Paryshiv Village

Paryshiv is a small village near Chernobyl that got abandoned after the disaster with the nuclear plant. The abandoned village is situated on the left bank of the river Pripyat, 7 km from the district center and 20 km from the railway station, Yaniv.

It’s not clear when this village was established. But in 1887 the village was inhabited by 670 people. In the year 1900 the village had more than 159 houses and 924 inhabitants. There was a chapel, a school, a hospital and also two windmills. According to the archaeological excavations that were carried out in the vicinity of the village, the remains of settlements from both the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Also, two Slavic settlements were found.

In the year of the disaster Paryshiv housed more than 1050 people. Eventually, the people were evacuated on May 3, 1986, a week after the disaster. The village, which was one of the cleanest in the exclusion zone, was almost completely rebuild outside the Exclusion Zone. The reason for this was the distance to the other ‘clean areas’ in the district. The village was officially removed from the register in 1999.

However, some residents of ‘self-settlers’ are living in the village again. In fact, about seven families as of 2006. People today make ends meet with gardening, livestock, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms. There is also an active station for firefighters during the summer, because of the high risk of forest fires.