Thirty-one years ago this week, the world eyes focused on the Ukrainian city of Chornobyl, where the world's worst nuclear accident was contaminating large swaths of what was then called the Soviet Union. Three years ago, VOA's Steve Herman visited the area, photographing monuments and artifacts near the Chernobyl reactor site.
31 Years Later, Chernobyl Disaster Remembered
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The Ferris wheel in the Pripyat amusement park, now an iconic symbol to a younger generation born after the Chernobyl disaster, thanks to its inclusion in the video game: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
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A monument in front of a Chernobyl fire station to the 32 firefighters who died responding to the explosion at Reactor No. 4. (Steve Herman/VOA)
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A saleswoman of the bakery Schuerener Backparadies shows a tray with round marble cakes wrapped in fondant that look like toilet paper rolls in Dortmund, Germany.
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Driver Igor Bordnarch, a frequent visitor to the Chernobyl reactor site, checks radiation readings just 240 meters from the destroyed reactor. (Steve Herman/VOA)