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Catastrophe at reactor four
At 1:23 a.m. on 26 April 1986, a routine safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine triggered an uncontrollable power surge. The reactor's cooling system failed, causing steam explosions that ruptured reactor number four and ignited a graphite fire. A radioactive plume spread across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and northern Europe.
Evacuation and the birth of the exclusion zone
Soviet officials initially hesitated to acknowledge the disaster. Within 36 hours, however, 49,000 residents of Pripyat-the nearby "model city" built for plant workers-were permanently evacuated. Another 68,000 people were removed from surrounding villages. The 2,600 km² exclusion zone was established, sealing off the area from civilian access.
The liquidators and their toxic fleet
Half a million military and civilian personnel, known as "liquidators," were mobilized to contain the contamination. The Soviet Union deployed an unprecedented armada: hundreds of trucks, buses, and armored scout cars, along with much of its heavy-lift helicopter fleet. Mi-6 and Mi-26 helicopters dropped sand, lead, and boron onto the burning reactor, while fire engines and demolition vehicles worked in the most hazardous "hot zones."
After months of cleanup, the vehicles themselves became radioactive waste. Deemed too dangerous for reuse, they were abandoned in two vast graveyards inside the exclusion zone-Rassokha and Buryakovka-where they were left to decay for at least a century.
A surreal tourist attraction
By the late 1990s, the exclusion zone had become a macabre tourist destination. The vehicle graveyards, with their rows of rusting helicopters, fire engines, and buses, drew visitors fascinated by the post-apocalyptic landscape. Phil Coomes, a former BBC picture editor, visited Rassokha in 2006 during a trip marking the disaster's 20th anniversary.
"You forget how big the space is. We thought two days would be enough, but it's a half-hour drive over destroyed roads just to reach the graveyard. The doors of our car would fly open occasionally."
Phil Coomes, former BBC picture editor
Coomes photographed a massive Mi-6 helicopter, once the world's largest, along with lines of stripped fire engines and buses. Despite the radiation risk, looters had pillaged the site for decades, removing valuable parts.
From graveyard to scrapyard
In the early 2010s, Ukrainian authorities began clearing Rassokha. Satellite images from 2013 show the main field empty, with most vehicles relocated or scrapped. Kamil Budzynski, a Polish photographer who has documented the zone since 2015, noted that some mildly radioactive metal was blended with clean steel for reuse, diluting contamination to safe levels.
Budzynski discovered a new vehicle dump near the original site in 2018, filled with buses and military trucks. "Most weren't in terrible shape," he said. "But the main field at Rassokha was gone."
War and decay
Since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has suspended tourism to the exclusion zone. With journalists, scientists, and visitors barred, the remaining vehicles continue to rust in silence. Budzynski reflected on the zone's eerie transformation: "I thought I'd visit once, but I got hooked. Now, it's a place frozen in time-both a warning and a relic."
