CHERNOBYL BUT WE COULD BARELY WATCH IT... | 1x3 | 1x4 |

Episode 3 & 4
Valery Legasov lays out a detailed decontamination plan that risks many human lives. He and Boris Shcherbina contemplate whether to detect radioactive debris with lunar rovers; Ulana Khomyuk experiences pushback from the government while trying to discover the source of the explosion.
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[@ryanhampson673]

So to answer the question about people from different countries...The Soviet Union wasn't Just Russia. It was Russia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.

[@aumelb]

Latvia and Lithuania, too. :)

[@janeathome6643]

The people who are working there are like soldiers in a war. It has to be done, and millions of lives are on the line, and luckily there are lots of heroes in history who have sacrificed their own lives for the greater good. The heroism of what it took to "fix" this is probably the biggest take away of the whole story. Luckily for all of us, there were far more heroes than cowards.

[@TheMightyOdin]

I’ve worked with x-ray equipment and had to wear a dosimeter all the time while I was at work. 99.9% of the time my dosimeter read zero after an 8 hour shift. If it didn’t read zero it read the tiniest amount (less than you would get from the sun or a granite counter top) If you were pregnant you weren’t allowed to be at work. You can’t see radiation, smell it, feel it, nothing…. You could get blasted with enough radiation that you die within an hour and you wouldn’t even know it. What protected us from the radiation? The machine had a 5mm lead casing. That was it… this skinny layer of lead. I was never comfortable doing that job.

[@superkoopatrooper4879]

Very true, its like wi-fi except instead of 2.5ghz-5ghz. Its 30Ehz or about a billion Ghz. The difference between a flashlight and the death star.

[@Nobli82]

As a med student I witnessed medical interventions that needed x-ray imaging during the operation. All of us in the operating room were wearing special coats made of lead. They weighed around 15-20 kilograms. We even had a lead collar for our thyroids.

[@Big_Bag_of_Pus]

"These are the people they're hiring to work at Chernobyl?" Hiring? No. Conscripting.

[@andyb1653]

You didn't get "hired" in the USSR. You got told what to do.

[@timlois]

Chernobyl is not really safe to visit. Certain areas are, and others are not. When Russia invaded Ukraine (where Chernobyl is now) in 2022, troops dug trenches in the soil around the plant and tried to occupy the land. They all got sick and had to retreat the area.

[@elric5371]

False.

[@EverHeartK98]

@@elric5371 Do you care to elaborate? I hate when someone posts something and someone like you simply replies with one word. Why is it false?

[@elric5371]

@@EverHeartK98 Chernobyl is perfectly safe to visit, but that depends on your definition of ‘safe’ I would personally define it as this, 16 rem increases your chance of cancer by 1%. 1 rem is the equivalent of 100 chest x rays, you can safely visit Chernobyl and receive less than 1 rem.

[@matteoscarabelli854]

@@EverHeartK98 As for the occupying troops, even though they were exposed to higher risks and higher doses than a visiting civilian, they didn't suffer immediate effects such as ARS (rad burns, vomiting, etc.). That said, all health authorities *did* say that they should be made to retreat as soon as possible to avoid highly increased risks of cancer, aplastic anemia, and other horrid long-term effects. As for when, how and why they were moved from there and how bad was their exposure, the Russian military does not really like to give information away, especially in the middle of a definitely-not-war-nosiree.

[@tenjenk]

@@elric5371 its not "false" when all your responses are just further elaboration on the point the OP is already making.

[@KEVROREACTS]

math is the universes language. It is not man made, it is what is, we can only figure it out.

[@andyb1653]

Exactly. The math is THERE, the only thing we "invented" are the units & numerical values we use to explain it. A mile is a mile, whether or not there's anyone around to call it a mile.

[@hannesliebrucks4656]

@@andyb1653 thats completely wrong tho... math is completely made up by humanity. physics, chemistry, biology,.. those are not. we use math to describe the phenomena we observe in nature like physics. a mile is not a mile. it is just a stretch of spacetime, which is in itself completely meaningless. but we need to describe things clear to be able to work with them so we assigned numbers to it. 1+1 is only equivalent to 2 because thousands of years ago we decided it is. numbers in itself are completely made up by humanity. thats why extraterrestrials if they exist would not understand our math. its not universal. physics is universal. they would know what the speed of light is. but they wouldnt know what 186282 miles per second means. they dont know what 186282 is, they dont know what a mile is, they dont know what a second is. cause this is just our representation of it using concepts we as a species agree about. math itself is not a natural science per se. it is to be understood as more like a language we use to describe natural observable phenomena. math is not absolute, math is abstract. numbers only work out the way they do because we decided that they do. to use your example : the distance which we call a mile exists whether we call it that or not. but the classification in miles or kilometers or whatever is just to help us comprehend and work with the things we observe or measure. in this example distance, but could be stuff like time, width, height, amount etc. the universe has no language. the universe is no organism which can think or feel. it just is. we are the ones assigning things like concepts, numbers, or words to it

[@lunagal]

The milk is contaminated.

[@nessmain6411]

next episode might be even more painful to watch haha but the finale is so worth it. might just be the best short series out there

[@KEVROREACTS]

i skip that episode everytime, cant do it lol

[@nessmain6411]

@@KEVROREACTS yea I feel you.. but a lot reactors edit those parts out because they also feel that way

[@totchi6]

"same like with covid" Y'all the difference is that everyone who thinks covid is real wore mask or wore better if they had it. Radiation is SO. MUCH. WORSE. People were MELTING.

[@iKvetch558]

Glad you made it through these tough episodes...especially the 4th one. These are my copy/pasted comments... Something the makers of the show changed for entertainment purposes in episode 3 is the way the coal minister and coal miners interacted. The Deputy Minister of Mining met with the miners, and basically gave them 24 hours to be ready to go to Chernobyl...there was no humorous coal dust on the suit moment. The meeting between the Minster and miners is covered in the History vs Hollywood article I recommended...as is the fact that the miners did not work in the nude. Something that does not often get mentioned is that many of the men who went out onto those incredibly radioactive roof sections actually volunteered to go back out more than once in order to save others from having to be "biorobots". Also, that huge revelation at the end of episode 4 that the Soviet State knew about the fatal flaw in the shutdown system and both covered it up and did nothing to fix it, all the while lying to even the plant operators about the safety of the RBMK reactors, is something that could only happen in a totalitarian state like the USSR...where there is no free press or free scientific establishment for whistleblowers to talk to when they know about wrongdoing by the State.

[@lunagal]

She couldn’t go re-interview the plant workers because most of them were dead…during her conversation with Legosov he told her they weren’t awake….dead.

[@carriemilito2851]

Keep in mind, animals were affected by the radioactive fallout too. Cows grazing on grass coated with dust particles were producing contaminated milk. People couldn't eat vegetables from their gardens or pick wild mushrooms from the local forests either. Some areas are still affected to this day.

[@willracer1jz]

2:56 it did happen again at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima Japan in 2011 after the earthquake and tsunami damage the backup system and it lead to a meltdown.

[@Its75centslurpee]

At least that time it took a freak disaster to cause it and not just, pure negligence, incompetence and being a cheap as possible.

[@kingofrivia1248]

@@Its75centslurpeeIt wasnt a freak disaster. they build a nuclear power plant in an earthquake area on the shore.

[@davidbodor1762]

Nah Fukushima was nothing compared to Chernobyl. The tsunami did 99% of the damage and casualties, the nuclear reactor melting down did almost nothing. That said TEPCO, the private company managing Fukushima WAS warned multiple times that they're not adequately prepared for the event of a Tsunami of a certain size, and even when a Tsunami of that size happened elsewhere they STILL did not bother to upgrade their security.

[@davidbodor1762]

@@kingofrivia1248 It took a massive Earthquake combined with a massive Tsunami. You can blame them for building the reactor in an Earthquake prone area, but it isn't wrong to say it was an incredibly low probability event.

[@3twelve206]

Was waiting or this. Can’t wait to watch. Such good episodes.

[@bitterzombie]

Everyone I have showed this series to has wanted to watch the whole thing, it is incredible drama that delivers scientific & historical information in such a compelling way.

[@elric5371]

You mean it delivers dumb lies that have already been debunked.

[@LadyScaper]

Craig Mazin is the man.

[@elric5371]

@@LadyScaper the man full of lies yeah.

[@TheBillproject]

the guy on the roof... it showed every way that you seal your death... he died multiple ways...."you're done"

[@davidbodor1762]

So actually, they DID build a building around Chernobyl, in fact not just one, but TWO buildings. They basically concreted over all of Chernobyl after the incident, but years later they build a MASSIVE structure on rails and slid it over the entire thing, it's called the New Safe Confinement, it's an engineering project unlike any other in the world. They do not mess around when it comes to Chernobyl. They negatively pressurized the entire NSC so that if it were punctured, air would go in, but not out, specifically to avoid any dust from getting out, because dust can be extremely dangerous. They do the same thing with bio labs that work with dangerous viruses and chemicals, but instead of a room this is a giagantic structure, it's mindboggling how much work went into it.

[@_PuckFutin_]

They did build the New Safe Confinement around Chernobyl's reactor 4. You should watch a short epilogue after episode 5. They will explain a lot. You will see some real footage

[@Deenahlew232]

Heya both! New to your channel. Great reactions! :)

[@Dene181]

Those radiation "wounds" on the bodies are damn well done. Great reaction, daunting experience to know most of this shit actually happend...

[@deadheads1352]

These guys forget that his was the Soviet fucking union!

[@blissfull_ignorance8454]

Soviet Union, like its predecessor Russian Empire was a multi-ethnic country, the ethnic Russians being the predominant ethnicity. There were numerous different ethnic groups and languages, as it is in modern day Russia.

[@cindylou3205]

The numerals themselves? We made up, yes. What they represent are mathematical certainties. One is a one because it's assigned to the mathematical constant it represents. So therefore, expressions and equations are correct (if they are correct) but how we apply them to problems may be biased, incomplete, or we simply don't understand all the parameters that could affect it.

[@COFF2HIGH]

That outro though 🥵🔥 5 minute outro *perfect*

[@DavidMacDowellBlue]

Ludmilla did not in fact touch her husband. The Soviet Union contained hundreds of different ethnicities and cultures. Several people who worked inside the reactor survived, after long periods of sickness. It depended on exactly where you were and for how long. Yeah Episode Four is the really tough one. That young man working on animal control, you can see it was destroying his soul. The men who cleared the roof were only supposed to do it for 90 seconds each, and never do it again. A few volunteered to do it more than once.

[@tamarakuklinski4240]

Yes she did touch her husband. Read Voices from Chernobyl its her real story told by Ludmilla herself. she took care of the fire fighters that worked with her husband

[@TheImpaler87]

In 2011 there was the Fukushima incident in Japan, but it was caused by a major earthquake. Modern nuclear reactors are designed to have more failsafes so doubt we'll get something as bad as Chernobyl again.

[@LadyScaper]

The backup power that managed the cooling of a reactor was put in the basement and of course due to the tsunami caused by the earthquake, the basement was flooded and the backup power failed. This was considered when the plants were designed, but instead of putting the backup power where it definitely would not get flooded (as in, NOT the basement), they put the backup power there anyway to satisfy some corrupt elements in the design of the plant. This flaw along with some cultural problems were mentioned in the English version of the report, but not the Japanese version. While it was an earthquake that initially started the disaster, it’s ignorance and safety third attitude that lead to meltdown aspect, as they knew a tsunami and flooding was a high risk, yet put the backup power where it would 100% get flooded when a tsunami occurred. So, this sort of coverup can easily happen in non-totalitarian governments. Maybe we have a higher chance of finding out sooner or finding out at all, but stuff like Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster happened, and these types of accidents, only happen when there is no transparency. Lack of transparency can happen in any governmental system.

[@HydrateOrElse]

The 3 men who dove into the Hell-water actually lived well past what they thought they would. "The reality is much more positive than the myth, with all three men escaping such a grisly fate. Indeed, Alexei Ananenko and Valeri Bespalov are believed to be both still alive as of 2024, while Boris Baranov lived until 2005 when he passed away from heart disease." Absolute GOAT's, like actually. Without them, all of Europe would possibly be uninhabitable right now.

[@heliotropezzz333]

They did all that. They built a cover around the reactor.

[@MarkArandjus]

I hope whoever did the makeup effects for the results of radiation destroying your body got some kind of award award, because that is perhaps the worst state I've ever seen a person be.

[@M4tth3w1986]

27:00 you had me there for a second :D röntgen, not rogeton xD

[@lunagal]

De-AT-lov…say it with me.

[@joshualore]

That quote that Chernobyl is open to the public and safe to visit...with "radiation levels similar to those on a trans-Atlantic flight" is very misleading. Firstly because access to the exclusion zone is still heavily regulated. And secondly because the only areas you are allowed and advised to travel are paved roadways, where radiation is the lowest. It doesn't accumulate well on concrete and blacktop. But the levels are much higher on soil, and in and around the dust covered ruins and general landscape, and in some areas is extremely high.

[@fire._editsz]

Y'all should start to watch better call Saul

[@redharlow9750]

8:11 what do you mean "same thing with Covid"? Are you implying masks in the pandemic were useless?

[@harezothman31]

Mathematics is an integral part of the universe and how it works, we didn't make up any of it! It is discovered not invented.

[@janeathome6643]

They built a box around the plant. They did most of what they supposed to do. Plants grew back, animals escaped, but it was very much contained, but people will always want to get in to investigate. Also, how do you empty out the Ukraine?

[@Myaccount923]

Can you do band of brothers?

[@whtz9000]

I am not, I am amazed how cool you did the 4th one. 1st ppl. You do not feel connection, like others to pets. It is all good :D

[@pluckygypsy]

More than 800 ethnic groups lived in the USSR. after the collapse of the USSR, more than 190 remained in Russia

[@hunterivey]

You need to watch the Ted series, it's hilarious, but I do love this series, by the way you can still visit Chernobyl, because there are areas you can go into that are safe.

[@MrAjpurdue]

They killed the lady, let alone the cow

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

22:10 because We in ussr.uni Soviet not Ukraina not Russia but ussr. And that man from Georgia also.

[@claudiakara1720]

I have hypothyroidism apparently it still from Tchernobyl. Also they didn’t kill all dogs right now there are like 600 dogs ( well now with the war I don’t know 😢) but a French girl did a documentary about dogs cats of Tchernobyl so all the radioactivity is on the ground ( cause of snow and rain ) so all the dogs are super nice and taken care of by the soldiers before the war. But they died at like 3-4 years old. And nature are back wolves bears which but cause of the war yeah some soldiers I heard audios saying they eating dogs .. so messed up greetings from Europe , Armenia was colonised by Russians so yeah any countries at that time were still soviet somehow

[@davidmichaelson1092]

The detail that her life was saved by the baby absorbing the radiation is not completely accurate. Babies are still growing, so they are more susceptible to radiation damage. In an adult most tissues are not dividing much anymore, so have more time to fix the damage. Her exposure was relatively low so she could adequately fix the damage but the baby couldn't.

[@rikinhouston]

*rohguetons 😂

[@Big_Bag_of_Pus]

You probably won't see this, but; whoever told you how much 400 rubles was in dollars was (probably unintentionally) being misleading. The Soviet Union had a *closed economy* : exchange rates with other currencies, as well as the prices of items in stores, were set by the central government. So how many dollars 400 rubles would have gotten you in 1986 is a meaningless piece of info. The correct question to ask is: how would 400 rubles have compared to what those guys were normally paid. The answer: 400 rubles was about three months salary. Not a lot, but not nothing, either.

[@tenjenk]

30:30 radiation was not properly understood at the time in the area, especially by the general civilian public because russia had suppressed info about it. It was thought of as some sort of illness but the actual nature and how to respond appropriately was not common knowledge despite all the Hiroshima obsession. Infact when the incident happened, all books and scholarly works related to it disapeared from public access, including for doctors. This made things worse.

[@lunagal]

The whole thing about visiting Chernobyl is the length of time you’re there and specifically where you go. They have tours but everyone has a decimeter and they go to specific places for only a few hours. Russia found out about Chernobyl when they invaded Ukraine and took over Chernobyl. They let the soldiers dig around in the dirt. They got sick and left Chernobyl. Sad for the soldiers because no one told them what effect it would have on them. I bet Ukraine was kinda snickering at how DUMB it was. Chernobyl kicked Russia’s ass.

[@Itachi17839]

The fault is the state is what they mean 31:05

[@jamesmoore4003]

The reason you see people from several different countries is bc this is before the fall of the Soviet Union….all of the Eastern European countries were under Soviet rule back then.

[@Tai182]

Math is not made up lol.

[@awg9496]

*if these worked you'd be wearing them. -same with covid. classic murica mind

[@tawogtrailers]

Cool false equivalency bro

[@demyanrudenko]

22:15 because soviet union was by all characteristics an empire that conquered and assimilated a lot of peoples.

[@snszbyd]

USSR stood for *Union* of Soviet Socialist *Republics.* There weren’t just Russians.

[@jennykhenven3058]

That was Akimov, that looked horrible, not Dyatlov

[@aumelb]

Dyatlov looked quite sick, too, but then he got better. He died of bone marrow cancer years later.

[@jennykhenven3058]

@@aumelb he was sick, but it had nothing to do with radiation, he had a stroke

[@aumelb]

@@jennykhenven3058 Dyatlov was undergoing treatment for acute radiation sickness at the same Moscow hospital where Chernobyl fire-fighters and plant workers were being treated. I read a number of books on Chernobyl, in English and Russian, and none mention Dyatlov's stroke. I quote from one of those books directly: "Like Fomin, Diatlov had been treated in Hospital No. 6, but he had not been released until early November 1986. The doctors estimated that he had absorbed 390 rem. He left the hospital with open wounds on his legs-the result of radioactive burns sustained on the night of April 26." What is your source?

[@jennykhenven3058]

@@aumelb Yes, you’re right. I confused him with Bruhanov

[@aumelb]

@jennykhenven3058 yes Brukhanov suffered a series of strokes but that was much later, when he was an old man. He only served 5 years in prison, lived a long life and all in all, I'd say he got off much easier than Dyatlov and Fomin did. Movie also didn't do his character justice. Bryukhanov wanted to evacuate people from Pripyat on day one but was not allowed by the party bosses in Kyiv and Moscow (which were notified immediately of what happened). He was a much nicer guy in real life than portrayed in the series.

[@_PuckFutin_]

Soviet Union contained 16 Republics, including Armenia

[@FaceYourInnerFear]

amazing how clueless of history you 2 are

[@neryskkiran1820]

27:41, Appreciate Mair talking about how this can be a difficult watch for dog lovers.Personally I don't cry, but I do skip that part after the first watch. My neighbor gets nauseous when he sees animal cruelty, and then has trouble sleeping. It really messes him up. (I understand this isn't technically animal cruelty, but it IS animals suffering.) Not disappointed in your reactions to this at all. Not everyone gets as sentimental about it. Some people really don't care, and it's pretty obvious. They're the ones who tend to be disappointing people.

[@tawogtrailers]

4 episodes in and she still can't pronounce Dyatlov

[@FaceYourInnerFear]

or dosimeter

[@TheOldnic]

Of firearms and security, here's a different and difficult problem to think about! Recently some worthwhile information on the 1986 Chernobyl / Pripyat disaster exists online. It's all very well to blame Soviet engineering but the final look reveals one terrifying fact! There were no control room readings could indicate such a disaster and inclusive "compulsory automatic shutdown" had been invoked! What all this means, particularly with "total opposite effect" is the control system may not been operating the reactor, the compulsory shutdown robotics were operating but failed only because of the overload explosion, not by any other means! What NEVER has been considered is "resource theft by corruption and direct rechanneling" , one of the problems of scheduling the tests at the time was having to delay the test because full power output had been argued in Ukraine to remain for some extended period. Was the control room fully connected, one point is clear, the tests ran at half and quarter power to detect vibration, that itself may been enough too for some cover up. It is not known if there are any "talk between" reactor-gemerator sets for power output compensation or with auto balancing.

[@Itachi17839]

It's not that he's playing tough. You guys gotta realize and this something that Jordan Peterson talk about is that tyranny and communism go hand in hand which you got your dictator or whatever right but then you have the state spread propaganda and influence to condition you that there nothing wrong and the state is perfect and the soul goal is is that it's all tyranny right down to very fabric of your soul that's why in the first episode all the lies, ceiling off the city, the constant role of playing dumb and the men say it's just another broken piece of equipment.

[@totchi6]

And y'all be mentioning covid and then yelling at these guys for not listening to people who're saying stuff they can't see is hurting them. GUYS.

[@TheBillproject]

so what did you learn about communism?

[@peju2789]

more talking then watching

[@majbrat]

It's a reaction channel. We can all watch the show on its own and have silence, lol.

[@Elly_Rose]

the disrespect western media has for historic events is through the roof... but well, people liked it🤷

[@jennykhenven3058]

Well, it is the most accurate tv series about the events, much more accurate then Eastern European shows

[@Big_Bag_of_Pus]

They did not volunteer.

[@Big_Bag_of_Pus]

Like Ukraine and Russia, Armenia was part of the Soviet Union.