From Unit 3, 1997 repairs. But what is happening here and what is К-54?
First photo is also in Chornobyl Family's video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZKw2H6d1SU at 15:22. (Quite epic, yes!)
part of the Dosimetry Control area.
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Image sources:
(1) Чорнобильська Атомна [short film]. Kyivnaukfilm, 1982.
(2) Чернобыльская Атомная Электростанция [advertising booklet]. Slavutych, 2000.
(3) Carl Willis. Inside Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant 2011, Part III: Dosimetry Control Room [website]. 2011.
More irony from a couple of months before the Chernobyl accident, from an article by Valeri Legasov, Lev Feoktistov and Igor Kuzmin in the February 1986 issue of Soviet Life magazine.
From an article about Pripyat in the February 1986 issue of Soviet Life magazine, titled "A Town Born of the Atom." The historical irony in some of the quotes is rather astounding. (More excerpts from the article in my comments below.)
The image is an invitation for a New Years celebration held on December 29, 1985, at the restaurant "Pripyat". I believe this is a restaurant that was located in Chornobyl city (second photo), near where the Third Angel monument and Star of Wormwood memorial are located. The restaurant was on the second floor with a shop below. The celebration took place four months before the accident.
I'm not certain the one in the photo is the correct restaurant, but I'm not aware of any others with the same name - the famous one in Pripyat with the stained glass is "Cafe Pripyat", not "Restoran Pripyat".
The invitation card, if Google Translate can be trusted, says: "The New Year tree is all aglow, the celebration gathers friends around. Happy New Year, friends - wishing you new happiness! Hurry and join the festivities! We invite you to the New Year’s Celebration to be held on December 29, 1985, at the Pripyat Restaurant starting at 6:00 PM. Your table is #21. Invitation for 1 person."
I would like to know if anyone here is familiar with or recommends this book which recently came out in English?
The Rules Were Clear: An Annotated Translation of the Chernobyl RBMK-1000 Operating Procedures as They Existed on April 26, 1986 by Andriy Oreshyn
Description: "On the night of April 25–26, 1986, the operators at Chernobyl Unit 4 were not improvising. They were following procedures. That is what makes this book necessary. The Rules Were Clear presents the first English-language annotated translation of the RBMK-1000 reactor operating procedures and safety test protocols as they existed on the night of the disaster — not reconstructed from memory, not filtered through subsequent investigation, but drawn from the original Soviet technical documentation. Each section is paired with technical commentary explaining what the procedure required, what the operators understood it to require, and where that gap proved fatal. The annotations are written by a nuclear professional who began his career at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1987 — one year after the accident — working within the corrective system that followed."