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Imagine lying in your bed tonight,
when, suddenly, sirens go off all over the city.
Imagine loudspeakers announcing that,
due to an industrial accident,
the city has to be evacuated.
Imagine having to pack
only the most important of your belongings
and leaving this place,
not knowing when you will return.
This has happened before.
It happened on April 26, 1986,
in the city of Pripyat, north of Kiev, in the Ukraine,
when the nuclear reactor of Chernobyl
exploded due to a test gone wrong.
Fifty-three thousand people
had to be evacuated, never to return.
It was the biggest nuclear accident
in history, leaving large parts
of the Ukraine and Belarus
completely irradiated.
I am a passionate decay photographer.
I've visited many abandoned places
around the world:
factories, clinics, military installations.
And I always wanted to see
the ghost city of Pripyat
that the accident left behind.
So, a couple of years ago,
after a lot of preparation,
I took my Geiger counter,
went to the Ukraine, and spent two days
in the irradiated zone around Chernobyl.
What I'm showing you today are photographs
from the Chernobyl Journal that I published.
It shows pictures of devastation, of decay,
of loss, and of what time
and the absence of people do to a place.
I present to you:
The Ruins of Chernobyl.
[The Road to Chernobyl]
[Flame of Knowledge Monument]
[Burned Village in Red Forest]
[Chernobyl Reactor]
[Reactor Island]
[Reactor Island]
[Chernobyl Reactor Entry Gate]
[Reactor Containment Detail]
[Reactor Containment Detail]
[Pripyat City Sign]
[Lenin Square]
[Palace of Culture]
[Cashier's Counter]
[TV Shop]
[Lost Instruments]
[Palace of Culture]
[Pripyat Library]
[Palace of Culture]
[1st of May Posters]
[Bumper Cars]
[The Ferris Wheel]
[School Clock]
[Public Swimming Pool]
[Public Swimming Pool]
[Public Gym]
[Gas Masks in a School]
[Gas Masks]
[In Front of Pripyat Hospital]
[Hospital Lobby]
[Hospital Nursery]
[First Aid Signs]
[Resuscitation]
[Chess and Hot Water]
[School Yard]
[School Canteen]
[Soviet School Painting]
[Classroom]
[Class Project]
[Greenhouse]
[Port Café]
[Pripyat Port]
[Sunken House Boat]
[Chernobyl Ship Junkyard]
[Bus Stop]
[Music School]
[Community Center]
[Militia Station]
[Militia Station]
[Lamp Post]
[Adieu, Pripyat]
(Applause)