Pripyat, also known as Prypiat, is an abandoned industrial city in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, located near the border with Belarus. Named after the nearby river, Pripyat, it was founded on 4 February 1970 as the ninth atomgrad ('atom city', a type of closed city in the Soviet Union that served the purpose of housing nuclear workers near a plant), catering the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is located north of the abandoned city of Chernobyl, after which it is named. Pripyat was officially proclaimed a city in 1979 and had ballooned to a population of 49,360 by the time it was evacuated on the afternoon of 27 April 1986, one day after the Chernobyl disaster.

Although it is located in Vyshhorod Raion, the abandoned municipality is administered directly from the capital of Kyiv. Pripyat is supervised by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine which manages activities for the entire Chernobyl exclusion zone. Following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the entire population of Pripyat was moved to the purpose-built city of Slavutych.

History

Early years

Access to Pripyat, unlike cities of military importance, was not restricted before the disaster as the Soviet Union deemed nuclear power stations safer than other types of power plants. Nuclear power stations were presented as achievements of Soviet engineering, harnessing nuclear power for peaceful projects. The slogan "peaceful atom" (Russian: мирный атом, romanized: mirnyy atom) was popular during those times.