An Urbanist Visits the Last City Built by the Soviet Union - Slavutych, Ukraine

The town of Slavutych is a nerdy destination for any urbanist worth their salt but it remains unknown to many. This is the last city that the Soviet Union built.
But it was built in a hurry between 1986 and 1988 to house the staff and families of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, after one reactor exploded in April 1986. The town where the workers lived - Pripyet - was evacuated days after the explosion and they were never allowed back. Three other reactors still worked and people needed to keep them running so the Soviet Union decided to build a new town from scratch nearby, in the pine forests of Northern Ukraine. Far enough away from the contamination zone but close enough for a commute - 50 km.
Mikael finally visits the town after wanting to for many years. A typical “ideal town” by Soviet urban planning standards, it is nonetheless unique. Eight republics of the Soviet Union volunteered architects, planners and construction workers to build the town fast. Each republic built a neighbourhood - or quarter - in the style of the architecture of their home region. The quarters were named after the capital cities of the republics - and Russia had three cities donating time and money. Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Yerevan, Baku, Tbilisi, Moscow, Leningrad and Belgorod.

There is nowhere in the world like Slavutych and the town now faces an existential dilemma now that the rest of the Chernobyl facility was closed in 2001.
Thanks to Bogdan from https://canactions.com/uk/home/ for the road trip and helping with filming.
Small bits of additional footage from the amazing @ukrainernet channel.


#ukraine #sovietunion #architecture #urbanplanning #urbanism #slavutych #chernobyl #pripyet #ussr #townplanning #townscaper #city #cities #citybuilder #urbandesign #travel #travelblogger #славутич