Drone footage has captured the eerie beauty of a Ukrainian city that has been abandoned for more than three decades since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Pripyat was founded in 1970 as one of nine 'nuclear towns' to serve the nearby power plant and over the next 15 years it grew to house 50,000 people.
But the town was hastily abandoned in 1986 after the plant went into meltdown, and it has lain empty ever since.
An urban explorer who goes by the name Dax War has captured stunning drone footage of the city of Pripyat, in Ukraine, which was abandoned following the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in 1986
Pripyat was founded in 1970 as one of nine 'nuclear cities' and was designed to serve the nearby power plant. Over the next 15 years it expanded, and at its height house almost 50,000 people
Perhaps its most famous feature is this Ferris Wheel, which sits inside the local amusement park and was scheduled to open five days after the Chernobyl disaster, in time for May Day, and as such has never been ridden
The city was hastily abandoned following the nuclear disaster before being placed inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, meaning it has remained deserted ever since
'Dax War' described the experience of being in Pripyat as 'eerie', saying he kept expecting to find people and cars everywhere, but was instead confronted by empty buildings and eerie silence
An image showing the interior of a school classroom in Pripyat. The city had a young population before it was abandoned, with an average age of just 26 and almost a quarter of its residents being school-age children
The inside of a school classroom in Pripyat. There were five secondary schools in the city along with 15 kindergarten or elementary schools, which educated the city's 11,000 children
The footage taken by urban explorer Dax War shows what at first glance appears to be an ordinary city, but upon closer inspection is a ghost town.
Speaking about the experience of being there, Dax said: 'It was overwhelming at times.
'The city of Pripyat once hosted almost 50,000 residents, but now is a ghost town.
'If everyone stops moving and talking and just listens, you can hear a pin drop. It's eerie.
'I kept thinking that there should be a city full of people, driving cars, walking along sidewalks, children playing in the parks, people riding the ferris wheel, but it's completely empty and unnervingly quiet.
'The silence is deafening.'
Dax said that he'd been meaning to visit the site for some time and that the trip did not disappoint.
He said: 'The Chernobyl region in Ukraine has been at the top of my list of places to explore for a while as it is, arguably, the most well-known, yet mysterious abandoned location in the world.
'Pripyat has been well-documented in the past, but the exclusion zone itself is an area of 1000 square miles, there's much to see and still many mysteries to unlock.
'I've always found it to be very alluring and I finally had the chance to go to Ukraine this Spring.'
Toys left behind during the disaster are arranged along a windowsill in this eerie image from inside Pripyat. While the town is officially abandoned people have come here over the years, both as part of legal tours and having snuck in illegally
One of three indoor swimming pools at Pripyat, now drained of water and filled with debris from the surrounding building which has collapsed into the vacant hole
In total there were ten gyms, three indoor swimming-pools, ten shooting galleries and two stadiums contributing to the sporting life of Pripyat before it was abandoned
Pripyat is located 12 miles from the town of Chernobyl and was the second-largest Russian nuclear city, after Chernobyl itself. Pictured in the background is the giant dome which now houses the broken nuclear reactor
An aerial view of the Volkhov Bunker, near Pripyat. Little is know about the purpose of this bunker, which appears to be named after the Russian C-75 'Volkhov' missle defence system
The bunker is concealed in woodlands near Pripyat and is difficult to reach, even using vehicles. Radiation levels around the bunker are high, according to other explorers who have visited it
'Dax War' (pictured) said the experience of visiting Pripyat was 'eerie', adding that he kept expecting to encounter cars and people as you would in any other busy city, but instead found only abandoned buildings
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