A doll lies quietly by the wall of a house in Chernobyl, Ukraine, as if silently telling the unforgettable history.
On April 26, 1986, a nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat in the Soviet Union, and the explosion of Reactor No. 4 triggered the worst nuclear accident in history. The day after the accident, evacuations began in the city of Pripyat and some 40 neighbouring villages.
Photographer Olga Dovgopol was only 5 years old that year. The picture shows Olga Dovgopol and her parents near a wooden house in Chernobyl.
Olga Dovgopol celebrates the New Year at kindergarten. After the accident at Chernobyl, Olga Dovgopol left Chernobyl and left the city of Pripyat.
After the accident, Olga Dovgopol often dreamed of Chernobyl, where he grew up. My family objected to him going back because in the first few days after the accident, all the locals received large doses of radiation. However, in 2015 he finally went to Chernobyl, 12 more times.
During these trips, he took more than 2,000 photographs, many of which were dolls from Chernobyl. These were taken in the kindergarten where the photographer and his brother were young. The photographs were not posed, they were taken as they were: some lying in the garbage heap, some sitting beautifully. It won't be long before they become nothing, just like the city itself.
What no one expected was that a few years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the Soviet Empire collapsed. These dolls lie quietly on the ground, wordlessly telling the history that cannot be looked back.