Limansk

Limansk (Ru. Лиманск) is an abandoned town located within the confines of the Chernobyl Zone, featured in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.

Overview

A secret research city, Limansk is an empty place, abandoned by its former inhabitants. The derelict buildings and vehicles that litter the city witness only the occasional bandits or Monolith patrols passing through. After the formation of the Zone, it became an even more unwelcoming place, as anomalies filled the city and its surroundings, cutting it off from the world. Only the Monolith and the Bandits found their way into the city.

When the massive blowout came in September 2011, the anomalies disappeared and stalkers poured into the city, looking for an easy way past the Brain Scorcher while clashing with Bandits and the Monolith. The Limansk war zone is a mandatory element of the player's progress towards the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and a point of no return in the game.

It lies to the north of the Dead City.

Layout

Limansk is largely based on 1950s era Kiev architecture. The city is depicted as a rather densely built-up settlement, with a hilly terrain. Most of the city is made up of various low-rise stucco buildings and houses, along with public gardens and playgrounds. In contrast with most of the locations that one can explore in the game, Limansk is a largely linear level. Most of the city is comprised of narrow streets and alleyways, with several accessible buildings.

A small river flows through the city, with various bridges in several states of decay crossing over it. The river is lethally radioactive, similarly to the one that runs through the Red Forest.

Background

Prior to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Limansk was home to a mysterious research institute known simply as "Radiowave", with many of the town's houses being built to accomodate the researchers and their families^{[quote. 1]}. Perhaps the city's most notable landmark is its large antenna array, built by the Radiowave Institute personnel. Though the Institute's research and the purpose of the antennas were officially secret, it is speculated that the scientists' work focused on mind control, as suggested by the hostility and strange behavior of Limansk's residents, but also the headaches people foreign to the city would experience when going there^{[quote. 2]}.

Unlike Pripyat and many other surrounding areas, Limansk was not evacuated in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, perhaps as a result of an administrative mishap, or due to the authorities' desire to keep the town and its existence a secret to everyone^{[quote. 3]}. The fate of the city's residents is unclear; all it is known is that the city has been completely abandoned by its residents some time before 2011.

For most of its recent history, Limansk was forgotten by everyone, especially after the emergence of the Zone in 2006, as the Red Forest and its large number of anomalies kept curious stalkers away from the abandoned city. However, the Second Emission that marks the beginning of Clear Sky opened many new routes through the Forest, allowing stalkers to rediscover the lost city^{[quote. 4]}. When it became clear that Limansk provided stalkers with an alternative route to the center of the Zone which allowed them to bypass the Brain Scorcher, it did not take long for stalkers to begin fighting over the area^{[quote. 5]}. Duty and Freedom were noticeably involved in a large-scale firefight in Limansk^{[quote. 6]}, which resulted in both involved parties being wiped out in the ensuing skirmish.

By the events of Clear Sky, Limansk serves as a stronghold for the Monolith faction, and numerous factions of the Zone are involved in fighting inside the city. It would appear that no faction managed to make a deep push into the city before the events of the game, most likely due to the heavy Monolith presence, with the exception of a single military squad.

Appearances

Clear Sky

Limansk appears as one of the final stages of the game and essentially functions as the game's point of no-return in the storyline, as the player will be permanently locked out of the rest of the Zone once they enter the city.

After Scar fails to apprehend Strelok in the Red Forest, Lebedev suggests cutting through Limansk as it is the fastest route to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, now that Strelok has blown up the tunnel leading to the Brain Scorcher. However the city's sole access point is from a raised drawbridge separated from the Red Forest by an extremely irradiated river. Lebedev suggests Scar to talk to Forester, a resident of the Red Forest, who might know a way through. Forester points Scar towards Leshiy and his team, a group of Mercenaries who found themselves trapped into a Space Anomaly while trying to make their way inside Limansk.

With the help of a Mercenary named Hog and his Freedom associate Kostyan, Scar uses the rare Compass artifact to guide Leshiy and his men out of the anomaly, who find themselves back at the drawbridge. The men attempt to lower it, though they are quickly pinned down by Renegades, who are eliminated by Scar and Clear Sky. With the drawbridge finally lowered, Clear Sky and Scar can finally make their way through the city.

Scar and Clear Sky fight their way through the ruins of Limansk, surviving numerous ambushes from Bandits, the Military and the Monolith. After ultimately defeating the final Monolith guards at the city's northern limit, Clear Sky and Scar enter the Deserted hospital, which leads directly to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Call of Pripyat

Although the city doesn't appear in the game proper, it is mentioned in Lieutenant Sokolov's good ending slide, suggesting the Mercenaries have established full control over the city by the events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat^{[quote. 7]}. In addition, an image of Limansk's antennas can also be seen in the ending slides.

Locations

• Yard
• House on fork in road
• Backyard with terrace
• Barricade at dead end
• House on hill
• Hideout near bridge
• Camp on construction site
• Road to fire station

Development

	This article or section is based on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky cut content and may contain inaccurate information or speculation.

In the design documents for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Anarchy Cell (Clear Sky's early development name), Limansk was officially known as Limansk-13. The city was home to workers and scientists working at the nearby Chernobyl NPP. It is also stated that the city was inhabited up until the 2006 disaster that marks the formation of the Zone, with the residents suddenly disappearing "as they were burned by something – their shadows, dark silhouettes left on the walls of buildings".

Unlike other levels of the game, the level itself did not experience significant changes between the builds and the final version of the game. In earlier versions of the story, Limansk would lead the player to the Pripyat underground, though in later revisions, the underground also included what would later become the Deserted hospital in the final release of the game.

	End of information based on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky cut content.

Gallery

Limansk

Overview

Stalkers from Freedom and Duty lie dead in the city's square.

A playground in Limansk.

The radar in Limansk

The Construction site with the Monolith troops rooted out.

Concept art

Concept art

Concept art

Concept art

The room before the teleporter.

The door of the room housing the teleporter.

The teleporter.

Another view of Duga-3 Radar

Front view of the Duga

Duga from the inside

Bottom view of the Duga

Top view of the Duga

Trivia

• The real life counterpart of the Limansk is actually a Soviet-era military base called Chernobyl-2 hidden in the Red Forest, which had a civilian residential area for the families of the soldiers working there. The reason why the designers didn't use Chernobyl-2 as a name is unknown, although it's obvious they used the real Duga-1 receiver, part of the larger Duga-1 radar array, as a concept.
• The radar is in the middle of the city, even though in real life the Duga-1 receiver is in the middle of a forest.
• Originally, in Shadow of Chernobyl, there existed a map called Dead City, which was believed to be Limansk, until GSC said that Limansk is not a resurrection of Dead City; one thing to prove this is that the Western-merc outpost in Military Warehouse was the entrance to Dead City since along the road there's a street sign in Russian, pointing there, and saying "Dead City" in Cyrillic. The PDA map in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky also has both Dead City and Limansk on it, proving that they're two different locations.

References