Permanent residents in the devastated Chernobyl zone are animals, including hundreds of stray dogs, descendants of those left behind when residents evacuated. They love people and look so sad when you leave.

The formerly grand main square and boulevard are hard to recognize behind tall trees and thick bushes. But signposts remain – including this one with the Soviet hammer and sickle.

The Riverside Café was an elegant place to dine right on the Pripyat River. You could catch boat rides, lounge in the sun, or take a cool dip. Now, trees are growing through floors. Note the “before” photo on the cell phone.

Scattered around the abandoned city of Pripyat are large Soviet mosaics by artist Ivan Lytovchenko created in the late ‘70s and now embattled: Save historic art or let Soviet propaganda crumble?

What has become the rusty symbol of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster: The Pripyat Ferris wheel, here at night, illuminated with the light of a flashlight for effect, still creaking wistfully in the wind.

The disintegrating bumper cars seem to smile at you from their place of rest (or, should I say, sneer?). I used a Think Tank Retrospective Pack on my tour to avoid, as advised, putting anything on the (radioactive) ground.

The Chernobyl plant remained staffed as it continued its slow decommissioning in early 2019. The final reactor running was not shut down until 2000. Here, a worker heads back to his station through a dark room of machinery.

This is the 1,000-ton concrete lid in a shutdown reactor – just like the one that shockingly exploded right out of Reactor 4 in 1986. Those two hams on the plate were the guides – meet Stan and Stan.

Am I aglow yet? At first it was so strange, but you quickly became accustomed to checking yourself for radiation going in and out of the central zone or the cafeteria. No alarms for us!

Reactor 5 was nearly 70 percent complete when Reactor 4 exploded. Guards keep out tourists — well, almost all. You just need the right “gift.” Here, a photo on a foggy day from high inside the reactor’s rusting remains.

The cooling tower for Reactor 5 was under construction, too, but came to a halt. The mural by Australian artist Guido Van Helton was completed for the disaster’s 30th anniversary and was the first street art done by permission in the Chernobyl zone.

It’s hard to walk the silent hospital halls and not sense the panicked activity there in 1986. Medical equipment, bottles and charts remain a-tumble in rooms with peeling paint and broken glass.

Particularly moving are the beds, toys and children’s furniture remaining in the Pripyat hospital in Chernobyl today.

Little bikes await their riders who will never return. The area around the so-called “Woodpecker” radar complex was a little town itself, with housing, schools, sports facilities, and community centers.

This is the image many think of when imagining what Chernobyl looks like today. A childcare center continues to disintegrate as you fully sense lives destroyed. Rusty beds line former nap rooms, with dolls and toys scattered about.

Chernobyl Town 3rd Angel Nuclear Memorial sounds its trumpet on a cloudy winter day.