Slavutych's construction began in 1986, immediately after the Chornobyl disaster, to provide a new home for citizens of the devastated city of Prypjat and for workers that were still supposed to continue running the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and other tasks in the irradiated Exclusion Zone. The main buildings were completed already until 1988.
8 Soviet republics provided workforce, construction equipment, and all building material for the 10 quarters of what was to become the "last ideal city of the Soviet Union". The town was intended to be the architectural, social and ecological pinnacle of Soviet urbanism, and a center for nuclear research and technology - an atomograd.
Although the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant closed down in 2000, still hundreds of workers every day take the trains that run between Slavutych and the CNPP, thereby crossing the territory of nearby Belarus.