# Pripyat High School



## UrbanX (Jun 12, 2011)

I knew visiting the Kindergarten in Pripyat would be the most emotional experience of my time here, so I decided to break myself in gently by starting off with one of Pripyats many high schools. 











Gym, complete with hurdles





Climbing frame: 










Childs drawing





I found a ‘topic book’ I remember doing these at school. Each term we had a topic I.e. “Water” or “weather” You’d spend a whole term learning that topic, filling in a page ‘in best’ each day. This child must have had “Medicine”





I found myself intrigued, thumbing through this childs hand written work. Each page had carefully drawn guidelines in pencil, with handwriting in best:





Photographs from magazines had been carefully cut out and glued in. 





I shalln’t bore you, but for the next ten minutes I was transfixed, taking in the amount of work that had been put into each page:





I photographed every page of that book. 
Somehow hoping I could document the time and love that that child put into every page. 





Endless corridors spurned endless classrooms. Seeing chairs stacked on tables instantly took me back to my primary school days in Essex, at the end of each day we had to put our chairs onto the table to let the cleaner mop the linoleum with ease. I couldn’t help think these chairs had been put here on the Friday before the disaster just over 25 years ago. 






























Music Department:





It makes you look twice stepping into a dark room alone and seeing this scene before you: 





Piano:





I find another room full of childrens work. These range from topic books again…





…Through to piles of handwritten exercise books, some were stacked in neat piles…










…And some seemed to be strewn angrily over the floor, forming a carpet:





A sample of seeds with hand written labels had fallen from one of the books:





A larger lecture room: 





With murals:





Walking down a corridor I saw a non-descript cleaners cupboard, which was glowing with a glimmer of daylight. Closer inspection revealed a rickety ladder to a roof space store. A careful climb led me to stacks of wooden crates filled with gas masks: 















From here I could see an obvious route to the roof, and decided to take it. I emerged ontio the hot asphalt face to face with another gas mask. The smell of asphalt in the springtime sun was overpowered by that of warm rubber. 





I wandered to the edge, climbed onto the parapet, and respected the six storey drop at the tip of my trainers. I stood and took in the fresh air, looking out over the playground, and the city stretched beneath me. 





A sudden gust of wind convinced me to begin my decent the way I’d climbed up. I passed yet more boxed of gas masks. Pillaged by looters desperate to steal the tiny amount of silver contained within their filter. 





I made my way quickly back through the building, quickly photographing each detail as I passed 

Sports hall gantry:





Textile department





Potting table. A book on plants, and some dried rootballs still remain





Staff room mug:





And chair, moved to corridor





Lenin:


























Cupboards of books:










Some printed, some hand written





Green desks 





I was passing this playful architectural folly by the canteen, when I was stopped dead in my tracks. 





I wasn’t quite sure if I could believe what I was seeing. 





Thousands of gas masks strewn across to floor to form an ankle deep carpet, 





There were way more masks than there would have been students. The school must have been a community hub in case of biological attack from the west: 










I was momentarily distracted by the big soviet till at the end of the lunch line. 










My guide mentioned how long we’d been here, and we agreed it would be best to move on. I took one more photograph of the masks almost in disbelief, and left.


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## KingLewis92 (Jun 12, 2011)

Again, Amazing Pictures
Your Reports Never Fail To Impress


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## King Al (Jun 12, 2011)

Another superb post UX, fantastic pics, looks like there's loads of fascinating artefacts in there


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## gingrove (Jun 12, 2011)

Fantastic pictures of an epic trip well done


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## klempner69 (Jun 12, 2011)

Subject apart,you take a damn good picture.


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## maximus (Jun 12, 2011)

excellent as always!!


Very haunting places these are,captured beautifully


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## UrbanX (Jun 12, 2011)

Cheers for the comments guys! Means a lot


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## Em_Ux (Jun 13, 2011)

As usual love the report 

Some really interesting finds. Must of really added to the explore.

Look forward to hearing more!


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## tommo (Jun 14, 2011)

another great set of pics fella, the Literature left behind is fantastic


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## davidralph (Jun 15, 2011)

Love it. Such detail.


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## Snips86x (Jun 17, 2011)

You images never fail to impress. I love reading your posts as you make your way around this city. Just makes you think off the horrors that followed the explotion and the panic too. Makes me feel like I was there.

Again, truley amazing shots!


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## Foxylady (Jun 17, 2011)

Wow, I love the topic book. Absolutely fascinating...and what beautiful handwriting. So many gems here. 
Fantastic report as always, Urb.


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## loxley (Jun 17, 2011)

wow wot a place to visit and take photos . . great pics by the way .


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## Saz123 (Jun 26, 2011)

what an amazing place and what amazing photos! well


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## nickso (Jul 25, 2011)

More great pics, really wish I had taken more when I was there.

We got told the gas masks in the hall were used by the liquidators, not the students.


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## UrbanX (Jul 25, 2011)

Not sure they were ever used at all. I assumed they were for community use in case of chemical attack from the west.
They are all laid out like they are from looters stealing the tiny amount of silver contained in the filters.


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## nickso (Jul 25, 2011)

Perhaps a bit of both then, the liquidators were supposedly looting the place too.


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## ImmortalShadow (Jul 25, 2011)

Outstanding report and photos as usual  very sad to see, though!


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## night crawler (Jul 26, 2011)

Your photo's dipict the desolation of the place, excillent report.


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## inceptionwave (Jul 26, 2011)

Excellent report, beautifully captured photo's. Would like to go there one day.


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## scribble (Jul 26, 2011)

Another brilliant report. I agree - a primary school would be very difficult to cope with. This high school must have been emotional enough. There is a charity based in the village next to ours which provides holidays etc for children affected by Chernoble.


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## UrbanX (Jul 26, 2011)

scribble said:


> Another brilliant report. I agree - a primary school would be very difficult to cope with. This high school must have been emotional enough. There is a charity based in the village next to ours which provides holidays etc for children affected by Chernoble.



Cheers dude! Yeah the kindergarten was a different kettle of fish. The report I'd on here and my site. 

I still don't know the actual status of the zone. According to Lupine travel it is closed. According to soloeast it's open. Weird.


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## spacepunk (Jul 28, 2011)

Emotional, spooky & poignant.Thanks for that.


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