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Orbit of Dead Lights

All shades of gray in a never-born town

Information from different sources can be perceived diversely depending on its presentation. If I say I visited an abandoned nuclear power plant with a dead town, many of you can think, “Wow!” But I didn’t clarify that only one tube and two buildings remained of this NPP, and the “dead town” isn’t much bigger…

Anyway, this place was good for my collection of visited former NPPs of Ukraine (after Chornobyl and Crimean ones).

Orbita is located near Chyhyryn town in the Cherkasy region. Only two buses daily between Chyhyryn and Cherkasy go by not the shortest road but through distant and forgotten villages and Orbita.

All roads in this direction are bad, but before Vitove village, the bus turned to so awful path that “Highway to hell” started playing in my head. And we even missed each other with that cart somehow:

It’s not quite obvious that some people still live in Orbita, so there are even bus stops. But first, let’s walk to the NPP visible thanks to a giant tube.

In the early 80s, an HPP building was started near the Kremenchuk water reservoir. Due to initial miscalculations, it was requalified to NPP (with four power units). A satellite town, Orbita, started to be built in parallel. It was planned for 20,000 population.

However, all went slowly because of the increased economic crisis in the USSR. And it was finally stopped after the catastrophe on the Chornobyl NPP.

On the unborn plant, firstly, I saw an administrative building in the typical style for late soviet architecture.

It is covered with typically ugly tiles and inventory numbers everywhere. Even a hole in the floor has an inventory number!

Naturally, all valuables were removed after the building had been stopped. Later, marauders stole all the metal.

So, the only exciting thing here is a mosaic with an idealistic plan of NPP and the satellite town. It wasn’t destined to be brought to life, and it’ll never be.

The next non-trivial thing is the ventilation tube that had to serve two power units (or all four). It’s difficult to show how giant it is in a photo, but you can notice its size compared to the trees and transmission towers behind it.

Only one power unit was built, but now it’s thoroughly destroyed. Only a pile of rubble reminded me of it. Nobody had time to bring nuclear rods here, so the place is safe in a radiological context.

Another administrative building and a garage (or warehouse?) remained behind the tube. The administrative building is a copy of the previous one without a mosaic.

I gradually walked back, taking photos of the surrounding trash and destruction. It’s precisely not a place that I want to visit again.

In addition, somebody installed a couple of crosses here. Nobody should be buried under them, but who knows?

There are only two kilometers from the NPP to Orbita. It was planned that workers would go by foot from their homes to the plant. After the Chornobyl disaster, it became clear how bad an idea it was.

The ghost town met me with two inhabited five-story buildings. They had been commissioned before all stopped. People still live here 37 years later. In the sheds in front, they keep some livestock.

All looked civilized: some silent reserve of the 80th in a pine forest. But it’s hard to understand how they live here and how difficult it is. There isn’t any shop, not saying about another infrastructure. Administratively, this town doesn’t exist: it is the Orbita street of one village 3 km away.

I didn’t go closer to the houses and didn’t contact people. Locals are afraid of marauders and don’t welcome any strangers.

The abandoned part of Orbita consists of two connected dormitories, a department store, a restaurant, and a few small buildings like a substation and garages.

The restaurant and the department store were commissioned and even had been working for some time. This is the restaurant:

The 9-story dormitories weren’t finished. But still, they looked better than similar buildings in Prypiat.

Their entrances are trickily joined, and it’s easy to get lost in the corridors or go out through another door.

Apartments contained one room, a tiny kitchen, and a small bathroom. All bathrooms were crushed.

Metal seekers stole all batteries, railings, and elevators. But the stairs survived, and I regret not going to the upper floors. But I was alone and afraid.

The department store has interesting colones decorated by multi-colored tile.

I have a few more photos of the “orbital” geometry:

And it was time to go away. A concrete road, desolation, and ruins: I felt like I returned in my 2013, the last year of free Crimea. Here is the Crimean NPP in front of me, and it seemed I’d see the Azov Sea soon.

Instead of it, I went to the shore of the artificial sea: Kremenchuk water reservoir. After all I had seen that day, the water’s surface looked bright and refreshing.

Orbita was one of the greyest places I’ve ever seen, and it was in one of the greyest months: not November but March, though.

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