PRYPYAT MON AMOUR The photography book Prypyat mon Amour, meaning Prypyat my love, is a collection of memories of a place that once held life, joy, and laugher, and where now only the shadows of these memories still live on. The photo series portrays a group of people who, like Rudya, were evacuated from the city of Prypyat after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Rudya portrays them in their old homes, workplaces, the places they used to go to enjoy a sunny afternoon, the places where they were once happy. The book also includes interviews and an essay reflecting on this journey of remembering after forced displacement. For Rudya, it was important to focus on the impact on life and the celebration of memories instead of showcasing a ghost town. She speaks of the message behind the project, “I didn’t want to show another picture of an abandoned city. Many photographers showed that side of the story. By looking at the pictures of the abandoned buildings, we see ‘absence of people,’ thus forgetting about thousands of those who left and are now still living a seemingly normal life, but at the same time, their lives will never be absolutely normal, because they were all more or less, directly or indirectly, marked by this disaster. I wanted to show the emotions of these people, triggered by coming back to the town of their youth. “Prypyat is a town of my youth. And how can one forget his youth?” - says Viktor, a former nuclear physicist and a current painter.” This project was particularly intense for the Ukrainian photographer, as it brought back a mix of memories and feelings regarding her past and the loss of her father. She opens up about how significant this project was for her own closure: “I was evacuated from Chernobyl as a kid, and my father worked at the station on the night of the Chernobyl disaster. It was a personal project for me, something I needed to do to close that chapter of my life. My father passed away when I was 21 from the consequences of the radiation exposure, which influenced me a lot and made me rethink this horrible part of my life, which I don’t even remember but which completely changed my destiny, and the destiny of hundreds of thousands of people.” For Rudya, this project was a big undertaking and proved emotionally harder than what the photographer thought at first. Being back in a place that had such an impact in her life and the life of others was difficult and nostalgic. She reflects on some realizations from working with this group of people, “It was harder emotionally than I thought. It took me a while to work on each interview because every time I was reading the words of these people, mentally, I was going back, seeing these empty apartments, fragile remains of the past, thinking of all the beautiful moments they’ve had in the town and its surroundings. The whole project made me realize how beautiful and unique the city was, how young all the people were, and that the most beautiful and meaningful memories of their youth are connected to that place. They don’t have a place they can go back to commemorate their wedding anniversary other than a ruin in an abandoned city. They cannot visit their old school because it collapsed, they cannot be nostalgic without being tremendously sad for all the things which happened to them and even more for those which didn’t happen because their lives were interrupted by the disaster.” A beautiful testament to life, resilience, and memories, Prypyat mon Amour is a photo book that promises to leave no one indifferent, and reminds us of our fragile life is, and the importance of cherishing every ordinary moment of our lives.
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