Before filming, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater recorded inside the plant’s reactor hall and turbine hall, using the building as an instrument for the score.
ReadingsVisitors in plant whites and helmets at Ignalina, June 2010. IAEA Imagebank · CC BY-SA 2.0
The plant’s short expedition runs on Thursdays at 10am for about four hours, through the turbine hall, the spent fuel pool and the reactor control room, in white worker’s clothes.
Shift log · the reading
It only clicks for the truth.
Eight statements about where Chernobyl was made. Hold the dosimeter to each one. True ones register; the rest read nothing.
DOSIMETER · TRUE READINGS
00/04
Silent. Test a statement: it ticks only if it is true. 4 of the 8 are.
Fabijoniškės from the air at sunset, November 2023. Augustas Didžgalvis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Fabijoniškės, Vilnius · 2023
Pripyat was a Vilnius estate.
Showing Fabijoniškės, the estate that played Pripyat.
Fabijoniškės
The Fabijoniškės district stood in for Pripyat. Its apartment blocks went up around the late 1980s, the period of the real catastrophe; the location manager Jonas Špokas called it a symmetrical district of concrete and greyness that reflected the idea of an idealised Soviet city of the future. The crew wanted a young town, without mature trees around the blocks.
A lived-in estate in the north of Vilnius: walk S. Stanevičiaus Street, keep to the pavements and leave the stairwells to the people who live there.
Readings
Fabijoniškės at street level, June 2018. Sachol · CC BY-SA 4.0Justiniškės from the air, November 2023. Augustas Didžgalvis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Justiniškės, another Soviet-era neighbourhood, was also used as a location.
Readings
FeelZCity
HBO Chernobyl filming sites in Vilnius
Vilnius · hotel pickup 10am · From €69
Two and a half hours by private transport from your hotel: Fabijoniškės, the Pripyat hotel and its restaurant, then the former KGB headquarters, ending with your own visit to the museum (ticket included). In English, up to 20 people.
The bridge of death carries water pipes over a railway in Kaunas.
The pipe overpass in Petrašiūnai, Kaunas, with a train beneath, September 2022. Vilensija · CC BY-SA 3.0
The bridge is still there, by the railway at Petrašiūnai.
The so-called bridge of death, where Pripyat’s residents watched the fire, was played by an overpass in Kaunas that carries water pipes over the railway near Petrašiūnai Cemetery.
The filmmakers’ location scoring gave it ten out of ten; university scientists calculated its load, the artificial ash came from a German company, and two large locomotives stood on the tracks. Filming in Kaunas took place in April, May and July 2018.
Brown road signs point to it. Look from the path; it carries water pipes over a working railway, so stay off the line.
Readings
The brown sign to the “Chernobyl” film bridge, Petrašiūnai, 2022. Vilensija · CC BY-SA 3.0The steps up to the overpass, 2022. Vilensija · CC BY-SA 3.0
Daugirdas hotel
Daugirdas
T. Daugirdo g. 4, Kaunas · Night for two from €111 · with tasting menu from €171
A four-star hotel in a renovated building with 16th-century walls, 50 metres from Kaunas town hall: the base for the bridge at Petrašiūnai. Not a filming location. Pictured: the sign to the bridge.
The prison corridor in the museum basement, April 2019. Dirgela · CC BY 4.0
Vilnius and Kaunas as Moscow
Some rooms played themselves.
01 · The cells
The former KGB headquarters on Gediminas Avenue, now the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, 2021. Pofka · CC BY-SA 4.0
Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights
Aukų g. 2A, Vilnius
The interrogation scenes were shot in the former KGB headquarters in downtown Vilnius, now a museum. The building still has its KGB cells and torture chambers, and the original furniture from where prisoners were held was used in the filming. It opens Wednesday to Saturday 10am–6pm and Sunday 10am–5pm; tickets are €6, or €3 for students, pensioners and disabled visitors.
Wednesday to Saturday 10am–6pm, Sunday 10am–5pm; closed Monday, Tuesday and national holidays. €6, €3 concessions; free with the Vilnius Pass.
Readings
02 · The trial
The Faculty of Architecture, Vilnius Tech, 2013. Хомелка · CC BY-SA 3.0
Vilnius Tech Faculty of Architecture
Pylimo g. 26, Vilnius
The faculty’s Soviet-era halls were the backdrop for the trial; witnesses recall the real trial being held in a hurry in a school hall. The 18th-century building was once the Tiškevičius Palace, became a college after the Second World War and is now part of the university.
A working university building: see the atlantes at the door from Pylimo Street.
Readings
03 · Hospital No. 6
Kęstučio Street, Kaunas: the street, not the building used for Hospital No. 6, which has no published address. mikrimas · CC BY 3.0No address published: the street only
Hospital No. 6 (a former university building, Kaunas)
Kęstučio g., Kaunas
Empty rooms in a former Kaunas University of Technology building on Kęstučio Street became Moscow’s Hospital No. 6; Kaunas played Moscow.
Named, not pinned: no house number has been published, and it is not open to visitors.
Readings
04 · Legasov’s flat
Laisvės alėja in central Kaunas, the kind of street the flat is on; the flat itself is a private home and is not shown. Vilensija · CC BY-SA 3.0Private: the street, not the flat
Legasov’s flat
A private flat in Kaunas
A historical art-deco flat in Kaunas played the home of Valery Legasov.
Someone’s home. Named, never pinned.
Readings
The former KGB headquarters on Gediminas Avenue, now the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, 2021. Pofka · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hotel Pacai
Hotel Pacai
Didžioji g. 7, Vilnius
A five-star hotel in a mansion established in 1677 on Didžioji Street in the Old Town, a walk from the KGB museum and the Faculty of Architecture. Not a filming location. Pictured: the museum.
The destroyed reactor at Unit 4, photographed from a helicopter some months after April 1986. IAEA Imagebank · CC BY-SA 2.0
1986 · then
The shell of Unit 4 before any cover was built over it. Two workers died in the explosions; twenty-eight people died of acute radiation syndrome by the end of that July.
Readings
The New Safe Confinement at Chernobyl, August 2016. Cls14 · CC BY-SA 4.0
The accident early on 26 April 1986 destroyed reactor 4 of the RBMK-1000 plant; a concrete casing was built around it over the next seven months. The New Safe Confinement, a 36,000-tonne arch, was pushed 327 metres over the reactor building in November 2016 and completed in 2017.
A drone struck the arch on 14 February 2025; the IAEA found it had lost its primary safety functions, including confinement, and full restoration waits for the end of the conflict.
No tours. Tourism to the area halted after the Russian invasion in February 2022.
The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to most of Ukraine, and against all but essential travel to some western areas.
If you see a trip to the zone for sale, do not book it. See the places on this page in Lithuania instead.
Readings on travel
Personnel
As themselves.
№ 01
Jared Harris, who played Legasov, December 2014. Ibsan73 · CC BY 2.0
Jared Harris
Valery Legasov
№ 02
Stellan Skarsgård, who played Shcherbina, at the Berlinale, February 2017. Elena Ringo · CC BY 4.0
Stellan Skarsgård
Boris Shcherbina
№ 03
Emily Watson, who played Khomyuk, at the San Sebastián festival, 2016. Bruno Chatelin from paris · CC BY-SA 4.0
Emily Watson
Ulana Khomyuk
№ 04
Craig Mazin, South by Southwest, 2025. Bea Phi · CC BY-SA 4.0
Craig Mazin
Creator and writer
№ 05
Johan Renck, Berlinale, 2024. Elena Ternovaja · CC BY-SA 3.0
Johan Renck
Director
Five episodes, from “1:23:45” to “Vichnaya Pamyat”. Ten Emmys from nineteen nominations, one of them for Johan Renck’s direction. Sixty of the eighty-eight shooting days were in Vilnius.
Readings on the series
Vichnaya pamyat
Eternal memory: the title of the last episode.
Two workers died in the explosions. Twenty-eight people, six of them firemen, died of acute radiation syndrome by the end of July 1986. Pripyat’s 45,000 residents were evacuated on 27 April.
Readings
Where it is now
6 places you can visit in three Lithuanian cities. Legasov’s flat is someone’s home and the hospital has no published address, so neither is pinned; the plant is open only on its own expeditions. The places in Ukraine are not on this map.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A lived-in estate in the north of Vilnius: walk S. Stanevičiaus Street, keep to the pavements and leave the stairwells to the people who live there.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A residential estate west of Fabijoniškės: see it from the street.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Wednesday to Saturday 10am–6pm, Sunday 10am–5pm; closed Monday, Tuesday and national holidays. €6, €3 concessions; free with the Vilnius Pass.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working university building: see the atlantes at the door from Pylimo Street.
1Fabijoniškės from the air at sunset, November 2023. Augustas Didžgalvis · CC BY-SA 4.0
S. Stanevičiaus g., Vilnius
Fabijoniškės
The Fabijoniškės district stood in for Pripyat.
A lived-in estate in the north of Vilnius: walk S. Stanevičiaus Street, keep to the pavements and leave the stairwells to the people who live there.
Readings
2Justiniškės from the air, November 2023. Augustas Didžgalvis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Justiniškių g., Vilnius
Justiniškės
Justiniškės, another Soviet-era neighbourhood, was also used as a location.
A residential estate west of Fabijoniškės: see it from the street.
Readings
3The former KGB headquarters on Gediminas Avenue, now the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, 2021. Pofka · CC BY-SA 4.0
Aukų g. 2A, Vilnius
Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights
The interrogation scenes were shot in the former KGB headquarters in downtown Vilnius, now a museum.
Wednesday to Saturday 10am–6pm, Sunday 10am–5pm; closed Monday, Tuesday and national holidays. €6, €3 concessions; free with the Vilnius Pass.
Readings
4The Faculty of Architecture, Vilnius Tech, 2013. Хомелка · CC BY-SA 3.0
Pylimo g. 26, Vilnius
Vilnius Tech Faculty of Architecture
The faculty’s Soviet-era halls were the backdrop for the trial; witnesses recall the real trial being held in a hurry in a school hall.
A working university building: see the atlantes at the door from Pylimo Street.
Readings
Stay
Two cities, two nights.
An Old Town mansion in Vilnius and a hotel by the town hall in Kaunas. Neither is a filming location.
Hotel Pacai
Hotel Pacai
Didžioji g. 7, Vilnius
A five-star hotel in a mansion established in 1677 on Didžioji Street in the Old Town, a walk from the KGB museum and the Faculty of Architecture. Not a filming location. Pictured: the museum.
T. Daugirdo g. 4, Kaunas · Night for two from €111 · with tasting menu from €171
A four-star hotel in a renovated building with 16th-century walls, 50 metres from Kaunas town hall: the base for the bridge at Petrašiūnai. Not a filming location. Pictured: the sign to the bridge.
A small-group tour of the Vilnius locations, or compare the marketplace. Nothing here goes to Ukraine.
FeelZCity
HBO Chernobyl filming sites in Vilnius
Vilnius · hotel pickup 10am · From €69
Two and a half hours by private transport from your hotel: Fabijoniškės, the Pripyat hotel and its restaurant, then the former KGB headquarters, ending with your own visit to the museum (ticket included). In English, up to 20 people.
Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
The shift log
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
10 of 10 places · 12 of 12 Moments
Fabijoniškės
S. Stanevičiaus g., Vilnius
Pripyat’s streets
Fabijoniškės plays Pripyat.
Justiniškės
Justiniškių g., Vilnius
A second estate
Justiniškės is used as a location.
Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights
Aukų g. 2A, Vilnius
The interrogations
The interrogation scenes are shot in the former KGB headquarters, using the original prison furniture.
Vilnius Tech Faculty of Architecture
Pylimo g. 26, Vilnius
The trial
The faculty’s halls are the backdrop for the trial.
The pipe bridge at Petrašiūnai
Petrašiūnai, Kaunas
The bridge of death
A pipe overpass in Kaunas plays the bridge where Pripyat’s residents watched the fire, under artificial ash.
Hospital No. 6 (a former university building, Kaunas)
Kęstučio g., Kaunas
Hospital No. 6
A former university building in Kaunas plays the Moscow hospital.
Legasov’s flat
A private flat in Kaunas
Legasov at home
An art-deco flat in Kaunas plays Legasov’s home.
Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant
Elektrinės g. 4, Drūkšiniai, Visaginas
The plant
Ignalina, the same prototype, plays the Chernobyl plant.
The score
The composer records the plant’s halls for the score.
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Kyiv region, Ukraine
AZ-5
Leonid Toptunov presses the AZ-5 scram button; the control rods stop dead, not even halfway down.
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