In Pictures: Chernobyl’s Kopachi Kindergarten
UPDATE: Can you visit Chernobyl in 2026? No. As of March 2023, Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone and Pripyat is closed to visitors, due to the ongoing war between the Ukraine and Russia.
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone village of Kopachi exists mostly underground, as the buildings were buried one by one after the disaster. The government decided that they were too highly affected by radiation, hence the burial.
However, two buildings remain standing – one of them being the kindergarten, an unnerving abandoned structure filled with remnants of the past. On my two day visit to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, we stepped into the kindergarten to explore…
Toys and books left behind in the evacuation – although it’s easy to believe they’re in their original positions like a time capsule, they’ve likely been moved around a lot by photographers to get that creepy shot…
