Thirty-nine years ago, the Chernobyl accident occurred, a day as terrible as any Ukraine has endured since 2022 under the bombs or Russia. Pripyat is the empty city where, in 2016, I took this photo, which today holds deeper meanings, as the doll could have been decapitated yesterday.

The desolation of this city, once an ideal of Soviet urbanism, hits you before crossing the police checkpoint granting access. The municipal registry says it all: «City: Pripyat. Founded: 1970. Households: 20,414. Inhabitants: 0».

These figures encapsulate the ambitions of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who dreamed of a modern city immune to the traffic jams that the U.S. and Europe were beginning to suffer.

The childhood of Yulia, who remembers everything green, lingers here, as do the dreams of Nikolai, the mechanic who was celebrating his 30th birthday the night of the accident and—after blowing out the candles—saw smoke through the window that ended his youth. And there’s the last image all the residents recall: 1,200 buses entering Lenin Avenue to evacuate everyone in three and a half hours, emptying the city of its last shred of humanity.

An invisible harshness in Pripyat makes you dread touching the ground, as if it were a cheese grater you don’t want to brush against, though you know others bore the worst. Since cancer screenings weren’t conducted before the accident, it’s hard to tally the victims radiation has claimed over the years. But grim details show that, though Pripyat was evacuated within 36 hours, the toxic cloud moved faster: in Slavutich, the city built post-disaster to house most evacuees, a cemetery planned for 50 years is already full after just 30. No family is untouched by cancer.

Pripyat was a city built from scratch, later a model for other cities: a cinema, stadium, hospital, schools, and even a sandy shore they called “the beach.”

Liudmila Belokrainskaya clenches her fist in her coat pocket as she recalls: “Part of our life stayed there. There was love in that place,” she told me for my piece in EL MUNDO in her Kyiv neighborhood, where she was relocated with many neighbors.

On the rooftops, accumulated snow turns into stagnant water, sickening the structures and turning ceilings into a Damocles’ sword for those who venture inside. Yet the temptation to enter the dilapidated buildings is irresistible, as the doors to thousands of lives betrayed by the atom stand wide open. Instead of carpets, there are shards of glass. The silence is absolute.

The Soviet government wanted Pripyat to be a model for green spaces. That year’s budget detailed 33,000 rosebushes. During years weeds have taken over, creeping into the ground floors of homes with the help of sand that no longer fears brooms or doormats. The trees have continued their lives, growing wherever they please: in front of a door or in the middle of a street. They also rise from soil piled atop concrete, their roots growing horizontally, so they often fall with the first strong gust of wind.

But then moss takes over, claiming every place meant for sitting: benches, seats outside the Prometheus cinema, the chairs in the Culture Park. “We held performances and concerts there. My husband was a nuclear energy engineer but also a saxophonist, and I sang and danced,” recalls Liudmila, who serves as the “mayor” of the relocated “Pripyatans” in Kyiv. For her, remembering is a duty, so no one is forgotten.

I remember Liudmila. With tears in her eyes, she said: “That was life. That little piece of life is unforgettable.” Yet today, Pripyat seems to have forgotten everyone.