Pripyat (ˈpriːpjət,_ˈprɪp- ; При́пять), also known as Prypiat (При́пʼять, ˈprɪpjɐtj), is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, located near the border with Belarus. Named after the nearby river, Pripyat, it was founded on 4 February 1970 as the ninth atomgrad (a type of closed town in the Soviet Union) to serve the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which is located in the adjacent ghost city of Chernobyl. Pripyat was officially proclaimed a city in 1979 and had grown to a population of 49,360 by the time it was evacuated on the afternoon of 27 April 1986, one day after the Chernobyl disaster.
Although it was located within the administrative district of Ivankiv Raion (now Vyshhorod Raion since the 2020 raion reform), the abandoned municipality now has the status of city of regional significance within the larger Kyiv Oblast, and is administered directly from the capital of Kyiv. Pripyat is also supervised by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, which manages activities for the entire Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the entire population of Pripyat was moved to the purpose-built city of Slavutych.
Chernobyl disaster
Access to Pripyat, unlike cities of military importance, was not restricted before the disaster, as the Soviet Union deemed nuclear power stations safer than other types of power plants. Nuclear power stations were presented as achievements of Soviet engineering, harnessing nuclear power for peaceful projects. The slogan "peaceful atom" (mirnyy atom) was popular during those times. The original plan had been to build the plant only from Kyiv, but the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, among other bodies, expressed concern that would be too close to the city. As a result, the power station and Pripyat were built at their current locations, about from Kyiv. After the disaster, the city of Pripyat was evacuated in two days.
In 1986, the city of Slavutych was constructed to replace Pripyat.