“We are just at the beginning of the story of Chernobyl”

Photographer Pierpaolo Mittica has been documenting the passage of time at the disaster site as clean-up crews, tourists, and war, come and go in a landscape still teeming with radiation.

Aerial of Chernobyl 40 years after.
A plume of smoke from a forest fire rises beyond the ghost town of Pripyat, where workers and the families of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant once lived. In 2015, the largest forest fire in post-disaster history swept through the exclusion zone, releasing radioactive ash and dust that endangered settlements near the zone’s boundaries and beyond. Fires are a constant threat here, and they have become more difficult to manage since Russia briefly occupied and mined the forests surrounding the plant at the start of its invasion of Ukraine, according to photographer Pierpaolo Mittica.
Pierpaolo Mittica
Photographs byPierpaolo Mittica, Parallelozero
BySimon Ostrovsky
Published April 24, 2026

Those who have travelled to the Chernobyl exclusion zone at least a few times since the disaster took place 40 years ago know its biggest secret. To many outsiders, it’s a time capsule of the Soviet period, frozen in that day in 1986 when reactor No. 4 blew its lid and sent clouds of radiation across Europe. But the truth is, Chernobyl is always changing. No two visits are ever the same.

I travelled to the exclusion zone for the fifth time earlier this month, but it was my first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Russian troops briefly occupied the contaminated area at the start of the war. The barbed wire around the exclusion zone had always been there. But now, there is a new layer of security in the form of anti-tank trenches that have altered the landscape and Ukrainian military patrols that were there to guard against renewed hostilities in the region.

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But the passage of time has done more to reshape Chernobyl than any manmade initiative. Italian photographer Pierpaolo Mittica has been documenting the changing landscape of the Chernobyl exclusion zone since he first visited almost two-and-a-half decades ago. These pictures, from across that span of time, reveal an expanse that is neither devoid of life nor static. At least 600 people come to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant every day to continue a cleanup effort that will last well into the 2060s. And that number does not include the soldiers, firefighters, forest rangers, elderly returnees and others who live and work throughout the 30-kilometer zone surrounding the damaged reactor.

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At the same time, nature has taken over abandoned villages and the deserted city of Pripyat, where workers of the plant and their families lived before the disaster. The presence of radiation has decreased the human footprint in the exclusion zone, leading to an incredible resurgence of plants and wildlife. This resurgence means many of the artifacts, murals and day-to-day objects that were abandoned by the area’s Soviet citizens are deteriorating at a rapid rate, making Mittica’s mission of documenting them all the more urgent.

But Chernobyl’s most lasting legacy will be its radiation, which will be present long after we are gone, Mittica told me, and new generations of people will have to find ways to manage it. “We are just at the beginning of the story of Chernobyl. And for me, this is really important to know,” Mittica said. “Chernobyl is not history. Chernobyl is the present and the future of humanity.”

The guardian of the city of Pripyat as he raises the bar to let our van enter in Pripyat.
A “guardian” of Pripyat raises the cross-bar of a gate, allowing the vehicle of photographer Pierpaolo Mittica to enter the abandoned city. Visitors have to receive special permission to enter the exclusion zone and go through numerous checkpoints like this one. The area was previously opened to tourists, who could pay to be let in starting in 2011, but tours were banned again at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and have not resumed as a result of Russia’s invasion.
Classroom in the school number 2 in the ghost town of Pripyat
Mittica has been documenting the deterioration of buildings in the Chernobyl exclusion zone since he first visited in 2002. This classroom in Pripyat School No. 2, photographed in 2024, has disintegrated over the years. Mittica has witnessed books and posters rot away and disappear over the more than two decades he’s been photographing Chernobyl. He worries there may be nothing left to see in a few years’ time.
A fireman with his fire engine on a fire station inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
A fireman reaches towards his fire truck in this 2016 photo. Firefighters are on constant guard for flare-ups that can cause radioactive ash to spread with the wind.
Fresh painted warning signs ready for the distribution inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone
Freshly painted radiation danger signs dry in the sun outside a workshop in Pripyat in this 2015 shot. Even here there are signs of life, as maintenance crews repair and maintain equipment necessary for the upkeep of the area.
Beer bottles after an impromptu party along the streets of Chernobyl
Drinking is forbidden after 9pm in the town of Chernobyl, where maintenance crews and plant workers live during their two-week shifts in the exclusion zone. These empty beer bottles, lined up on top of an old TV, are evidence of people trying to lead a normal life in an abnormal environment, says Mittica.
Tamara, the director of the House of Culture in Chernobyl with Serhiy
A tour guide speaks to Tamara, the former director of the Chernobyl house of culture, which was still operational when this photo was taken in 2016. Once a post-disaster venue for plays and concerts for the plant’s staff, the building is now being used by the Ukrainian military’s command outpost in Chernobyl town. Mittica was told Tamara had been killed by Russian troops while attempting to flee her hometown of Chernihiv in a car at the beginning of Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Workers inside control room of reactor number 2. Chernobyl nuclear power plant,
A worker mans a desk in the control room of Chernobyl reactor No. 2 in this 2016 photo. For over a decade after the 1986 accident at reactor No. 4, two other Chernobyl reactors that were undamaged continued to produce electricity. Crews are currently in the process of dismantling those reactors as part of on-going clean-up efforts that are projected to last until 2065.
The dental oûce in the Chernobyl hospital.
A doctor performs a dental procedure at the Chernobyl town hospital in this 2024 photo. The facility treats plant staff as well as elderly returnees, residents of the villages of the exclusion zone who came back to their homes—some, almost immediately after the explosion—in defiance of government evacuation orders. As many as 150 former residents returned, but their numbers are growing smaller with each passing year.
The local gym for the workers in Chernobyl City
Plant workers get some exercise at the gym in Chernobyl town in this 2017 photo. This facility, too, has since been taken over by the Ukrainian military—another consequence of the war with Russia, which has reshaped realities in the exclusion zone.
Hanna in her home while cleaning the mushrooms picked up in the Chernobyl forests, Kupovate, Chernobyl exclusion zone
A woman cleans mushrooms picked in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in this 2015 shot. The elderly returnees to the area live the ultimate off-the-grid life, despite concerns about radioactive contamination of the surrounding forest. With few modern amenities available and no public transport, they must be self-sufficient to survive.
Hanna (far right) and her disabled sister Sofia (far left) both lived long lives in the exclusion zone, with Hanna passing away from likely heart failure in 2024 at the age of 92. Their friend Maria (center) is 98 years old and the last remaining resident of her village, Kupovate.
Aleksandr Sherekh in front of the foresters cabin while preparing his backpack before heading to Pripyat
Oleksandr Sherekh, a so-called Chernobyl “stalker,” prepares his pack for the hike into Pripyat in 2017. Stalkers were explorers who snuck into the zone illegally to see the sites that are off the tourist trail, like the inside of derelict buildings and areas that have not been checked for radiation levels. Sherekh and photographer Pierpaolo Mittica spent the night in a forest ranger’s cabin, making sure to depart before rangers started their workday.
Tourists inside the swimming pool in the ghost town of Pripyat, Chernobyl exclusion zone
Tourists view the swimming pool in the ghost town of Pripyat in 2015. Ukraine opened the exclusion zone to tourism in 2011—with visits usually being restricted to a couple of days—breathing new life into the area as well as Ukraine’s economy. At its peak, some 70,000 visitors per year, from all around the world, travelled there, up until the COVID-19 pandemic. 
A cemetery in the village of Kupovate, one of the settlements that some elderly residents returned to illegally after being ordered to evacuate. Their ties to the land were so strong that they preferred to be buried here, rather than someplace more accessible to family. Before the disaster, Kupovate was a typical farming village, where people kept livestock and grew and foraged their own food. It’s one of 92 villages that were evacuated, not including the towns of Pripyat and Chernobyl.
One of the chapters of Chernobyl’s history that has been overshadowed by the1986 disaster is its original claim-to-fame as the mid-18th-century birthplace of the Hasidic movement of Judaism. In this 2016 photo, a Hasidic man visits one of Chernobyl town’s former synagogues, which was used as a military office in the Soviet period.
Igor in his house in the contaminated village of Radinka,
The village of Radynka is formally outside the exclusion zone so it was never evacuated but is one of many settlements around its boundaries that were contaminated during the Chernobyl disaster. Studies have found that children living in these towns disproportionately suffer from cardiovascular disease and other ailments. Six-year-old Ihor, pictured here in 2015, suffers from heart arrhythmia.
Pierpaolo Mittica
The dental oûce in the Chernobyl hospital.
Every year, family members of the Chernobyl liquidators, those—including soldiers, plant workers, and firefighters—who participated in the extremely deadly initial clean-up of the accident aftermath, gather in Chernobyl town for a procession that starts on the eve of the anniversary on April 25th and ends at the exact time of the incident at 1:23 am.
Pierpaolo Mittica