Pripyat Police and Fire Station

Like any other city, Pripyat also had its own police force and fire brigade. The two buildings are found in the southwest part of the city. Both the police and the fire brigade were paramilitary organizations during Soviet times.

The city police station was a new building; it was inaugurated in early 1985. The police station consists of a duty station, administration offices, detention cells, and a prison. There were also two rooms for interrogations. In the basement, there used to be a shooting range; officers had obligatory training every Thursday.

Even though Pripyat was a model city, it did have some crime, but the rate was pretty low. Drunkenness, a bar fight, or a traffic accident were the most common crimes in Pripyat in the 1980s. Most of the prisoners used to be from nearby cities. They could wait for their trial in the Pripyat prison. The nearest courthouse was located in Kyiv, 100 km away.

The SVPCh-6 fire station is located on Zavodskaya Street. The site has a garage with four doors, a residential building for firemen on duty, and an observation tower. The brigade had about 40 firefighters, two fire engines, and a ladder truck. The station commander was Vasiliy Ivanovich Ignatenko.

On the night of the accident, two police officers of the Pripyat station were guarding the territory of the Chernobyl Power Plant. As a result, they became witnesses of the disaster. They both died in Moscow two weeks later.

The local fire brigade had a main role in fighting the accident. The Pripyat SVPCh-6 station and the VPCh-2 station of the power plant were the first to arrive. Both forces were fighting the fire of Reactor No. 4. Already after 20 minutes the firefighters were exhausted and started vomiting. Almost all firemen got very high, fatal radiation doses. Six died within a few weeks in the 6th Moscow Special Hospital from radiation burns and acute radiation sickness.

The following weeks, the police officers didn’t leave their posts. They were reporting the situation to Moscow and helping with the evacuation. After this, many of them were hospitalized and spent months in a Kyiv hospital.

Even long after the evacuation of Pripyat, the police station stayed in service. Until 1997 the police protected the city against looters. Most buildings had an electronic alarm that was connected to the police station. After 1997 everyone left the city; even the scientists were gone, and the city was sealed off and secured by the army. Today, the nearest police station is in Chernobyl.