Combine Cemetery

The history of Combine Cemetery.

The left bank of the Pripyat River is the least studied and wildest part of the Zone. On one side, it is blocked by the river’s powerful current; on the other, the state border and many kilometers of another Zone belonging to the Republic of Belarus. Basically, this is a huge number of reservoirs, streams, and forests, among which are abandoned villages that have been lost. There is a wooden church here.

The grain-cleaning facility in the village of Zimovishche gained extraordinary popularity thanks to the game “S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl”. One of the most dangerous monsters in the game lives here. And the greatest interest for a real-life visitor is the vehicle station with trucks and agricultural equipment, in particular, the shell of a “Niva” combine. This self-propelled combine harvester has been produced at the Rostselmash factory since 1970. It had a processing capacity of 5 kg (11 lbs) of grain per second. It was the most common combine in the USSR, and became a kind of calling card of Soviet agricultural machinery. Any TV program or newspaper article about the “battle for the harvest” was illustrated with the image of 3 or 4 “Niva” combines, feeding a continuous stream of wheat into the truck’s body, sparkling in the sun.

This article was published in the book Interesting Chernobyl.
You could download this book in PDF file for free here.

© Sky Horse Publishing House (Kyiv) / Nahs Haus, 2019
Copying and publication of this article is possible only with the written permission of the publishing house.
Official website of the Awesome Heritage series: awesomeheritage.com

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