It kicked off at Pripyat’s post office – to tell you a secret, mail from the zone is part of the foundation of our documentary. Just as all other doors in the ghost town, the one of the post office was open for our crew.

Post office after artillery shelling.

Pay phone box – its interior probably taken by some scavenger.

Rubble everywhere – a view one expects from a long-neglected building.

Denis explained that due to lack of tourist interest, Pripyat’s post office is one of the few buildings here, where everything has been left untouched since the catastrophe. Though I’m not sure that such a mess – hundreds of undelivered letters and post notices lying on the floor – is something a typical Soviet post office worker would have left behind.

A postcard.

Hundreds of undelivered letters left to fade.

As my crew was setting up for the scene, I took my time to browse through this stockpile. Two findings struck me the most – a handbook on how to provide first aid to the injured in an accident related to energy equipment…

A handbook on providing first aid to the injured in an accident related to energy equipment.

…and dozens of “Happy Victory Day” postcards.

Residents were preparing to celebrate Victory Day.

A Victory Day postcard.

A Victory Day postcard.

The two may be completely different in nature, but they do have one thing in common – both proved to be useless eventually. Pripyat didn’t live to use the handbook nor celebrate the May 9 holiday.

Did this mask help save someone's life?

Technically, this location was much more difficult than what we had filmed before – simply because of the lighting equipment we had to set up. It was only natural window light inside the office, so we had to bring in our hardware.

Shooting in this location was particularly difficult.

Our next location for the day was the one which made me feel uneasy for the first time in many years of my trips to the zone – Pripyat’s hospital, the place which received firefighters and nuclear power plant workers, burnt by the radiation from the Chernobyl explosion.

Inside Pripyat hospital.

Pripyat hospital received injured firefighters and engineers.

I have no idea whether the gynecological chair was thrown out of the window, or it was put there deliberately by a creative photographer… but the sight gave me the creeps.

How this chair ended up here remains a mystery.

As we filmed our scene, my mind pictured everything which was happening here 25 years ago – panic, screams and suffering. I remembered an interview with the head doctor of this clinic three years ago. He told me in detail everything about that night, when the life of Pripyat was ended.

Calendar pages rendered useless by the disaster.

On the 3rd day – for the first time since I’ve been to the zone – I was surprised to notice that Pripyat was silent. No typical banging doors or creaking floorboards. It was completely listless – as if it died again.

To be continued…

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.