Ukrainian National Chornobyl Museum, National museum in Podil district, Kyiv, Ukraine.
The Ukrainian National Chornobyl Museum is housed in a former fire station in Kyiv and documents the impact of the 1986 nuclear accident. The collection contains over six thousand objects, including photographs, technical equipment, and authentic artifacts recovered from the disaster site.
The museum opened on 26 April 1992, the sixth anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, in the building of the Podil fire depot. In the 1980s this building and its neighbour housed the Kyiv regional fire protection administration, which took the main burden of fighting the fire at the Chernobyl plant. The State Fire Protection Guard donated the premises. On 24 May 2026 a Russian missile and drone attack almost completely destroyed the museum, one month after it had reopened following modernisation.
The exhibition features the memory book Kniga Pamjati with thousands of entries about people who worked to contain the disaster. Visitors can read the names and stories of those whose efforts made a difference in the aftermath.
The museum stood at 1 Khoryva Lane in Podil, a short walk from Kontraktova Ploshcha metro station, where trams, buses and marshrutkas converged. Parking near the building was very limited. It was destroyed by a Russian missile on 24 May 2026, so check the site's current status before planning a visit.
The main staircase displays cards bearing the names of 76 towns that were abandoned after the disaster. The ceiling features a world map showing nuclear power plants across the globe.
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