its front entrance.

PRIPYAT SCHOOLS

In addition to all of the kindergartens and the music school, Pripyat had 5 upper level schools. Seriously, there were so many kids living in this city! The schools were named by number instead of cute names. Schools 2 and 3 seem to be the most popular schools for tours, and for good reason. There are a lot of artifacts left in these two buildings.Of course, there are stages scenes just like everywhere else, but there are also piles of books, homework and soviet propaganda that were in the schools at the time that Pripyat was evacuated.

SCHOOL NO. 2

School No. 2 is one of my top five favorite locations in the entire Exclusion Zone. I’ve been in the school three times and still find new things to look at. The last time I visited, I stumbled across a classroom that was obviously for teaching young people how to handle guns and evacuate injured troops. During my 2015 visit, I found an intact Komsomol room – the political youth organization of the Soviet Union.

I’m a graphic designer by trade, so anything related to books and posters piques my interest. I could have spent all of my time in School No 2 and been happy.

SCHOOL NO. 3

School No. 3 is most well-known for the child-sized gas masks strewn across the floor of one of its lab rooms. These masks were not used during the evacuation. Rather, visitors found them in the school and staged them, most likely for a photograph. But it does bring up an interesting part of history, because the schools in Pripyat did actually stock child-sized gas masks. They were not meant to be used in case of a nuclear power plant accident. Rather, they were waiting silently for a nuclear attack from the Americans.