During photographer David McMillan’s first visit to the city of Pripyat in 1994, access was limited due to a reactor explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant eight years ago.
The 1,000 square mile area around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone remains uninhabited (Image: CNN) However, not only was the photographer free to roam the 1,000-square-mile Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – which is virtually uninhabited to this day – but he is also able to walk within a few meters of The reactor is damaged. He recalls in a phone interview: “The challenge was to find out who could put me in,” “I didn’t know where to go, I felt like I was helping the driver’s kindness and his interpreter. “I have no real sense of danger,” he added. “People just advised me that some areas are heavily polluted, and maybe I should just take a minute or two to take pictures there.” 
Inside an abandoned building (Image: CNN) This early voyage produced a bizarre series of images of derelict buildings, overgrown grass playgrounds and abandoned vehicles after cleaning. After that, the Canadian photographer has returned to the area more than 20 times in 25 years. Since then, he has published 200 photographs of himself in a book entitled “Growth and Decline: Pripyat and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.” The photos not only provide a staggering glimpse of a “ghost city” that has barely been affected since the disaster, but also uncover the enduring power of nature and its ability to decline. inevitable. Remnants of a ‘on display’ city Pripyat, in present day Ukraine, was part of the Soviet Union at the time of the disaster in April 1986. The city was built in the last decade and is home to about 50,000 power plant workers. 
Inside an abandoned breathing house (Image: CNN) “It must be very beautiful,” said McMillan, who has studied archived images of the site. At that time, it was considered one of the most livable cities in the Soviet Union. There are a lot of schools and hospitals, and facilities for sports and culture, so it’s like a city just for show. 
Inside a classroom (Image: CNN) However, these facilities are currently abandoned and become increasingly rotting, rusting and suffering from bad luck. Many of McMillan’s photos – whether empty pools or deserted churches – show how the city was abruptly evacuated in the past. “In schools, it feels as though students have just finished school in the afternoon,” he said. There are still teachers’ notebooks, textbooks, student artwork and the like. ” 
Consequently, the buildings act as time capsules. The faded portraits of Marx and Engels, or the bust of Lenin in a ragged courtyard, all capture some particular moment in political history. Besides, the photos also prove the power of time. In some cases, McMillan photographed the same spot multiple times over the years, to highlight the deterioration of the built environment. One of the clearest examples is a series of pictures taken in the stairs of a kindergarten. The first photo, taken in 1994, depicts the brilliant flags of the former Soviet republics stuck on a peeling wall. However, at the time it was last taken in November 2018, the photo is only partially left – damaged and discolored to the point of being unrecognizable. 
“If you come across it, you won’t know what it is; you won’t even see that it might represent a flag,” McMillan said. “To me, it seems to represent the historical disappearance of the Soviet Union in our memory.” The image of the playground and the slide is also a testament to the elapsed time. The kids who used to play there will now be in their thirties or forties. “Going into some kindergartens where there are so many children left there – there’s another kind of emotional response that rises to the knowledge that the incidence of thyroid cancer has spiked by accident.” The return of nature As the title of his book “Growth and Decline,” McMillan is concerned with both human retreat and the reappearance of nature. The landscape in his photos is mostly blossoming and budding trees through the man-made structures, amid a bleak landscape. 
Plants grow inside the rotting building (Image: CNN) “There are no people around, and when nature is not cut down and cultivated, it just grows wild and reclaimed,” said the photographer. “I guess it’s fun to see this plant grow again, and it’s inevitable to see culture disappear.” “There has been a rebirth of animals, and someone told me that the birding game there is one of the best in Europe.” 
In addition, McMillan also took portraits of people he met in the Exclusion Zone, including engineers, workers and scientists who hunted wildlife to measure radiation in their organs. . One image, taken in 1995, shows a woman returning to her village to clean up her ancestral graves. McMillan has met so many returnees from the exclusion zone, so he is relatively comfortable with the possible effects on his health. Now in his 70s, he often visits the site once a week, meaning he has spent months in seclusion within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. 
One of his early instructors had been suffering from lymphoma since leaving Ukraine for Canada, however, the photographer said it was unclear whether the radiation was the cause. “The problem with radiation is that it’s invisible,” said McMillan. When I brought a dosimeter during a visit, the radiation level was very abnormal. They are not the same throughout the Exclusion Zone. ” 
The photographer explains that as the pollution decreases with each year, the risks also decrease. Currently, a new “safe compartment” (called Chernobyl New Safe Confinement) is also being built around the reactor, to replace the temporary concrete enclosure first erected in 1986. to contain radioactive dust. According to McMillan, the number of tourists coming to Pripyat city is increasing, sometimes buses can be caught on day trips from Ukraine’s capital Kiev. Last year, a group of artists even held a performance in Pripyat, and the site quickly became what photographers call “Black Disneyland.” “There are people living in some (nearby) less polluted areas, so I’ve never been worried,” he said. Now, a real danger is that buildings are collapsing. Sometimes they seem flimsy, (and) when you go through them, you just don’t know what could happen. “
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