You’d be hard pushed, and indeed very foolish, not to include the Palace of Culture on a visit to Pripyat. Located in the centre of the city, on Lenin Square, the iconic Ferris wheel is situated to the rear of the building and is one of the reasons for its continual high ranking on the tourist trail.
Palaces of Culture were large community centers established during the Soviet era with over 137,000 in the Soviet Union by 1988. The name of this one “Energetik” is a play on words as it means both “energetic” (as in lively) and “power plant worker”.
These generally physically impressive buildings were designed as a focal point for people to enjoy a range of recreational and artistic activities all under the banner, quite literally in many cases, of political propaganda. Pripyat’s Palace of Culture includes what’s left of a cinema, theatre, library, gymnasium, swimming pool, boxing/wrestling ring, dancing and meeting halls and even has a shooting range in the basement.
They say you’ll always remember your first time and this was mine. My first alone time in the zone. Having visited years previously on a day trip from Kiev which involved a coach load of us crunching noisily over glass under the watchful eyes of our accompanying guides. This time was to be different.
As the door of the mini bus opened I set off at an embarrassingly keen jog. Heading up the stairs, the handrail long since pinched, I set up the tripod (I had patience back then) in front of some particularly choice decay, focused the camera (I was keen too) and blipped my remote shutter release. The camera gave out a satisfyingly drawn out “ker chunk” that sliced through the silence. That was when it hit me, the quiet, the feeling of being very alone in what was once a busy building in a once bustling city. A feeling of huge excitement tinged with fear, a feeling of awe.
Soon after I made a mental note to obtain my guides mobile phone number just in case I managed to fall down a hole (or got really lonely).
On the upper floors birch trees now grow, having taken root in damp floors once protected by full length windows. Windows were frequently broken during the decontamination of Pripyat, not just through vandalism, but to prevent the buildup of radiation in enclosed spaces. The metal frames of these windows stolen long ago. Many of the marble tiles that once clad the foyer have also vanished.
I managed to somehow miss the theatre prop room, with its paintings of Lenin and dignitaries, on my first visit so I was sure to pay it a visit second time around and, although like the majority of Pripyat it has seen better days, it didn’t disappoint.
The Palace of Culture under construction
The Palace of Culture in the snow. From the personal archives of Vitaly Kozlov
An event is held in the main square in front of the Palace of Culture
Every weekend we had discos in Pripyat. This is part of the electronic equipment used for the discos. It has a name on it. Edison 2. That was the name of the disco,” – former resident Andrey Glukhov.
Disco equipment marked “Edison 2”
Throwing shapes at Edison-2
On stage for Edison 2
Edison 2 or “Эдисон-2” in full swing
Large banners adorn the front of the palace and nearby buildings
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