Chernobyl was a port town, a Jewish center.

From Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith.  Page 224.

"My father was here," Yakov said.

"Oh?" Arkady stopped.

Yakov felt in his shirt pocket and lit half of a cigarette he had saved. He spoke in an offhand way, as if a detail had come to mind. "Chernobyl was a port town, a Jewish center. When the Reds were taking over Russia, the Ukraine was independent. So what did they do? The Ukrainians put all the Jews in Chernobyl into boats and sank them, drowned them and machine-gunned anyone who tried to swim for shore."