Chernobyl
Chornobyl (Ukrainian Чорнобиль [ tʃɔrnɔbɪl ʲ ] ), better known under the Russian transcription of Чернобыль [ tʃɛɐ̯nɔbɨl ] Chernobyl, is a city in northern Ukraine. Chernobyl is located in the Kiev Oblast, 15 kilometers from the border with Belarus and was the center of Tschornobyler Rajons and lies on the River Pripyat River, a tributary of the Dnieper River, in the countryside Polesia.
On April 26, 1986, a nuclear accident, which became known as the Chernobyl disaster occurred at the nuclear power plant near the neighboring town of Pripyat. Pripyat is therefore a ghost town and is the center of the zone referred to infected area. Chernobyl is located outside the inner 10-km restricted zone. In the city, many buildings have been renovated to serve as accommodation for the workers and engineers of the former power plant park Prypiat, soldiers, police officers and firefighters. In the city there is also a hotel. In the countryside and in the city of Chernobyl today is home to around 400 ( of yore 14,000 ) people who did not leave the region either after the disaster, or later returned to their villages. The environmental group Blacksmith Institute counted in their 2006, 2007 and 2013 published list Chernobyl each world's top ten places with the greatest pollution.
History
The first written evidence about Chernobyl exist from the period before the year 1193. 1362 it was conquered by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After the Union of Lublin in 1569 between Lithuania and Poland Chernobyl fell under the Polish crown, after the third partition of Poland in 1795 it was united with the right bank Ukraine with Russia.
In the 18th and 19th centuries was the seat of the Chernobyl Hasidic Twersky dynasty, which was founded by Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl ( 1730-1787 ).
From 1918 to 1991 Chernobyl part of the Soviet Union; In 1941, she was granted the status of a city. Since 1991, Chernobyl is part of the independent Ukraine.
Business and industry
In Chernobyl there were the technical and industrial center of the Dnipro - steamship, an ironworks, food and arts and crafts as well as a building material combine.
Near the city, at the Prypjatufer, since 1971 was the first nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. The first block in 1977 with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts in operation; in 1983 worked four blocks. The entire block power plant generated at this time was 4000 MW and up to 6000 megawatts planned for the expansion. The nuclear accident of 1986 was the most serious in the history of the use of nuclear energy at all. The Kyschtym accident in the Nuclear Mayak plant is indeed comparable in terms of the activity of the released radioactive material, but had less severe consequences.
Educational, social and cultural institutions
Chernobyl was home to four general-education secondary schools, a medical and an agricultural technical college, a school of music. A hospital and a polyclinic and a cinema, a swimming pool and a library were also present.
To the name of the city
The name Chernobyl or Tschornobylnyk ( Чорнобиль, Чорнобильник ) is the Ukrainian name of the plant mugwort ( Artemisia vulgaris in Latin ). A synonym for the word is Polyn Swytschajnyj ( полинь звичайний, meaner Polyn '). The often wrong as the word meaning for Chernobyl specified wormwood ( Artemisia absinthium Latin ) belongs to the same genus and is called on Ukrainian Polyn Hirkyj ( полинь гіркий, bitter Polyn '). Полинь stands for the genus name Artemisia. In the Russian language the designations apply analogously. Due to the inaccurate translation was often a passage in the Bible, Revelation 8, 11, brought the evil, in conjunction: "And the name of the star is called Wormwood. And the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. "However, as in the German vernacular of mugwort is also quite " Wild wormwood " called. Even ancient sources describe the term actually mugwort Artemisia.