Kopachi

Ukraine / Kyyivska / Prypyat /
 village, abandoned / shut down, ghost town
The nearest old village to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Before failure here there was a village Kopachi. After the failure it has been strongly polluted, and consequently the decision to liquidate it was accepted. Now the village is destroyed and buried under the ground.

Kopachi is an evicted village 4 km from the Chornobyl nuclear power plant (the closest to the station), on the right bank of the Prypiat River, in Ivankiv district of Kyiv region.
One of the first mentions of the village dates back to 1685. The name did not come from the word kopat, but from kopa (heap), a folk gathering for religious, commercial or judicial purposes.
The village developed rapidly in the 1980s; before the accident, 1114 people lived in the village.

After the accident at the plant on 26 April 1986, the village was heavily contaminated, eliminated by complete destruction and specially covered with earth. It lies within the 10-kilometre exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Currently, the area is uninhabited (no squatters were found during the expedition). The village has become a favourite place for various animals.

The residents of Kopachi were relocated to the village of Lekhnivka, Baryshivka district.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopachi
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   51°21'9"N   30°7'31"E

Comments

  • The village was completely demolished due to contamination, and to prevent potential "squaters" from inhabiting such a contaminated area so close to the plant.
  • well you see the wall woild have eventually decayed and would have cost more than tearing it down.(no i didnt minus your comments.)
  • Does anybody know when it was destroyed? And I see that the village names was changed from the Russian name into the Ukraine name (the last letter was changed). When was this done? Why did they change the name of a ghost village? Thanks for your answers!
  • >Why did they change the name of a ghost village? Actually, even I, ukrainian, aren't able to understand this :). Well, to be serious, in my mind there're political reasons. Not only the name of Kopachi village was changed in the alienation zone. >Does anybody know when it was destroyed? I don't know, but I quess, that right after the catastrophe (in the near 4-6 days, I think). There was Soviet Union and such things were made extremely fastly) >And I see that the village names was changed from the Russian name into the Ukraine name (the last letter was changed). When was this done? I don't know, probably in the early 1990s. I can say exactly that by the time of the Orange Revolution the name has already been changed.
  • Only stupid people can destroy nice village.