Author Topic: Can we talk about this particular Pripyat Traffic Fixture?  (Read 146 times)
WolfrCats
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Can we talk about this particular Pripyat Traffic Fixture? « on: October 18, 2025, 06:51:13 PM » Author: WolfrCats
Pripyat started out in the early 70s, no clue when traffic fixtures were issued or required by city code in the soviet times. I have no information what soviet traffic fixtures are by name, what I can say is rare for Pripyat. Stop signs were common, assuming they must of been cheap. But another question springs to mind. Was this the only traffic fixture in Pripyat? This was right near what was the public pool, built assuming early 80s considering the new-at-the-time design.

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WolfrCats
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Re: Can we talk about this particular Pripyat Traffic Fixture? « Reply #1 on: October 19, 2025, 01:18:17 AM » Author: WolfrCats
EDIT

Улица Спортивная до аварии, a pair of traffic lights I noticed. I do not know the name of the traffic fixture models, presumably soviet or czech units; Considering its common to distribute units from a near by supplier, that may be from czech or local.
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AngryHorse
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Re: Can we talk about this particular Pripyat Traffic Fixture? « Reply #2 on: October 20, 2025, 03:02:40 AM » Author: AngryHorse
The spooky thing is, where did it all go?, Pripyat being so hurriedly evacuated in 1986, doesn’t really explain where the infrastructure went, including the road in the comparison photo?, unless it’s under all that mud🤔, but the traffic signal? What happened to that?
The ferris wheel remains to this day, as you see on so many photos, but other metal structures such as the above traffic signal pole completely disappears?🤔
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Laurens
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Re: Can we talk about this particular Pripyat Traffic Fixture? « Reply #3 on: October 20, 2025, 04:37:35 AM » Author: Laurens
After the fall of communism, during which the basic necessities of life were available for essentially everyone at a very basic level, the economy completely collapsed for about 10 years. People literally had to scavenge for anything sellable to be able to survive. Tons of people went unemployed because the inefficient big industrial kombinats were unable to compete with the much more modern western companies, when suddenly they have to pay market price for their raw materials.
State pensions for elderly people who worked all their life evaporated overnight. People's welfare, income and life style literally dropped from 'Poor but never in fear of going homeless or without a full stomach' to 'the worst 3rd world country you can imagine' in the span of 1 or 2 years. The Soviet Union was bankrupt well before that of course, change or collapse was inevitable.

This was all presented under the guise of 'Economic shock therapy'. Obviously this 'shock therapy' was stupid, Vietnam and China proved that it is perfectly possible to open up the market to private enterprise and foreign capitalist investment in a much more gradual way. Unemployment was also a problem in east germany, but the stripping of materials wasn't nearly as bad.

All of this to paint a picture of the truly unprecedented change in living conditions that the former soviet union went through. I think it took about 10 to 15 years for things to stabilize a bit, but people who are more specialized in that part might be able to tell more about that.

Every single thing that contains valuable metals or is valuable in itself, that was not piled up in radioactive waste dumps, was stripped out of the exclusion zone by scavengers, since the apartment blocks and many streets could not all be guarded by guards to prevent looting and stripping. They were almost all conveniently empty. Elevator motors were stripped from their copper wire right in the lift hoist room. Poverty was so extreme that people were willing to risk contamination and punishment going into the exclusion zone. You cannot easily steal a ferris wheel or some bumper cars (that stuff is quite large and is mostly steel rather than the more valuable copper or brass) but you can rip out power buses from fuse boards and wire from large motors and carry it back home in your backpack. Driving a car into the exclusion zone would stick out like a sore thumb. Perhaps some people would bribe the (equally poor) guards and be able to sneak in that way.

Only a handful of buildings were kept in good shape for the people who work at the power plant (which was kept going for quite some time - the power plant wasn't closed after the disaster!) so if you stayed away from that area you could loot what you wanted.

This stripping was not just confined to Pripyat either - it essentially happened in every area where factories closed and people went unemployed. But in Pripyat it's most obvious because it was literally an almost empty reasonably sized city.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2025, 04:39:55 AM by Laurens » Logged
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