This is the third of four posts about my time in The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. In this post, I’m going to focus on military and secret operations facilities within The Zone. Some are obviously government run, and others are just rumored to be.

UPDATE: About half of the locations in this post were affected by the April 2020 wildfire. Some are completely destroyed.

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.

CHERNOBYL–2

Chernobyl–2 is now just another abandoned Soviet village, but at one point was once a top secret Soviet military installation. It was where the operators of the DUGA over the horizon radar installation and their families lived, not very far from Pripyat.

Chernobyl–2 had everything that Pripyat had, at a much smaller scale. There was a theater, daycare, school, hospital, restaurant, shops and several apartment blocks. These days, there’s one guard stationed at the entrance to the town…supposedly an ex-KGB agent according to my guide. Visitors are technically not supposed to go into buildings here either.

UPDATE: Chernobyl-2 was incredibly close to being burned down by the April 2020 wildfire. As in, the fire didn’t jump the road coming in to the village.

CHERNOBYL–2 THEATER

CHERNOBYL–2 SCHOOL

CHERNOBYL–2 APARTMENT

DUGA RADAR

The DUGA radar was built to detect missiles fired from the United States – the science of how it worked is fascinating and I recommend that you read about it if you’re interested, The funny thing about DUGA is that it wasn’t actually a secret. in the late 1970s, amateur radio operators detected its signal and was dubbed the “Russian Woodpecker”. Triangulation pinpointed the signal to the DUGA radar installation and because of the type of signal, was guessed to be an over the horizon radar. Both were true…and science is cool.

UPDATE: DUGA was incredibly close to being burned down by the April 2020 wildfire. As in, the fire didn’t jump the road coming into the complex. We are extremely lucky to still have this piece of history with us.

DUGA RADAR INSTALLATION

It is impossible to convey the size of the DUGA radar installation in photos. This thing is massive. Like, it’ll take you 15 minutes to walk the entire length. I gasped the first time I saw it. Some people have even climbed it, but yikes…it’s tall, rusting in some places and not maintained at all.

In 2015, my guide took the group in the morning. We were the only ones there…actually we were the only ones in the entire area. 2019 was a different story. My guide took the group in late afternoon to avoid all of the other tour groups. There were still a few tour groups there besides us. I was kinda disappointed that we were there during bad light (the sun had pretty much already set behind the trees), but we were able to view a beautiful sunset by the time we got to roof access. So it all turned out well in the end.

DUGA RADAR CONTROL CENTER

Just as cool to explore as the DUGA radar was the control center that powered the whole thing. The building is just as massive as the radar and contains multiple computer rooms, meeting rooms and even a cafeteria for the workers.

JUPITER FACTORY

The lore around the Jupiter Factory is epic and very difficult to know what to believe. The story that I’ve heard and read most is this. The general public was told was that Jupiter was producing cassette recorders. But what the government was actually producing here were semiconductor components for the military. They also supposedly had test workshops for robotic systems.

The things I do know about the Jupiter Factory:
1. The place is massive and includes several buildings.
2. As of 2019, a large portion of the Administration building is contaminated.
3. This is my number one favorite place to explore in Pripyat.

JUPITER ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

JUPITER FACTORY BUILDINGS

EMERALD CHILDREN’S CAMP

As I write this, I’m also reading news of the Emerald Children’s Camp being destroyed by the April 2020 wildfires. There are no words to express what a loss this is for the The Zone. So I guess this is now a memorial to what was.

The camp was visited by children from the area every summer. They each lived in their own little cabins, played in the woods, watched movies in their outdoor cinema. They were entertained by the one-off Disney characters painted on the sides of each building…including the smoking dog that looks a whole lot like Disney’s Goofy.

So why is this location included in this post? Well, it’s rumored that the camp was build as a distraction for the DUGA radar installation. Is it true? Just like a lot of things in The Zone…who knows.

Goodbye Emerald Camp, you will be missed.

VOLKHOV ANTI-AIRCRAFT BUNKER

This is another location lost to the April 2020 wildfire. Seriously, this really sucks. News reports are saying that someone intentionally started the fire…if it’s true, just wow. Who would do something like this?!?

OK, back to the story. I visited this site in 2019 and it was an interesting experience. First, my guide said that we really were not supposed to be there, so the driver would drop us off, then he’d go drive somewhere else with the GPS tracker. I forgot to mention – it is now required for all guides to carry a GPS tracker so The Zone administration knows where everyone is at all times.

Anyway, we were indeed dropped off on the side of the road…and then we started hiking. It took a good hour to get to the first location – the barracks of the soldiers who worked at the anti-aircraft bunker. I didn’t get a lot of pictures here, because something happened that absolutely terrified me. It’s the only time that I’ve been scared in The Zone. Me and two others from the tour group somehow lost track of the rest of the group, and for about 15 minutes we were sure that we had been left behind. Now, being left behind in Pripyat or other well known areas of The Zone, while a total pain, would be OK. But we were in the middle of the woods with no cell signal in a supposedly government controlled area. We ended up finding the group, but that was a scare.

After another 20 minutes of walking, we made it to the actual bunker. The anti-aircraft guns are no longer there, but the bunker is, as well as the supports that held the guns. Volkhov was here to protect the DUGA radar installation, by the way.

Goodbye Volkhov, you will be missed.

ATH-2 VEHICLE REPAIR GARAGE

On the outskirts of Pripyat, the ATH-2 Facility was used to repair and store military vehicles. There’s even a graveyard of vehicles that were used in the accident clean up. We walked through that graveyard, but there were very high levels of radiation so I didn’t feel like lingering long enough to take pictures.

The facility had apparently still been heavily guarded and in-use until just a few weeks before my visit in 2019. One day, everyone just up and left, and now the tour groups are starting to visit. It really did not look like anyone could have used ATH-2 recently, but maybe they were just using the garage and storage lots.