Stalking the Atomic City review: An extraordinary window on Chernobyl

This vivid guide takes us into the exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant that exploded in 1986, revealing a “land of tranquillity and frozen time”

By George Bass

BEFORE 26 April 1986, living near the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Chernobyl (nicknamed Atomic City) or in the nearby workers’ city of Prypyat was highly desirable. There was a new restaurant, supermarket, large playground and immaculate flats, all of which marked it out as one of the Soviet Union’s more prosperous areas. It was so desirable that newspapers ran adverts …