Pripyat

The picture at the top of this blog is a view of Chernobyl from the city of Pripyat, a once rapidly-growing city built near the infamous plant. What was once a flourishing, modern metropolis is now a ghost town, abandoned and still blanketed with pockets of radiation.

Photos of the city are hauntingly beautiful. Inside the abandoned buildings are the remnants of a communist regime that fell not long after the city was deserted. It now stands as a testament to some of the greatest glories and tragic failings of the human race.

We are able to build and create and better our world, but often we end up just making a mess of things. There are reports from the area around Chernobyl that without a human presence wild animals are thriving, although there are also reports of mutation and sterility in some species.

When Europeans were colonizing America, some settlers opted to live with the Natives rather than stay with their brethren. Ben Franklin remarked on the phenomenon, "No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies."


For more on Chernobyl, look here: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/chernobyl-then-now/14634