At 1:23 am on April 26, 1986, a routine safety test caused the explosion of reactor 4 at Chernobyl, which was to become the largest nuclear plant in the world (12 reactors had been planned). The fire released 400 times more radioactivity than with the Hiroshima bomb. The toxic cloud spread to 13 countries in Europe. The explosion made a 30-kilometer radius uninhabitable for humans, which is still a restricted Exclusion Zone today.
Just 12 kilometers from the nuclear power plant is Prypiat, or what remains of it. Founded in 1970 to house workers at the plant, Prypiat grew vibrantly as a model city built sheltered from nuclear power, a symbol of the prosperity intended for the country by the Soviet Union. It had 50,000 inhabitants. “15% were children and the average age was only 26 years old,” explains Max, our guide.
Few settlements in the USSR had the facilities of Prypiat. Its inhabitants could buy cars without waiting months. There were schools, hospitals, a Palace of Culture, hotel, cinema, theater, indoor swimming pools … “At the time it was known as Soviet Las Vegas”, Max ironizes. On the roofs of many of the buildings blackened by radiation and time, large illuminated signs still survive, many mere Soviet propaganda, others, advertisement for shops, cinemas or theaters … “It was the only place in the USSR where the city was illuminated like this, a symbol of the energy opulence generated by the power plant”. Prypiat also had, of course, an emerging football team, Stroitel Prypiat FC, which was destined to establish itself in the elite and which has barely transcended history, buried by the scale of the tragedy.
Ukraine has turned the Chernobyl exclusion zone into an extravagant tourist attraction. Hundreds of visitors wander on weekends, in large or small groups, through areas of a ghost territory that is still extremely unsafe. Geiger meter goes off uncontrollably multiple times during our visit, but at the end of the day, another meter that we carry, this one for the accumulation of radiation, determines that we have been less exposed than in a four-hour commercial flight …
“At the time Prypiat was known as Soviet Las Vegas”
Stroitel FC were unable to open their brand new stadium for just four days. Today its presence can only be sensed by what remains of the main stand. In the Avanhard, which means avant-garde, now towering trees grow, wooden footballers, where the pitch should have been, and the stands are giving way. The venue was designed to be the ultimate accolade for FC Stroitel. It could hold 5,000 spectators and part of its stands was covered. A closed area for journalists and dignitaries was built, light towers to play at night, and the field was surrounded by an asphalt running track. It was to be inaugurated on a symbolic date, May 1, Labor Day, of that fateful 1986. The Communist Party had a great celebration planned. A football game was never played there, just as the Ferris wheel of the Amusement Park that was built behind this ambitious sports complex, now a terrifying iconic image of the Exclusion Zone, never made a complete turn. “On the day of the evacuation, however (in 1,200 buses) the authorities ordered it to turn around to give the appearance of normality”warns Max. “They were told they would be coming home in three days. It never happened.”
JESUS ​​ALVAREZ ORIHUELA (DIARIO AS)
Prypiat and its soccer field are these days part of the same urban desert. A glance at any corner of its empty streets inevitably transports you to the days of tragedy. Rusty baby carriages, car skeletons in disarray on the streets where nature is gaining ground, vintage televisions piled up in their showcases… A haunting sense of hasty abandonment pervades everything. Prypiat is one of the most polluted areas in the Exclusion Zone. It is strictly forbidden to touch anything, much less pick up objects. A slip can even be a serious problem, such is the volume of radioactive particles that permeates all surfaces.
In the hours following the explosion of Reactor 4, the government continued to cover up the disaster. Stroitel Prypiat was preparing to play a friendly match against Mashinostroitel, from the nearby town of Borodyanka, to prepare for the regional Cup final that gave them access to professionalism. The meeting almost got to be disputed. The first-person account of Valentin Litvin, then captain of the Stroitel, published on the Discover Chernobyl Facebook page, reconstructs those hours. “It was 9 in the morning, there was still no traffic. But I met a lot of policemen. I asked them. Not even they knew why they were there. When I arrived I saw that there were a lot of people walking with children, they would go to football. It was a normal morning although the army was spraying the streets (with disinfectant) Then Anyukhina, the assistant coach, said that a helicopter had landed in the stadium, that the game would not be played …“Two hours later the evacuation began. Avanhard also became a makeshift heliport.
FC Stroitel was founded in the mid-1970s as one more element of acceleration of the prosperity intended for the Chernobyl region. Vasili Trofimovich Kizima, construction manager of the nuclear plant and the city, was the promoter of the project: “We have thousands of people working four shifts, nobody is going to relax more than going to watch football and drinking a bottle of beer.“From then on, the team, for which salaried players were specifically brought in from the nuclear plant but without working on it, grew as the different reactors were built one by one.
When the accident occurred, also prompted by the hiring of coach Anatholyi Shepel, who had been a successful player for Dynamo Kiev, Dynamo Moscow and an international with the USSR, FC Stroitel was just one step away from the elite and the brand new venue. of Avanhard, in which no game was played, was the icing on the cake. “This new stadium is as important to the city as the construction of the new reactor“Vasili Kizima, an engineer of the Communist Party, said. But it was not inaugurated … nor has any statistic been revealed as to what was the fate of those 50,000 people for whom another city was built from scratch, Slavutich, 45 kilometers away. by Prypiat.
FC Stroitel continued to play matches and disappeared within a year. It was almost surreal. Most of its players participated in the construction of a sarcophagus that would envelop the reactor. Sometimes they went straight to play from that activity that condemned them, without knowing it, to death. It was lifted by 100,000 people in 6 months. They saved the world. And his spirit, like that of the Prypiat football team, lives on in Chernobyl.