Ukraine. Province of Kiev. Pripyat. Inside a derelict amusement park, a funfair bumper car on the side, another lies on the track in the snow. A big wheel. The fair ground should have opened for the May Day celebrations in 1986, but never did. Winter season. The ghost town of Pripyat is inside the 30 km exclusion zone. The dead zone has been created after the catastrophe which took place on April 1986 at 1.23 am with the explosion of reactor No 4 at Chernobyl atomic power station. 3 km distant, the workers from the Chernobyl atomic power station used to live in Pripyat. The 45'000 people from Pripyat were evacuated 36 hours after the accident. The area is highly contaminated by radioactive materials, like caesium 137. © 2006 Didier Ruef