Skip to content

Slow travel guide to Orkney coming soon!

Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest

Meandering Wild

  • PLANNING
  • PHOTOGRAPHY
  • DESTINATIONSExpand
    • ICELAND
    • MOROCCO
    • CHERNOBYL
    • ORKNEY
  • WILDLIFE
  • ProjectsExpand
    • Summer Life in Lavender
    • Plastic Tide
  • About
Field Notes
Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest
Meandering Wild

Kopachi Village and Kindergarten

Places

Kopachi was a thriving village in 1986 when the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster happened. The village was evacuated and was heavily contaminated. The entire village was demolished and buried. All that remains today is the slowly crumbling kindergarten and ware memorial.

two shoes on a shelf with green wall

This article contains links to products and services that I think you will find useful. I may earn commission on any purchases you make at no cost to you. Read more HERE

Abandoned Kopachi Kindergarten

Located just a few kilometres south of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is the remains of Kopachi Village (Копачі in Ukrainian). As with all of the villages in the area it was thriving in 1986. It had a young population and was home to 1114 people on the day of the disaster.

As a result of its proximity to the power plant it was heavily contaminated. The villagers were evacuated and all of the wooden buildings were torn down. The remains of the buildings and the contaminated topsoil were buried in hastily dug pits. However this was not an ideal solution. The buried buildings and the contaminants they held were washed through into the water table and allowed the radioactive isotopes to permeate deeper into the ground.

The village of Kopachi now consists of the kindergarten and another brick building along with the war memorial which is tended by the power plant workers. Around the area are a series of mounds topped by an international radiation symbol. This is the only evidence of the location of other buildings within the village. The kindergarten stands silent. The beds used for daytime naps are rusting, toys and clothes scattered as they would in any child’s bedroom. The only difference is the desolate and cold feel the dust coated toys exude.

The soil and water surrounding the village is still radioactive and contains high levels of plutonium, strontium-90 and caesium-137. There are a number of hot spots in the area including one at the base of a tree by the kindergarten. No-one lives in the area as the radiation levels are relatively high (compared to other areas within the zone).

  • windowsill looking out over winter forest
  • book shelves by window
  • room with bunk beds and toys
  • a single white shoe on a bed
  • silver war memorial in Kopachi
  • two dolls in leaves
  • sleeping room in kindergarten with metal bed frames
  • discarded books in kindergarten
  • plastic rabbit toy with yellow body

Photography Notes

Kopachi is one of the key locations on many of the tours to the exclusion zone. There are lots of things to photograph even as you head through the small woodland from the road. Remember not to kneel down or touch anything. Your guide will remind you if you do forget!

Within the kindergarten things appear to move around. You should not touch anything to place it or stage it. This would risk contamination. Others do move the toys, but it is not recommended.

Using a shallow depth of field the objects within the kindergarten can be photographed with a pleasing blurred background. To do this take your ‘f’ number to 4 or 5.6. It can be quite dark inside the kindergarten so increase you ISO a little or use shutter priority mode to get the shutter speed as fast as possible.

How to Find Kopachi Village

Visiting the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone can only be done as part of an organised tour.

Theses tours can be booked online and depart from Kyiv in Ukraine, about 2 hours drive from the first checkpoint into the Exclusion Zone.

Find out more about planning and booking a tour to the Chernobyl Exclusion zone

View tours to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and Book Here.. 

Places Near Kopachi

  • Emerald Children’s Camp
  • Red Forest
  • Nuclear Power Plant
  • Pripyat City Welcome Sign

Post navigation

Previous Previous
Pripyat River – Water Through a Disaster Zone
NextContinue
Street Art Around the Abandoned City of Pripyat

Get field notes delivered to your inbox!

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • T&C
  • Work with me

© 2022 Meandering Wild

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
  • PLANNING
  • PHOTOGRAPHY
  • DESTINATIONS
    • ICELAND
    • MOROCCO
    • CHERNOBYL
    • ORKNEY
  • WILDLIFE
  • Projects
    • Summer Life in Lavender
    • Plastic Tide
  • About
Search