Chernobyl/Pripyat – 30 Years Later

After photographing and teaching at the English Catechetical Summer Camps for children in Ukraine, many of whom were displaced or orphaned by the ongoing conflict with Russia, I engaged a private guide to accompany me to the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor #4 explosion. This visit took place just six months before the reactor was permanently sealed within a protective steel dome, never to be exposed again. Through my documentation of the ghost town of Pripyat, my aim is to enlighten viewers about the far-reaching consequences of the world's worst nuclear disaster, a result of systemic failures within the Soviet Union. The aftermath has rendered parts of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia unsafe for permanent human settlement, with the impact expected to last for another 20,000 years.