The Energetik Culture Center is located in the center of Pripyat city, on Lenin Square, the iconic Ferris wheel is situated to the rear of the building and is one of the reasons for its continual high ranking on the tourist trail. From the central entrance to the city, moving along Lenin Boulevard, which rested against the central square, we are met by the Energetik Culture Palace. This building was built among the first buildings in Pripyat and was intended to become a cultural institution for the development of citizens.

The Palace of Culture was built in the early 1970s and was the pride of Pripyat. “Energetik” is included in the complex of buildings, and consists of: a department store, hotel “Polissya“, a restaurant, a hall for sports and so on. Various groups worked in the palace: dance, rhythmic gymnastics, children developed in various sections, and adults spent time at literary evenings and staged performances. Former residents told how the circus visited them. Visitors and local artists performed in the “Energetik” hall, showed concerts and performances, organized children’s matinees. And the Edison disco gathered young people not only from all of Pripyat but also from the surrounding area. In addition, inside there were several venues, including a larger lobby, a library, and a reading room, a cinema that could accommodate 800 people, a gym, a swimming pool, and a ring for Pripyat lovers of boxing.

Palaces of Culture were large community centers established during the Soviet era with over 137,000 in the Soviet Union by 1988. The name of this one “Energetik” is a play on words as it means both “energetic” (as in lively) and “power plant worker”.

These generally physically impressive buildings were designed as a focal point for people to enjoy a range of recreational and artistic activities all under the banner, quite literally in many cases, of political propaganda. Pripyat’s Palace of Culture includes what’s left of a cinema, theatre, library, gymnasium, swimming pool, boxing/wrestling ring, dancing and meeting halls, and even has a shooting range in the basement.

It was once a busy building in a once-bustling city. On the upper floors, birch trees now grow, having taken root in damp floors once protected by full-length windows. Windows were frequently broken during the decontamination of Pripyat, not just through vandalism, but to prevent the buildup of radiation in enclosed spaces. The metal frames of these windows were stolen long ago. Many of the marble tiles that once clad the foyer have also vanished. The theatre prop room has paintings of Lenin and dignitaries.

After the disaster at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, during the liquidation of the consequences of the accident, the Energetik Palace of Culture was used by the liquidators as a technical room. In 2000, after the full stop of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was finally closed. Mayhem and Desolation, this is what can be seen in the premises of the present building. In the huge gymnasium in which Pripyat residents physically developed, trees are now growing. The windows are broken, and everything valuable has been stolen long ago by looters, and instead of parquet – moss.

In October 2016, stalkers from Moscow noted that they lit the sign on the “Energy” with the help of diodes connected to the battery. Then “Energetic” for the first time began to shine since 1986. Previously, “Energetic” met guests from different countries, now these guests are called tourists.

(chernobylgallery.com & chernobyladventure.com)

• chernobylgallery.com/palace-of-culture/
• chernobyladventure.com/dk-energetik
• chernobyl.one/pripyat-palace-of-culture-energetik/
• forgottenchernobyl.net/pripyat-then-and-now-part-1-main-square
• pripyat.com/gallery/pripyat-do-avarii.html
• Interesting Architectural Project:
  angelicalorenzi.com/Mirabilia