Abandoned AmericaA school in the city of Prypiat, Ukraine, abandoned after the disaster at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
Mars CaponeA few things, before I'm "corrected":
- "Chornobyl" and "Prypiat" are the Ukrainian spellings of "Chernobyl" and "Pripyat" and thus the ones that I choose to use out of respect for their sovereignty.
- If you're about to say "You're Abandoned America and this isn't America" just... don't. I hereby acknowledge your brilliance in geography for noticing. Nothing further is needed at this time.
Axomamma@AbandonedAmerica Every time someone tries to piss on your parade, know that I'm here cheering you on.
@Axomamma Thank you. I appreciate it. If it didn't happen so often I wouldn't be so preemptively prickly.
Tony WellsI'll be cheering along too.
Myke@AbandonedAmerica but to get access to the plant and the woodpecker... man…
@mWare I saw both! Neither are up on my site, IIRC, but I do have photos I'll get to one day.
My heart aches for the people at the plant. They were very nice. I hope they're okay.
@AbandonedAmerica sorry, I just turned green.
I miss my urbexing days... https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikegeiger/
Mike Geiger
Explore Mike Geiger’s 2,549 photos on Flickr!
@mWare whatever that really tall one is, it's very cool!
@mWare yes, that was the one!
@AbandonedAmerica well thanks! I feel like I've got better, but I'll take the W on that one too :)
@mWare look, I have so many old photos I wish I had done better on. But I also *have* them and yes, that is a win.
JL Johnson 
@AbandonedAmerica TMYK on the first one. Nice.
People really complain about the second one? God forbid an abandonment site from the US visit one of the eeriest and most abandoned places on earth. Good on you for the GTFO approach. I dig it
@User47 thanks JL. No lie, that has been something I have had to deal with every single time I've posted locations overseas for the past five years and goddamn, it gets old. So, so very old.
AI6YR Ben@AbandonedAmerica @User47 Another nearby abandoned installation is the Duga radar. Apparently directly wired to Chornobyl, I guess it must have used a ton of energy!
@AbandonedAmerica @User47 It's massive, I think you need an ultra wide lens. I'd like to see it one day in person, myself. (Alas, not under the current war of course!).
Thanks for sharing the schoolroom photo!!
Matt Blaze@AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr @User47 First, great photos as usual!
The Duga OTH radar site is the first place I want to go photograph when it becomes possible to travel reasonably safely there again. I hope soon, for everyone's sake!
Viss@mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr @User47
i used to follow a group of folks that flew quads competitively (acro, not racing) who would travel around and fly places - they went there. they flew chernobyl and one guy, tommy, famously dove the duga array:
Ultimate Duga Dive
@ai6yr @mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @User47
if you wanna REALLY nerd out (and you have a reasonable enough GPU) you can download the clips and feed them into a 'gaussian splatting' tool, which will recreate a 3d model from the video and you can even decide where to place Matts INSANE medium format camera >:D
@Viss @mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @User47 Oh, wow, no idea you could recreate a 3d model from clips like that... that is neat!
@ai6yr @mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @User47
oh dude.
go to youtube, plug in 'gaussian splatting'
its fucking mindblowing.
its an osint wet dream.
@Viss @mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @User47 Need to snag a newer CUDA capable GPU here at some point I guess LOL.
@mattblaze @ai6yr @User47 Matt, if/when it is safe, I want to go back so many more times. My wife's ancestry is in Ukraine. We were going to return so she could explore it. It enrages me that it was stolen from her. More than anything, I want to revisit Ukraine.
@AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr @User47 And it enrages me that we seem to be abandoning these brave people.
@mattblaze @ai6yr @User47 yes. Kyiv is a magnificent city. My guide was a terrific person who I liked and respected. I look back at my visit there and I can't even begin to express how sickening the war is. It is an atrocity for which there are no words. Russia is evil incarnate.
@AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr @User47 Absolutely.
The other thing I'm curious about there is the Duga receive site, about 50 km east of the transmitter array. Based on google earth, etc, there doesn't seem to be much left of the antennas, and there are comparatively few photos of it on the web.
@mattblaze @ai6yr @User47 I don't know if t saw that. Hard to say. If you have any photos at all, I could probably give an idea
Tim Richards@mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr @User47 I've been there myself, fascinating place. Very creepy vibe with the array creaking in the wind.
Jim Hubbell@timrichards @mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr @User47
The Wikipedia article is interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar?wprov=sfla1
The Wikipedia article is interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar?wprov=sfla1
@dougfir @timrichards @mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr I only know about this because of Tom Scott. Sure miss that YouTube guy
Douglas@User47 @dougfir @timrichards @mattblaze @AbandonedAmerica @ai6yr you can see similar structures in the USA.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Valley_Air_Force_Station
Aidan@AbandonedAmerica @User47 Boring reply guys are boring. It's nominative determinism.
Suzanne she/her@AbandonedAmerica yikes, these people have waaayy too much time on their hands if this is what they’re complaining about. Maybe get a hobby.
@DrSuzanne I'd agree but you'd be surprised how often it happens. I had a guy - in the Fediverse, no less, iirc - claiming I was trying to fool people into thinking Ukraine was part of the US because I posted photos of it. No, I am not making that up. I would not make up something that inane.
@AbandonedAmerica I really hate that part of the internet. It’s a place where bullies thrive.
@DrSuzanne agreed. It makes posting so much less fun. But also: I guess if I stop, they win. It's a weird balance to be maintained there
@AbandonedAmerica I really enjoy your work, as many others do, so a lot of people would be missing out just because of a few jerks.
CoolBlenderKitten@AbandonedAmerica @DrSuzanne
I always feel people like that just out themselves as being very stupid
I always feel people like that just out themselves as being very stupid
@CoolBlenderKitten @AbandonedAmerica aggressive stupidity perhaps
Jeff C. 🇺🇦@AbandonedAmerica Even America doesn’t feel like America, lately…
@jeff that's because it's in the process of being suffocated 😔
Different Than@AbandonedAmerica Given what happened this week, I think you don't even need a disclaimer. Ukraine is Abandoned (by) America.
@guyjantic I can't even tell you how angry that makes me.
AlgoCompSynth by znmeb 🇺🇦
Nico 
@AbandonedAmerica Don’t forget “can you even show it on the map?”
Patrick H. Lauke@AbandonedAmerica goodness, yes...i had to bat down some idiots on youtube recently that were being snarky about a news report that used "Chornobyl" and russian attacks, a la "this is fake news, look they can't even spell it right!" ...