Pripyat Ferris wheel makes first turns

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

In September 2017, an incident occurred that stirred up the Internet community throughout the post-Soviet space and beyond. A video appeared on the YouTube channel, the central object of which was the Pripyat Ferris wheel. Many newspapers and online publications wrote about what shocked the audience, and why the video instantly disappeared from the channel. Here's what really happened.

Chernobyl zone

The city of Pripyat is located in the so-called Chernobyl exclusion zone, which covers an area with a radius of 30 km around the infamous nuclear reactor. Earlier, immediately after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was called the 30-kilometer zone. Access there was forbidden for a long time, and a free visit without the accompaniment of experienced guides is impossible even today, although many extreme people find the opportunity to explore the radioactive spaces in the nuclear power plant area on their own. The zone was heavily contaminated with radionuclides, and untilthere are still many places that pose a real danger to human he alth.

Pripyat is a ghost town

The Ferris wheel of Pripyat is one of the most dangerous objects. It was built in the central city park, not far from the Energetik Palace of Culture and the Polesie Hotel, which has been functioning again for several months. Pripyat itself is a small town that was built for the workers of the station. In almost every family living in Pripyat, one or more people were involved in the maintenance of the reactor.

The town is located just two kilometers from the ignited reactor, so it got a huge amount of radioactive dust. And while the streets and houses outside have gradually cleared up, many rooms inside buildings continue to be a source of infection for people.

The tragic fate of the attraction

The Ferris wheel of Pripyat has a tragic history from the very beginning of its foundation. It was built in the same year when the accident occurred, and the grand opening was timed to coincide with the May holidays - on May 1, the kids of the station workers were supposed to ride the Ferris wheel for the first time and get their first impressions of what they saw. But it didn't happen. The wheel is frozen forever, clearly visible from afar thanks to the bright yellow booths. Nobody ever washed them from the inside. A layer of radioactive dust froze there for many years, and the attraction has become one of the most symbolic monuments of the terrible tragedy.

SadThe famous Ferris wheel of Pripyat never spun until September 2017. And who would dare to turn it on after so many years without movement. All the mechanisms, which emit little radiation, have long been covered with a thick layer of rust, and the supporting structures are quite capable of collapsing at any moment. However, there were people who, without waiting and without asking for anyone's consent, launched the Ferris wheel in Pripyat in manual mode without using an electric drive and filmed this process on video.

The appearance of the video on the Web

A video with scandalous footage appeared on the Web on September 11th. Its author was a Polish citizen Christopher Grzybek. In the description under the video, the Polish tourist wrote that he did not use electricity during the launch. The Pole was helped by his friends and compatriots, who specially came to Ukraine to visit the exclusion zone. Grzybek also noted that he and his friends launched the Ferris wheel in Pripyat in mechanical mode with the utmost care. According to him, all the mechanisms remained safe and sound, and after the end of the experiment and the shooting of the video, the tourists returned everything to its previous state. Almost immediately, the Pole deleted his video from the channel, but there were users who managed to download it and distribute it on social networks.

Video scandal

When the Ferris wheel came to life in the dead Pripyat, extreme tourists from Poland, who came for the May holidays for new experiences in Chernobyl, were seized on the spot. A scandal erupted. Activists in Ukraine have prepared a complaint to the relevant structures. According to themAccording to him, such actions of Polish tourists carried a real threat. The wheel, after so many years of immobility, could simply collapse. This danger still exists. This may lead to the fact that tourists will no longer be allowed into the exclusion zone, and all tours will be canceled.

At the moment, the exclusion zone is in demand as a tourist attraction. One-day excursions have been organized here for a long time, and after the completion of work at the local Polesie hotel, they began to conduct two- and three-day trips to these places. After the Poles spin the Ferris wheel in Pripyat, all excursions can be canceled.

The reaction of the authorities

The State Agency of Ukraine, which manages the exclusion zone (GAZO for short), calls the Pole's video a fake. The specialists of this structure were at the scene of the incident in a day to find out all the circumstances of the incident. According to the results of the study, an official statement was made, which categorically rejects the possibility of a mechanical launch of the attraction. Given that the wheel weighs several tens of tons, spinning it without using an electric drive, according to experts, is almost impossible.