Chernobyl In Winter, Pripyat, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine

Since the 1880s, Chernobyl has seen many changes of fortune. In 1898 Chernobyl had a population of 10,800, including 7,200 Jews. In World War I the village was occupied, and in the ensuing Civil War, Chernobyl was fought over by Bolsheviks and Ukrainians. In the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20, it was taken first by the Polish Army and then by cavalry of the Red Army. From 1921, it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR.
During the period 1929–33, Chernobyl suffered greatly from mass killings during Stalin's collectivization campaign, and in the Holodomor (famine) that followed. The Polish community of Chernobyl was deported to Kazakhstan in 1936 during the Frontier Clearances. The Jewish community was murdered during the German occupation of 1941–44. Twenty years later, the area was chosen as the site of the first nuclear power station on Ukrainian soil.
The Duga-3 over-the-horizon radar array several miles out of Chernobyl was the origin of the infamous Russian Woodpecker, designed as part of Russia's anti-ballistic missile early warning radar network.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chernobyl remained part of Ukraine, now an independent nation.