The Energetik (Энергетик — "Power Worker") was the social heart of Pripyat: a long modernist slab on the main square with a 1,500-seat cinema, a theatre, sports halls, and rooms for chess clubs, dance classes, and Komsomol meetings. The interior is still recognisable forty years on. Murals of athletes and cosmonauts cover the upper foyer; a piano with rotted strings sits at the back of the stage; the swimming-pool diving boards are folded down for the night.
Most guides walk you through the main lobby and the cinema, then up to the auditorium balcony. The roof is no longer safe and is off-limits. The square in front, Lenin Square, faced the now-vanished statue of the man himself; the empty plinth is a routine photograph.