Permanent residents in the devastated Chernobyl zone are animals, including hundreds of stray dogs, descendants of those left behind when residents evacuated, were told they’d be back in three days and to leave their pets. Officials tried to shoot them all, but were not successful. Today, workers and others try to keep the offspring healthy and fed. They love people and look so sad when you leave.

The utter destruction in the Chernobyl nuclear zone made me think of ghosts that likely could be lingering. But since none appeared, I made myself into one in a crumbling stairwell using a long exposure and tripod.

The formerly grand main square and boulevard, paths and roads are hard to recognize behind tall trees and thick bushes that have taken over the area. But signposts remain – including this one with the Soviet hammer and sickle.

The swimming complex at night seems haunted, with the clink-clank of something occasionally dropping from the ceiling, without anything in sight. This pool was actually used by staff for 12 years after the nuclear accident, before it was completely abandoned with nature reclaiming it.

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, walls are disappearing, and you don’t dare touch the water due to potentially lingering radioactivity. 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 for the town.  When I was there, they were already embattled: Save historic art or let Soviet propaganda crumble? With the Russian invasion that started the Ukraine War two years after my visit, anything Soviet, including any remaining statues of Lenin considered historic, were destroyed or dismantled. Since the zone is closed, it’s difficult to know the current status of the mosaics.

What has become the rusty symbol of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster: The Pripyat Ferris wheel, which I photographed at night, illuminated with the light of a flashlight for effect, still creaking wistfully in the wind. We had rare access one night with time for just a couple of photos in the dark.

The Ferris wheel is not alone. A small amusement park with rides sits near the Pripyat main square, all rusted, every one falling apart, none every able to amuse children and adults who had to exit en masse before it opened.

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 (possibly radioactive) ground.

The so-called “golden corridor” that connected all of the reactors at the Chernobyl plant and their control rooms remains quite “golden” today. The dingy windowless tube seems to go on forever and still features 1970-era linoleum and equipment.

The Chernobyl plant remained staffed when I was there in 2020 as it continued its slow decommissioning starting 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. A skeleton crew remains, although the Ukraine War has threatened its safe decommissioning and upkeep at times. Due to radioactive exposure, staff may only remain onsite for about two weeks at one time.

This is what remains of the control room for Reactor 4, the unit that exploded in 1986. It is but a shell – all buttons and knobs were stolen, we were told. You only get to stay in the room for a few minutes due to possible lingering radioactivity. It is also surrounded by thick concrete walls.

This is the 1,000-ton concrete lid in a reactor that is shutdown – just like the one that shockingly exploded and blasted into the air 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 to go through radiation checks when you went in and out of the inner zone, the cafeteria or the plant. But you quickly became accustomed to the routine of checking yourself for radiation. Luckily, an alarm never went off for the group.

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 January day from high inside the reactor’s rusting remains as night falls. Demanded were flashlights and watching your footing quite carefully.

In front of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant administration building (no photos of the building are allowed!) is a memorial to those who died as first responders to the sudden nuclear explosion in 1986.

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, broken glass and half-filled ledgers.

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

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.

A school’s music room with a gas mask on a crumbling piano. The gas masks found here and there when visiting Chernobyl are more than likely placed by tourists for photo ops or by unethical guides since they were not needed to protect from the release of radioactivity.

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.