A former resident of Pripyat returned to her apartment for the first time in 40 years
Claudia Omelchenko, a former resident of Pripyat, has returned to her apartment for the first time since the Chernobyl disaster; she had left it in April 1986.
This was reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The woman recalls that during the evacuation, people were told to take only their documents and the bare essentials, with assurances that they would be leaving the city for only a short time.
“I left in jeans and a T-shirt, with a handbag. I waved my hand: ‘Goodbye, little house, see you soon,’” she says.
However, she was never meant to return. According to Klavdiya, after the accident, the status of “Chernobyl survivor” became a stigma for many—people faced fear, prejudice, and social isolation.
The woman also shared a personal tragedy: due to her fear of the effects of radiation, she lost her pregnancy and eventually ended up without a family.
Despite this, she returned to work in the exclusion zone and has been working at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant for over 30 years. In her words, it is there that she finds inner peace.
During the full-scale invasion in 2022, she refused to evacuate, recalling her experience from 1986.
Today, she says that Pripyat is a place of memory for her—a reminder of her youth and the life cut short by the disaster.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is launching a major fundraising effort to restore the damaged shelter over the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which was struck by a Russian drone. The project involves hundreds of millions of euros and is expected to take several years to restore the structure to full functionality by the end of the decade.
A Chernobyl NPP employee and five National Guard soldiers who were on duty guarding the facility remain in Russian captivity. This was reported by Serhiy Tarakanov, Director General of the State Specialized Enterprise “Chernobyl NPP.”
