T he Pripyat river is 473 miles long. A significant section flows through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone en route to the capital Kiev and beyond. While the nuclear reactors were in operation, the water from the Pripyat river was used to both cool the core and generate steam for its reactions.
Back then, the area was known for its boat maintenance and repair as well as being used by the people of Pripyat for leisure. Today it is just a cemetery for radioactive metal. All the boats that were docked in the area at the time of the accident remain, decaying and rusting away with radiation levels reading off the chart. Regardless of the contamination levels, scavengers have stripped and hallowed the ships for scrap metal and spare parts to be sold off on the black market in Eastern Europe.
Putting food on the table
It is quite astonishing to encounter fishermen angling in the Pripyat river within the Contamination Zone. This gentleman was one of a handful of displaced persons who chose to move back into the zone with his wife rather than be an outcast in a less contaminated region. Since there is absolutely no infrastructure for 70 miles, fishing and growing fruit and vegetables in their back yard seem like the only relevant option for daily nutrition. Nutrition filled with significant amounts of radionuclides.
According to studies by the Russian Academy of Sciences, fish in that water measured high levels of Cesium 134 and 137 as well as Strontium 90. These levels were also found in the river water, bottom sediment and the plankton, the primary nutrition for fish living in these waters.