New writer: Chris Hannigan Chris is from Savannah, Georgia, USA where he works as a computer lab instructor for a major aerospace company. Previously employed by an airline, Chris has flown to many places around the world and continues to travel with his family today.

This post is part of an occasional series where we visit some of the world’s most interesting abandoned places.

On April 26, 1986, reactor number four at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, resulting in the worst nuclear disaster in history. The explosion itself killed 56 people, but the accident caused four hundred times more fallout than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; the full consequences of which have yet to be realised.

GSS have visited Chernobyl twice before, but this article will discuss the city of Prypiat, Ukraine, which was home to a population of over 50,000 residents before the accident, and which today is merely a ghost town.

The city sits right in the middle of a 30km exclusion zone around the plant. Trees and weeds have grown over most of the streets and buildings, but remarkably much of the town is still intact. Schools¹, parks, a stadium, and even a ferris wheel can still be seen today.

On the day following the explosion, government workers ordered the residents to evacuate. Many families were told they would only be gone for three days, but the evacuation was actually permanent. As a result, many buildings within the town still contain personal belongings that were left behind by their owners. Items such as TVs, furniture, children’s toys, and clothing can be seen inside the buildings, left just where they were on the day of the accident.

As a result of the fallout from the explosion, much of the land around the city has been designated “inappropriate for farming or agriculture” for the next 200 years. One area hit especially hard is known as the Red Forest. These woods, just south of Prypiat, turned a deep red colour after the explosion, and slowly the trees began to die as a result of the radiation. Eventually, much of the woods were bulldozed and buried, but they remain one of the most contaminated areas in the world.

Following some of the roads out of the city will lead to the control points that secure the 30 km exclusion zone around the plant. These checkpoints are staffed by guards and police.

Even with all of the potential health hazards of visiting the city today, several Ukrainian companies actually offer guided tours of the area. If you plan on visiting Prypiat yourself, make your way to the nearby town of Chernobyl, another settlement evacuated by the disaster. There, a few apartments, a lodge, and even a hotel exist and are still in use today.

Prypiat and the Chernobyl disaster are of course well documented on Wikipedia.

New writer: Daniel Chapman Daniel recently graduated from the University of New Orleans with a degree in urban planning but grew up in the UK. He is currently planning to move to Mexico to teach English before beginning his real career of championing intelligent city design.

The city of Norilsk lies 320km north of the Arctic Circle in the frigid tundra of Siberia. It is the second largest city north of the Arctic Circle (after Murmansk), and the northernmost city in the world with a population over 100,000. It also holds an unenviable spot among the ten most polluted cities on earth thanks to the massive nickel mining operation in the area.

Due to pollution, not a single tree grows within 45km of the largest of four nickel smelters, Nadezhda¹, and it’s estimated that Norilsk contributes 1% of all sulphur dioxide released into the earth’s atmosphere.

The city itself was built with Gulag labour under the direction of Joseph Stalin, and in true Stalinist fashion, the cityscape is dominated by massive apartment blocks spaced along wide boulevards.

In 1953-54, prison labourers assigned the task of building the city staged what has become known as the Norilsk uprising. The “uprising” was actually unarmed, so the term settled upon by the authorities was “mass insubordination”. While dissent was common in the Gulag system, the uprising in Norilsk was the largest such rebellion under Stalin’s iron-fisted rule.

Many thousands of prison labourers died in the extremely harsh conditions while building the city: Norilsk is covered by snow between 250 and 270 days a year with temperatures as low as -58°C having been recorded.

After reading all this, you’re probably about ready to book your next holiday to this lovely utopia. Not so fast. Norilsk is closed to foreigners without a really good reason to go, and travel to the city is restricted even among Russian nationals. The reason for this could be to cover up the massive scale of pollution, or it could have something to do with the many ICBM silos nearby. Any other theories?

There’s more information about Norilsk at Wikipedia.

Google have just expanded Street View’s coverage to 14 countries with the addition of 11 Canadian cities and regions¹, and the Czech city of Prague.

We’ve already found some great Street View sights, which you can see on our brand-new Street View page or even better, follow us on Twitter to get the latest sights the moment we find them.

Montreal’s Olympic stadium was one of the very first sights we posted to Google Sightseeing, when the site was just 3 days old. Now 4 and half years later, we get a much better view of the bizarre building and the world’s tallest inclined structure.

Outside the stunning Canadian Parliament building we can see Tamil protestors, calling for action on the Sri Lankan Civil War. They protested non-stop throughout most of April 2009.

Probably Canada’s most recognisable landmark, the CN Tower in Toronto can be spotted from miles around. This unique view, complete with truck about to crash into the tower, comes from the CTV’s television station.

The impressive Czech National Museum sits atop Prague’s Wenceslas Square. The facade had to undergo major repairs following severe gunfire damage during the 1968 Warsaw Pact intervention.

Have you found anything cool on the new Street View? Send us a tweet so we can tell the world!

Island Week 4 should have finished at the end of last week, but we’ve got a bonus island post before we resume normal service.

Despite being just off the coast of France, the Channel Islands are British Crown dependencies famous for being the only part of the British Commonwealth occupied by Germany during WWII, and the centuries-old rivalry between the two principle islands of Guernsey and Jersey.

Although usually considered one unit, the islands are actually made of two distinct administrations, which share very few laws and institutions, named the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey.

The Bailiwick of Guernsey consists of seven inhabited islands, the largest of which is Guernsey itself, and various other islets and rocks. Guernsey was heavily fortified by the occupying Nazis during WWII, much more than was really necessary, and many of these fortifications remain.

Making up part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey is Alderney, a quiet little island to the North, which was almost completely evacuated to mainland Britain prior to the German invasion. 4 concentration camps were built on Alderney, and at least 400 graves have been found.

Sark’s odd claim to fame is that it was the last feudal state in Europe. These days, the population of 600 are proud of their traditional ways, which include the complete lack of any cars on the island.

The Bailiwick of Jersey’s only inhabited island is just Jersey itself. The lack of VAT charged in Jersey meant that it was, for a time, used by Amazon and Tesco for shipping out cheap DVDs and CDs to the UK.

Jersey and Guernsey’s rivalry stems from the English Civil War, when Jersey sided with Royalists and Guernsey sided with Parliament. Each has their own pound notes, police force, and famous breed of cow.

More information on Wikipedia for the Channel Islands, Jersey and Guernsey.

Thanks to James Bridle

It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

The last remaining fragments of the formerly immense French Empire in North America are the islands which make up the Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, located 25km off the coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland.

Of the eight islands which make up the archipelago, only Saint Pierre and Miquelon-Langlade are inhabited today, though history traces populations back to the early 16th century, and possibly even earlier. Control of the islands switched between England and France numerous times before France took permanent ownership in 1815.

Saint Pierre houses the capital (of the same name) of the collectivity, and the bulk of the population – about 5,500 people. Five much smaller islands off the north and east coasts are also part of the territory.

The waterfront of Saint Pierre is dominated by the Customs House and General Charles de Gaulle Square where the Tricolor is raised on Bastille Day.

Miquelon-Langlade comprises two formerly separate islands now joined by a 12km long sandspit called La Dune, which local lore explains was built up by the 500 ships which wrecked in the area.

Despite their larger size, these islands are home to less than 700 permanent residents on Miquelon. The last remaining Langlade resident passed away a couple of years ago, though many islanders do keep summer homes here.

The sandbar also protects Grand Barachois – a large lagoon on Miquelon which supports a colony of seals and other wildlife.

The collectivity has been a sore point for Canada on occasion. During World War II, Canada contemplated invading the islands when they were suspected of assisting German submarines. More recently a conflict over fishing rights had to be resolved by the International Court of Arbitration, which awarded France territory surrounding the islands in addition to 19km wide corridor stretching 370km to the south.

To help preserve fishing as a traditional way of life, the government built Les Salines – cabins where fishermen keep their boats and process their catches.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon is renowned as the only place in North America where Euros are legal tender¹, and for the quality of the baguettes, for which French flour is specially imported!

The islands have a couple of notable historical moments: In 1889 a convicted murderer became the only person ever to be executed by guillotine in North America. And from 1920 to 1933, they experienced a significant period of economic prosperity caused by alcohol smuggling during Prohibition in the US.

Thanks to Rob Shostak, Thomas Paul and Josh Simons.