In September 2017, an incident occurred that stirred the Internet community of the entire post-Soviet space and beyond. A video appeared on the YouTube channel, the central object of which was the Pripyat ferris wheel. Many newspapers and online publications wrote about what shocked the audience and why the video instantly disappeared from the channel. This is what really happened.
Chernobyl zone
The city of Pripyat is located in the so-called Chernobyl exclusion zone, which covers an area with a radius of 30 km around the infamous nuclear reactor. Earlier, immediately after the Chernobyl accident, it was called the 30-kilometer zone. Access was denied there for a long time, and free access without escort by experienced guides is impossible today, although many extreme people find it possible to explore the radioactive spaces in the nuclear power plant area on their own. The zone was heavily contaminated with radionuclides, and there are still many places that pose a real danger to human health.
Pripyat - ghost town
The most dangerous objects include the ferris wheel of Pripyat. It was built in the central city park, not far from the Energetik recreation center and the Polesie hotel, which has been functioning for several months now. Pripyat itself is a small town that was built for station workers. In almost every family living in Pripyat, one or more people were servicing the reactor.
The town is located just two kilometers from the ignited reactor, so a huge amount of radioactive dust fell on it. And if the streets and houses outside were gradually cleared, then many rooms inside buildings continue to be a source of infection for people.
The tragic fate of the ride
The ferris wheel of Pripyat has a tragic history from the very beginning of its foundation. It was built in the same year when the accident occurred, and the grand opening was timed to coincide with the May holidays - on May 1, the kids of the station employees were to ride the Ferris wheel for the first time and get their first impressions of what they saw. But it did not happen. The wheel froze forever, well visible from afar thanks to the bright yellow booths. Nobody ever washed them from the inside. A layer of radioactive dust froze there for many years, and the attraction became one of the most emblematic monuments of the terrible tragedy.
The infamous ferris wheel of Pripyat never spun until September 2017. And who would dare to turn it on after so many years without movement. All mechanisms, which emit little radiation, have long been covered with a thick layer of rust, and the supporting structures are quite capable of collapsing at any time. However, there were people who, without waiting or asking for any consent, launched the Ferris wheel in Pripyat in manual mode without using an electric drive and filmed this process on video.
Web Appearance
The video with scandalous shots appeared on the Web on September 11. Its author was a citizen of Poland Christopher Grzybek. In the description under the video, a Polish tourist wrote that he did not use electricity during the launch. His friends and compatriots who specially arrived in Ukraine helped the Pole to visit the exclusion zone. Grzhibek also noted that he and his friends launched the Ferris wheel in Pripyat in mechanical mode with the utmost care. According to him, all the mechanisms remained intact and after the end of the experiment and making a video, the tourists returned everything to its former state. Almost immediately, the Pole deleted his video from the channel, but there were users who managed to download it and distribute it on social networks.
The scandal surrounding the video
When the Ferris wheel came to life in dead Pripyat, extreme tourists from Poland, who came to the May holidays for new impressions in Chernobyl, were seized on the spot. A scandal flared up. Activists in Ukraine have filed a complaint with the relevant structures. According to them, such actions of Polish tourists carried a real threat. After so many years of immobility, the wheel could simply crash. Such a danger still exists. This can lead to the fact that tourists will no longer be allowed into the exclusion zone, and all tours will be canceled.
Currently, the exclusion zone is in demand as a tourist attraction. One-day excursions have been organized here for a long time, and at the end of work at the local Polesie hotel, two- or three-day trips to these places began. After the Poles spun the Ferris wheel in Pripyat, all excursions can be canceled.
