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Video: Pripyat in miniature: Why has a prestigious Belarusian sanatorium turned into an exclusion zone?
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
This abandoned place is called Pripyat in miniature. For almost three decades of its desolation, the Lesnoye health resort near Minsk has turned into a ghost health resort. The fact that the reason for the closure of this institution was the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster is evidenced by a warning sign installed on the approaches about the presence of increased radiation here. But what makes this place even more mysterious is the fact that people left the health resort not at all in 1986, when the Chernobyl accident occurred, but only in the 1990s.
It became an "exclusion zone" only in the nineties?
According to many sources, the Lesnoye sanatorium, located about 70 kilometers from the Belarusian capital by the Isloch River, was abandoned by its employees precisely in connection with the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. After the disaster in this place near Volozhin, where the sanatorium is located, an increased radiation background was recorded, which, in particular, is confirmed by the map of contamination of the territory of Belarus with cesium-137.
The sanatorium was built in 1985-1986 and most of the time this place belonged to the Ministry of Communications of the Byelorussian SSR.
In recent years, this place has been regularly visited by lovers of "abandonment" (this small "exclusion zone" is not guarded by anyone). Tourists have repeatedly reported and confirmed with photographs that the premises of the sanatorium contain old documents (including medical records and holiday vouchers) dating from the early nineties. In addition, former employees of the health resort live not far from the contaminated area, who also say that the Lesnoye health resort was still operating in the first half of the 1990s.
At the same time, local residents know: mushrooms and berries here often "faint" (this was repeatedly shown by measurements of the radiation level of the forest gifts they collected). And again, the presence of an increased background here is warned by a corresponding sign installed near the sanatorium.
So why, then, the medical and health institution was not closed immediately after the accident? Perhaps the so-called radiation spot was revealed here only a few years after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
According to the latest data, a certain Russian-Belarusian company bought the land on which the abandoned sanatorium is located. However, what she will do with this contaminated area is unknown. In addition, the buildings of the sanatorium are so destroyed that there is no point in restoring them.
It seems that you got to Pripyat
Now the territory of the sanatorium looks very deplorable, and almost everyone who has been here draws a parallel with Pripyat - in Lesnoy, trees and grass also sprout through the walls and roofs, glass is also broken, and the path leading to the building of the sanatorium is completely overgrown.
The buildings of the once prestigious health resort are falling apart before our eyes - bricks are crumbling from dampness. But once the local buildings had a very attractive appearance. The complex, consisting of a residential building, a one-storey dining room and a water tower, was designed in a typical "Soviet" style - with a modest decor and a standard sanatorium layout. Only small fragments remind of how the complex looked in the 1980s, on the basis of which one can mentally supplement the picture.
Inside the building, you can find not only old papers, but also objects thrown by people, reminiscent of an irrevocably gone era - for example, a Soviet glass bottle, women's powder, a pillow … However, now the premises are almost empty - most likely, all that remained in them was behind the years of desolation were plundered by marauders.
The old estate of the Tyshkevichs, located very close to the Lesnoye sanatorium, is also dilapidated. But even the ruins show how beautiful this building was.
Another mysterious and abandoned place on the territory of the former Soviet Union - Caucasian Pripyat Akarmara.
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