The Story Behind This Photo - Abandoned Amusement Park Near Chernobyl

Last year I had a chance to visit Pripyat, Ukraine while on a Chernobyl tour. It is 2 miles from Chernobyl and has been a ghost town since May, 1986.

These are the bumper cars that the public never got a chance to ride because the city had to be evacuated a few days before the amusement park was supposed to open. It was very eerie visiting this ghost town. You have to watch where you walk and what you touch. You can't sit on the ground or eat anything in this area. Some areas still have a high level of radiation.

If you watch the HBO mini series they show this town with CGI to show what it might have looked like before the explosion.

The Pripyat amusement park is an abandoned amusement park located in Pripyat, Ukraine. It was to have its grand opening on 1 May 1986, in time for the May Day celebrations, but these plans were cancelled on 26 April, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred a few kilometers away.