Chernobyl | Complete Series Reaction Marathon | First Time Watching

[@YouMeTheTV]

Most of this video was recorded in January 2022.

[@dontbstingy3587]

Love these compilations. I'm a patreon supporter but I don't always feel like syncing up a whole video and dedicating hours and hours to a series I've seen. So Thanks.

[@SantaClaus-kk8zr]

That explains the 'visit chernobyl' line lmaooo, good video! I suggest not visiting for a year or two after the war, the Russians mined Chernobyl like crazy and there's still explosions going off nearly a year after their retreat from the North front.

[@999MOBSTER999]

​@@SantaClaus-kk8zr They mined heavily Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the bigest plant in Europe, so don't you worry lads, the world just might have the second exlusion zone to visit sooner 🥴🥵🤧

[@christiansaenscheidt9056]

@@999MOBSTER999 Very unlikely as of now. Thank goodness the reactors are cooled down for months now. A dispersion like with the Chernobyl Accident it highly unlikely, though it still can of course be devastating in the immmediate surrounding area.

[@adtu21]

@@SantaClaus-kk8zrwhere did you red that? Another fake🤦‍♀️you guys have no idea about this…

[@saviourself687]

The officer who said he's drive the truck himself was Vladimir Pikalov, a WWII vet and a general commanding the chemical warfare division. He actually drove a contamination hardened troop carrier, but volunteered not just because of concern for his men, but he knew that a generals word would carry more weight than a private. He also spent considerable time at the site while in command of the Chernobyl cleanup and was awarded (rightly so) Hero of the Soviet Union for his efforts.

[@csgXIII]

He was also a veteran of the Afghanistan war, true hero

[@wyldhowl2821]

The guys who fought to stop the Chernobyl disaster, the firefighters, soldiers, engineers, are true heroes, and the world did not really appreciate how much they owed to their sacrifice. The probably saved all of eastern Europe, perhaps the world. Many did not survive, but many knew that was the deal and went in anyway.

[@TheArrowedKnee]

The guy was a true badass, apparently he fought and was wounded multiple times in the battle of Stalingrad, the largest battle in history, in addition to being one of the most brutal.

[@philipped.r.6385]

The guy is such a chad! Being ready to put your life in jeopardy to save your own men is the mark of a true leader. And he also understood perfectly how the politics of USSR worked. The courage of the liquidators is absolutely incredible. We owe them a huge debt.

[@charlize1253]

Any officer can order his men to do dangerous things, but a true leader would do it first himself.

[@peteturner3928]

Sorry I meant to mention. RIP Paul Ritter. As a testament to his acting prowess everyone hated him as the reactor supervisor Anatoly Dyatlov, that's how good he was. But to us Brit's he was best known as a comic actor. Taken too soon by a brain tumour in 2021.

[@jorgelmao4992]

Lovely bit of squirrel tonight

[@immortaljanus]

Damn, I didn't know that. That's a shame.

[@twisterdavemd1]

It is amazing, because just his presence onscreen in that role was enough to make me physically distressed with disgust, and even more so at the archival footage of Dyatlov himself.

[@Tim_3100]

Rip

[@sweetchinmusic99]

Felt so strange him playing such a horrible lying bloke when he played the legend Martin . Rip Paul your sorely missed

[@arze1226]

I'm from Latvia, ex USSR state country. One of my colleagues who finished his mandatory military service in 1984 was offered by the state quite significant money and two military rank upgrade that meant bigger pension, more privileges to go to "secret mission" in 1986. He was just married with wife working at hospital and being pregnant at that time. Rank he was supposed to be receiving was so high that just professionally trained military school guys could get so he was suspicious of it. His wife being doctor used her contacts to fake miscarriage that allowed him to stay home. Only after that he understood that this "secret mission" was to the clearing brigade of Chernobyl disaster as one of the possible supervisors. Another colleague went there because he was in mandatory service at that time and he died two years ago from liver and lung failure. We will never know how much did radiation affected his life, how many years did it took away from him.

[@lizgreer6888]

My husband graduated from the US Navy nuclear school and served 14 years as a nuclear safety and lab technician. In nuclear school they take an entire course on the Chernobyl disaster, a deep dive studying everything learn from their mistakes and small successes. They read all of the first hand accounts you see being interviewed, the official records, interviews and testimonials, court records, everything. He says this is the most accurate retelling of the events he has ever seen. The judgement scene in the final episode where they explained exactly what happened is word for word exactly what is written in the record. This show is a masterpiece!

[@Budini67]

It is factual. I lived through it. My daughter was born on April 24th 1986 and my first day home from the hospital was April 26th 1986. But it is also a TV show, and they did use special effects. The firefighter with the pregnant wife? He would not have looked like that as most of the damage would have been internal, not external. It left a very gruesome impression, and that's what they wanted it to do.

[@SteveNaranjo]

The most powerful phrase in this series and the one that give me goosebumps everytime I heard it its "You are dealing with something that has never occurred on this planet before. " To understand that you need to picture this: in the billions of years the Earth had we have seems many natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, massive vulcanic explosions, meteors hitting Earth and extinguishing life, multiple ice ages and yet not once had we seen an event like that. Let that sink in.

[@marciusmarciukas5467]

My uncle was one the 500k people deployed liquidators in chernobyl, died at 41 of cancer still a lucky man.

[@domainmojo2162]

Sorry for your loss. :(

[@stevenroberts1392]

I see this gotten wrong often. But a point of correction, in Ep 2 when the helicopter crash occurs, this has absolutely nothing to do with radiation of any kind. This is based on actual events during the disaster and if you watch closely, you can see the main rotor strike the cable from the adjacent crane and the crane hook fall to the ground in sync with the helicopter. This is exactly what took down the MI-8 helicopter during the actual events of the Chernobyl disaster. It's a very fine detail but one that 90% of people misinterpret as a result of extreme radiation exposure.

[@jessbellis9510]

To be fair, the pilot was gonna be dead pretty quick no matter which way it went.

[@88balloonsonthewall70]

@@jessbellis9510 Thats an overstatement considering how many years the people lived who where exposed to the core. The big man who held up the doors to the core in episode one still lives today.

[@JanVinegarOfCastlemilk]

​@@88balloonsonthewall70 thats incredible

[@Roobadoon]

@@88balloonsonthewall70actually it would have 100 percent been fatal you didn’t take into account the building is lead lined so it protected a lot of the radiation from escaping sideways but the radiation was leaking heavily through the roof that’s why they couldn’t clear it remotely so the helicopter pilot would have been hit by all escaping radiation as he was right above it and even in the smoke

[@hiddenInsight486]

They used the actual footage of the crash, and yes it hit a crane cable which happened a ways after the initial accident and the containment was being constructed, the exposures at that time would be more tolerable and be measured in several minutes before you would go over an acceptably safe exposure. Considering at this time being on the roof for 2-3min would be the limit

[@Mangolite]

Emily Watson as Ulana Khomyuk, a nuclear physicist from Minsk. Khomyuk is fictional. She represented a team of scientists who worked to resolve the Chernobyl disaster.

[@fredfinks]

That radiation aged her so quickly , she look heaps older than when she was in Harry Potter.

[@adventuresinlaurenland]

​@@fredfinksI know it's a joke, but you know Emily Watson and Emma Watson are two different people, right? 😂

[@fredfinks]

@@adventuresinlaurenland So youre saying the radiation so strong it not only mutated her name, but caused some extreme mitosis that now theres two mutant emma watsons? RIP in peace

[@adventuresinlaurenland]

@@fredfinks yes, that is exactly what I'm saying 😂

[@613and802]

Someone watched the epilogue

[@sethraelthebard5459]

What I find utterly gut-wrenching is that while Soviet policy led to the disaster at Chernobyl, it was also the bravery and sacrifice of the Ukranian and Russian people that stopped a potentially apocalyptic nuclear explosion. When those three men went into the underbelly of the plant to drain the tanks, they inadvertently saved the world.

[@yellowrose0910]

Historically, Russian government from the Czars through the 'Communist' (not really) Revolution, to current day Dictatorship has sucked beyond comparison in its evil and inhumanity, while historically the Russian people have just been decent humans trying to survive. Present-day Putin-supporters excluded of course.

[@pant-hootingchimp8917]

I live in the UK, thousands of miles from Chernobyl. The radioactive clouds reached us here. I'll never forget one day, in the weeks or months (can't remember which month) following the disaster, my mother and I going into our garden and noticing something weird on the surface of the water of our pond. It was a strange looking, whiteish coloured layer of dust that almost seemed to glow. It had a luminous quality to it. We pretty much guessed what it was but it was later confirmed in the news to be radioactive dust from Chernobyl that had been carried by the wind and dropped in our area by heavy rainfall. Our area (Devon in South West England) was particularly being affected around that time. Other times it was North Wales being affected, then it was Cumbria in North West England. Different pockets of the UK were being affected at different times according to which way the radioactive clouds were being blown, and their intensity plus the level of it that was dropped to the ground by heavy rainfall. For years the UK's livestock and fruit and vegetables in our fields were contaminated and inedible. The whole of Europe was affected by Chernobyl, some countries much worse than others, like Austria. People were told to stay indoors with our windows shut. Kids couldn't play outdoors. I can only imagine how horrific it was for the people of Ukraine and Belarus and other neighbouring countries. All those people who bravely risked and sacrificed their lives to save the world are true heroes and must never be forgotten.

[@johnmonk66]

Those men who went down saved millions of lives, and incredibly, they all survived

[@RaidenDragonClaw]

how the woe tats insane i was sure none of them did i hope they lived good lives

[@bigmikem1578]

And they did it in complete darkness. The lights were there so we .. the viewers had something to look at. They didn’t just save MILLIONS OF lives. But billions. Eventually that radiation would spread the whole earth and kill us all if not stopped.

[@JGD714]

@@RaidenDragonClaw 2 are still alive.

[@pvtj0cker]

They were given Stoli after the mission which mitigated the damage of radiation.

[@carlhartwell7978]

It depends on perspective with concerns to 'who survived'. Radiation poisoning can take decades to translate to death. People are certainly still dying or at least have cancer from the radiation they absorbed. And though it'd be impossible to tell whether 'a cancer' is due to this or from any other cause, we can say for certain many would be due to this event for perhaps even decades to come. It wouldn't surprise me if there are people now only in their late 30's, who were babies when evacuated from Prypyat on 27 April 1986. And are dealing with cancers right now as a result of this. If they died all these years later, hard to call them 'survivors'.

[@josekiss4610]

I live in one of the countries of the Eastern bloc, now in the European Union, 550 miles from Chernobyl. I was a child when this happened, but I still remember it. The wind did not blow the bulk of the pollution towards us, but there were restrictions and closures. People were afraid because they didn't really know what was going on. Information was censored and there were lots of rumors. My parents were gardening and that year all our crops had to be destroyed. Later, the media gave a lot of attention to the truckers who visited the site and later all fell ill and died. The other big topic was the case of stolen aid supplies. When I watch the series, old memories come flooding back. It really happened a long time ago, but of course we don't learn anything from it.

[@alaric_]

The news anchor talking about the accident is literally the first memory i have of 'news' or the world outside our safe neighbourhood. I was 8 years old and the thought that i had then, i can still remember it: "this is bad, really bad". I couldn't compare it to anything as i was so small but i knew in my bones it was very bad. Something about the anchors demeanor, his absolutely dead seriousness, the stream of papers handed to him of new developments... Small kids are really good at picking up social cues. We here in Finland got a decent dose. Not great, not terrible...

[@nicklaque7706]

As a Radiation Technician, i can tell you seeing 3.6 in the Control Room would have me extremely concerned. Also for the levels of radiation they were dealing with, no amount of protective gear or clothing will have helped them, except for Lead.

[@stpfs9281]

That 3.6 was the max for that dosimeter, when they tried the 'good' one, it burnt out when switched on, 200 Roentgens max, another one at 1,000 Roentgens also maxed out. The 2017 "New Safe Confinement" is already six years old.

[@lisalessa8893]

Many people in Russia find this series as propaganda against Russia. I myself, being born in Soviet Union and being Kazakhstani citizen believe these series praise the braveness of all people who had the courage to work on figuring staff out, cleaning the are etc. this series show how people were brave to take part in suicidal job. This is not anti soviet propaganda. This is a series abt brave people

[@RageForSeven]

Totally agree with this, that's how i saw it too, how the human kind, as always, can both be the worst and the best at the same time in the same situation.

[@samihyleh865]

Well what you except from those ignorant brainwashed tools? Russian newspapers and news are just delusional BS... And people believes everything without even thought against those news. Sounds kinda same like one North Korea...

[@adambazso9207]

They see it as propaganda? How brainwashed are the people there? Jesus Christ. It's fictionalized history, every sane person knows that, but it has elements of truth and a certain amount of accuracy. But of course a lot of people in Russia maybe think that Stalin was a hero, a blessing for mankind and not a sociopathic remorseless murderer, one of the true demons of the 20th century and of human history in general (among others, like Mao-Ce-Tung and Hitler of course, but one could also mention Pol-Pot for example.)

[@Cnightz]

Exactly how I took it. Not as incompetence but as bravery and the fight for human kind.

[@NuclearFantasies]

The Russians who think this is anti Russian have been brainwashed since birth.

[@PeanutBrn]

Fun fact my grandfather was one of the guys, that was drafted to clean up the reactor zone, he went later in the process, so there was less debris, but he went there, did his 90 sec, still alive today.

[@trayolphia5756]

o7

[@lucianaromulus1408]

❤

[@Joe_77_]

A real Hero!!

[@gregory3499]

This horror series is one of the scariest of all time. Because most of it is absolutely true. Horrific.

[@gavinhall6040]

Because its British American viewers should automatically know they are gonna get either/or gruesome shit, sex and or nudity (loads normally), violence constantly, very bad language, and finally bloody good acting.

[@sassymenses]

"most of it", yeah :)

[@Ragnar452]

It's not horror. Not in a true sense. But it is scary knowing people acted that way. A note to those who still believe communism was good.

[@bogdannila1478]

most of it is NOT TRUE...do your research

[@Ragnar452]

@@bogdannila1478 "Most of it is not true" are bold words. Yes russian version is that it was sabotage not lies and severe incompetence. So which part was not true? It wasn't very accurate, I agree. But not true? Really? 🤣🤣🤣 Are you one of those who believe the Russian version? They sure are trustworthy.

[@munchkinmunchkin]

I’m from Romania, and I can definitely confirm it came all the way to us as well. Many babies were born with deformities, all of my grandparents died from a form of cancer in their 60’s. Iodine pills were handed out, but my parents and sister were only given 2 pills so my parents had to split one.

[@RaidenDragonClaw]

Im from Romania too i wonder if no maybe not it was 1995 surely it was safe then right

[@Nyx_2142]

Multiple studies have shown that there were no pregnancies affected by radiation from Chernobyl. Dr. Robert Gale, “We estimate incorrect advice from physicians regarding the relationship between maternal radiation exposure from Chernobyl and birth defects resulted in more than one million unnecessary abortions in the Soviet Union and Europe." Dr. Gale is a world-renowned expert on bone marrow transplants who immediately went to treat the Chernobyl victims after the accident and spent two years working there. For the next 30 years, Gale worked on several studies of the long-term medical consequences of Chernobyl. National Institutes of Health declared that, “In spite of the best efforts of statisticians and epidemiologists, the claimed thousands of Chernobyl-induced cancers and mutations have yet to manifest themselves.” In 2006, researchers at the U.N. International Agency for Research on Cancer estimated that Chernobyl-induced cancers by 2065 will total 41,000, compared with several hundred million other cancers from other causes. In short, there is very little to no conclusive evidence to prove what you said. If you can't provide anything to prove it that has been properly cited and peer-reviewed, fuck off with your bullshit.

[@Tallgeese556]

@@Nyx_2142 Sorry what now?

[@4Kandlez]

@@Nyx_2142 Yes comrade, this misinformation must be stopped. You will be handsomely rewarded with a promotion and 400 rubles for your devotion to the party

[@MrTrevisco]

Namegamex101, nuclear industry troll.

[@samuelberz1476]

There is some fear mongering in this series; if a person is exposed to radiation, they won't usually become dangerously radioactive themselves. They may become contaminated if radioactive particles settle on their clothes or skin, but after given a thorough wash, it is perfectly safe to be close to and touch someone who has been exposed. The only potential risk is if one ingests the radioactive materials and it becomes absorbed within the body, like iodine-131 in the thyroid or strontium-90 in your bones, but most of those nucleotides only undergo beta decay, which is far less energetic than gamma decay, and therefore less damaging and less penetrating. A sheet of aluminum foil can stop beta rays, but to completely shield yourself from gamma rays would require a plate of lead 16 inches thick, or a concrete wall 80 inches thick.

[@meanpersona4686]

I am from Poland (it wasn't a soviet state, but a satelite state). I wasn't born when it happened, but my parents remember that they were told about the disaster only after the May victory day. Only after that they were given the lugola fluid and iodine but it was already too late. Weirdly enough, the initial radiation cloud missed a large area of Poland (it "came back" later), but people were terrified. Even though atomic power is very safe, people still have this distrustful dispositon when it comes to having a nuclear power plant in the country. Also, sidenote. The effect of radiation on the body are kinda exaturated (in some cases). The radiation poisoning that the technitians and the firefighers got are even worse in a real life, but the stuff like in the episode 1st - the bloody worker or the man who was holding the doors and started bleeding (sorry I don't remember the name) they suffered beacause of the blast itself and the heat that it brings, the radiation started 'working' later, beginning with the "radiation tan". Ludmila didn't lose the baby beacause she was near her husband (basically, the moment you decontaminate the person, they become relatively safe to be around)- it was mostly combination of the radiation she got when she was around Pripiat and a horrible stress she suffered. As I said, some stuff is exaturated, some would be too horrific to show. Also, also - the helicopter didn't fall beacause of the radiation, but it got tangled in the wires and the smoke didn't help.

[@mannygee005]

Yes you are correct. The show is very careful and they say things like "it was reported that..." so in those cases they're not saying it's "fact" but they're saying "it was reported as such." Also the helicopter struck a chain and fell - in the episode you can see there is a vertical chain with a weight on it. The propeller of the helicopter struck it and the weight fell down at the same time as the helicopter. There is a real video of this event and the show replicates it. So it is accurate but people cannot know what they are watching unless it's explained (the helicopter incident). It's a great show, very compelling and informative. It gives us the lessons about "lies" and mismanagement and all those things the men did wrong and bureaucrats. And to me the dangers depicted were astonishing.

[@sethraelthebard5459]

Radiation is quite possibly one of the most horrifying ways to die. Slow, inevitable, and like he said...unimaginably painful.

[@RealBradMiller]

Pshh.. that's just life!

[@radioactiveassassin5218]

@@RealBradMiller Yeah, I don't think death by life includes choking on your own lungs

[@Curraghmore]

Chernobyl is most definitely not open to the public today. It's in Ukraine, most of which is a war zone. Russian forces even briefly occupied the Chernobyl site last year but they withdrew again after they dug defensive trenches in the ground there and some of their men 'started to feel ill'. Apparently they STILL did not learn their lessons from 1986.

[@donaldjz]

Who was the idiot that was putin them in danger?

[@gwaeron8630]

And from all accounts they've mined the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, so no they definitely haven't learned.

[@adventuresinlaurenland]

The exclusion zone is 100% open to the public, you just need to get a permit. Once you have a permit, visitors to Chernobyl must book either a licensed group tour or purchase a private tour. Tours within Chernobyl can take one day to several days. A one-day tour remains the most popular option.

[@aaronjoyce9569]

​@@adventuresinlaurenlandI doubt its teaming with tourists recently 🤔

[@adventuresinlaurenland]

​@aaronjoyce9569 crazy enough there are still a few tour companies who will take you...I guess they figure if you are insane enough to want to go they are willing to take your money 😂

[@brachypelmasmith]

I really like the scene where scherbina smashes the phone upon hearing the info about false information about the rover. It shows how much he was involved and disgusted.

[@mannygee005]

amazing scene.

[@matasa7463]

The general that drove through the ruins with the dosimeter, was a hero of WWII, and fought at Kursk. He's the real deal.

[@LtColSoundboard]

Howdy peeps! Glad you had fun watching this 1.5 years ago. Wanted to give you some info on a few things: AZ-5 was the shutdown button for the reactor. The emergency button. That's why it was astonishing that the emergency button caused the explosion! You can't receive radiation from another person, and this was a misconception at the time. Soviet scientists knew that touching a radioactive object would apread radiation to another human, but not that humans don't pass it to each other. To keep things simple, if you imagine getting sunburnt, you don't make someone else near you sunburnt by touching you. You absorbed the beta radiation from the sun. It's your burden, your burn. The "elephant's foot", the melting nuclear fuel, never went through the concrete pad after all. The miners that worked under Chernobyl died for nothing. It was wise to send them there with what information was available at the time, but their work was ultimately unneeded. More than half of them died of radiation-based complications like cancer. The unborn child absorbing radiation for the mother is not biologically possible. It's just not how radiation is absorbed and spread. I'm really not sure why this was included in the show... You asked how Dyatlov was able to survive for longer than Akimov and Tuptonov. The latter two went into the belly of Chernobyl to pump water into the blown-up core. Dyatlov took a crap and went to the lead-shielded bunker. He wasn't as exposed as those two were. And lastly, why did so many people lie or try to protect their professions at Chernobyl? It's because those jobs were some of the highest paid in the Soviet Union. Being a nuclear physicist or nuclear engineer was one of the best paths to the "good life", and Pripyat was considered a wealthy vacation town compared to other parts of the USSR. Tuptonov was crying because he didn't want to lose his job. Akimov kept saying "we did everything right" because of his job. Dyatlov wanted the test done so he could be promoted for a better job. Same with Fomin and Byrukhanov. They wanted to avoid being disgraced and then forced to live lives of poor labor with poor wages. So they all bowed down to their superiors, and in some cases, lied to protect themselves while selling out others.

[@jacklyons2088]

the line about misinformation ,near the beginning, hits harder now after what were going through

[@wozzab9136]

The guy who played Dyatlov, Paul Ritter, was a brilliant comedy actor in a British comedy called Friday Night Dinner. Sadly passed away from a brain tumour in 2021

[@4Kandlez]

Probably caused by the radiation poisoning

[@lucianaromulus1408]

His acting was FANTASTIC. I HATED the character. Super memorable

[@DanaSenn]

Chernobyl is not Russia, It is in Ukraine.

[@hiddenInsight486]

A.k.a the Soviet union

[@6891x]

@@hiddenInsight486 Still not in Russia.

[@hiddenInsight486]

@@6891x correct, Russia did not exist

[@Mondy667]

​@@hiddenInsight486Well it did exist but as a Soviet Socialist Republic

[@jimjames6074]

Ukraine is part of Russia

[@RobertBreland-b7h]

As of 2015, it was reported that two of the liquidators were still alive and still working within the industry. The third man, Boris Baranov, passed away in 2005 of a heart attack.

[@Fraggelmann]

I lived in Gävle, Sweden, when this happened. I was just a baby (born in March, 1986) in a stroller at the time, but the winds and the weather brought with it stuff from Chernobyl here, and I can’t imagine how worried my parents were at the time.

[@formatique_arschloch]

How many times you personally have burned that straw goat in Gävle?😅

[@KillerSniper55]

Fun fact, in the recent war in ukraine, when russian forces invaded ukraine, they captured the Chernobyl Power Plant and dug defensive positions. They forgot about the radioactive soil that was buried and many of their soldiers received radiation poisoning.

[@JC_Cali]

War is terrible and this is another reason. It should be the leaders of the war who suffer the consequences, not random front lineman!

[@4Kandlez]

@@JC_Cali Putin and Zelensky should have a knife fight to settle it

[@joesheridan95]

Yes :( But it doesn´t seems like they forgot about the radiation but as it looked back then, it´s probably more like: They just did not tell most of the soldiers where they were. I am pretty shure that at least some of them would have thought about digging when they would have known that they are in the exclusion zone.

[@excesssum]

They used military maps of the area issued in 1985 - a whole year before the incident took place.

[@jamescole4441]

If that is true, then were is the fun in that?

[@LucianDevine]

The relationship between Boris and Valery was one of the best parts of the show. Watching Boris go from telling Valery he was in charge and commanding that he not call him by his name to that heartfelt conversation at the end is just awesome. Even though the woman was fictional, I can't help but wonder if those 2 developed at least some kind of friendship through all of the time and hardship of it all.

[@Carpartz]

I've definitely noticed a trend in reactions to this series that a large percentage of time is the watchers being silent, especially in the 1st 2 episodes. Nothing wrong with that. It's just an awesome show.

[@deaconstjohn4842]

True. Although 90% of the "audience" that reacts here on KZbin is comprised of a bunch of borderline illiterates. Ofc all americans. So it's no surprise that they keep their mouth shut, they wouldn't know what to say anyway

[@Cagon415]

This format is perfect. I know it's a pain to edit. Thank you.

[@jamesnell7224]

No matter how scary, insulting or damaging to your ego the truth is more important than anything. If you really think about it their response to Chernobyl isn't that much different from what western politicians have been doing to their people over the past 3 years. This whole series is a warning that has been repeatedly ignored in so many situations and places throughout history.

[@Mansplainer2099-jy8ps]

Correction: "Importance" is a narcissist myth, that is part of the truth. That said, I absolutely agree with you that you choose ego over truth at your peril.

[@jamesnell7224]

@@Mansplainer2099-jy8ps The importance of truth is a narcissist myth? What?

[@Mansplainer2099-jy8ps]

@@jamesnell7224 "Importance" itself is a narcissist myth. In seven words: We organisms prioritize, the universe does not. In other words, all life on this planet could have died out before it even gave rise to the dinosaurs. "Importance" exists nowhere but in the imagination i.e. it is imaginary, a fiction. We humans are narcissists trying to make the universe revolve around us even though it obviously does not. "Importance" is one concept with which we do this, there are others e.g. "imperatives", "necessity", "value" and "purpose" to name a few. (Some people I talk to tend to at this point immediately leap to the conclusion I am advocating nihilism since they equate the fiction of "importance" with the reality of meaning. Which is another expression of the narcissism I speak of; _"The universe not revolving around me?! Then everything would be meaningless! That's nonsense, you're just trying to manipulate me for some reason of your own.")_

[@lestatdelc]

"…have been doing to their people over the past 3 years." ROFLMAO

[@steveallen8987]

This series highlights the BEST of humanity & WORST of humanity. TRUE HEROES some.

[@kw7378a1]

In the series podcast, Craig M. (Writer and show runner) said that in some ways, the Soviet Union was the only nation who could handle a catastrophe like this. Can you imagine the US following through on the human cost required to complete the cleanup? It’d be tied up in Congress/courts forever.

[@QuantumS1ngularity]

If you wonder how much of the recreation is true to live - the blue trash bin with the white lid that Legasov was taking out at the beginning of episode 1, is the the exact same bin that like 80% of the people used back then across the entire USSR and Eastern Block. That thing stood with my family for so long i even remember it well into the 90s. As for the political play that was taking part behind the curtain and The State keeping everyone in the dark - it's actually a bit watered down. They showed only the main things that everyone found out right after. My grandad was a colonel here in Bulgaria during this crisis and he knew that things were bad once he was sent to guard a train, filled with canned food, vegetables, meat and livestock from my country to Moskow. Once they got there he saw that the political elite was preparing basically for the apocalypse. He had orders to shoot anyone on the spot if he starts asking the wrong questions or try to spread the information. Later that same week when they came back, all of the soldiers in the army (not only the ones that were sent on that train), nationwide all soldiers were given potassium iodide through their food, to which they were completely and blissfully unaware. I was conceived right about that time, down to +/- a few days and in the following months, doctor who was following my mom's pregnancy was having her for really frequent monitoring and tests, but never said really why. I was born in February of 1987 and like 75% of the babies that were born in that year were overdue their delivery (i was 2 weeks late) and we were all abnormally large at birth. Even in school we could see it clearly - we were 4th grade, but we were taller than the kids that were in 5th, 6th and 7th grade at that time. But yeah, the USSR never confirmed this incident had any effect outside the exclusion zone.

[@oleksandrkuzhba3171]

27:20 - I'm afraid that we learn from past either slowly or nothing. There is a phrase for it: there are 2 kinds of people, those who don't learn from history and those who hopelessly looking at those who don't learn from history

[@Station-Network]

For me, that was the first "lockdown". I was 11 years old at that time and lived in Berlin, Germany almost 2000km away from Chernobyl and at that time we were not allowed to play outside anymore, not allowed to eat fruits and Vegetables, only imported things for example from Spain. Cows and and other farm animals were left in the stables. It was not funny...

[@sonosoloio]

I was 16 when this happened and even though I lived about 1700 kilometers (about 1050 miles) away from Chernobyl, the fear was enormous.

[@Granny_Cat_Lady]

I was 13 & remember watching the news & it became a fascination for me ever since.

[@Silver-rx1mh]

"What is the cost of lies" a sentence thats still sadly relevant today, especially when it come to world events like the current pandemic. Chernobyl is one of THE best slices of TV that i have ever seen and i'm 66 now....

[@rikardottosson1272]

The firemen’s uniforms are still there in the basement of Pripyat hospital. Or were, who knows what’s there after Russia occupied the area. They “didn’t believe the hype”about Chernobyl and dug systems of trenches in the most radioactive soil in the world. Reportedly many soldiers showed symptoms of radiation poisoning as they retreated.

[@stpfs9281]

Where did they get severe "Sunburn" from, even when wearing their uniforms...?

[@lucasrokitowski8707]

I was just a year old when this happened, living in Poland. My aunt was a doctor and even though the TV broadcasts tried to downplay it as much as possible, she told my mom to stock on iodine and give it to me.

[@HalkerVeil]

Water is a natural shield against radiation. It's one reason why they cover the core and rods with it. Heavy water is even better. So the 3 divers that went in did get a heavy dose, but nothing like they would in the air.

[@ispbrotherwolf]

I was 18 when it happen, I remember the warnings going out in Sweden about eating mushrooms and Wilde meat, due to radioaktivt cesium. The news about this was really scary.

[@Budini67]

I'm 57 and my daughter was born April 24th, 1986. April 26th,1986 was my first day home from the hospital. There was so much we did not know about this type of nuclear contamination. This was the biggest nuclear power plant related accident in the world until the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Japan had an incident involving Hisashi Ouchi in 1999. He is the man who suffered the worst radiation burns in history -- then doctors kept him alive against his will. DO NOT GOOGLE THAT IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE. There are pictures, because the doctors were doing it 'in the name of research'. Finally, the family raised enough noise that they relented and let him code without reviving him again. That was day 83/84(?) 80+ days, I remember that much.

[@gallendugall8913]

Fun Fact! The third worst nuclear disaster took place twenty years before Chernobyl about a hundred miles away where the Soviets had been dumping their nuclear waste in a lake and one summer there was a drought, the lake dried up and radioactive dust blanketed everything killing tens of thousands of people. The Soviet response was to cover it up and keep dumping radioactive waste in that lake. Lake Karachay.

[@ghostabastard2208]

Fun fact! There was a ton of nuclear disasters in other countries(in US for example) which was more hardcore than in Chernobyl, but who needs to talk about them if they were made in right, capitalist way, right?

[@4Deadserious]

​@ghostabastard2208 Gonna need a source on that one chief

[@tinnasell4161]

@@ghostabastard2208 You do know you must name at least one if you bring the topic up, right? Otherwise, it is just manipulation and an attempt to shift focus. And even if you do provide smth substantial here, Soviet crimes are still crimes. The fact that someone else did similar things does not normalize the Soviet's criminal behaviour. Not to mention that modern Russia continues the chain of crimes. Like with the Kahovka dam, which Russians blew in one blast and then said to the locals that everything is fine, the dam is still there and they should stay in their homes. And they said it while standing in the flood and filming the water going up. They also took most of the boats locals had and physically stopped them from leaving when they tried. Russians were shooting down civilians who tried to evacuate, did not allow volunteers to enter the flooded zone and help, were trapping those who had UA passports, while enabling those with Russian passports to relocate, and were stealing humanitarian aid that Ukrainians delivered to the flooded area with drones. And on top of that, the Russian media told their population that the dam collapsed because of its age. Same behaviour as with Chernobyl. And now they are doing something on another nuclear power plant in the area. This gonna be Chernobyl 2.0, which everyone will try to downplay again

[@愛を込めてロシアから]

@@tinnasell4161 You just told so many lies that you could be shot for it

[@tinnasell4161]

@@愛を込めてロシアから Ah, who we have here... Russia's defender with a Stalin-like mindset. Birds of a feather, why not stick together?

[@pjnolan7989]

Few *Spoiler* Facts: 1. Obviously the wife of the fireman lost their baby, and every pregnancy afterwards, she miscarried. She eventually did have a baby many years later, who she loves dearly. BUT the interesting part is that if she had not been pregnant, she would have died of Radiation poisoning too. Apparently the unborn baby protected her by soaking up the Radiation from her husband. Which meant losing the child, but getting to spend their final days together. She's written books and made a TV Show/DVD telling the untold stories of women from Chernobyl. 2. Instead of 3 eyed fish, theres actually a massive amount of rare animals in Chernobyl. Wild animals flourish there due to the area being uninhabited by humans, and because of the lack of hunting. There was a show hosted by some famous Fisherman who usually fishes in strange places, and he caught loads of rare fish in seemily great condition in the waters at Chernobyl. Although there are farms nearby that still have stillbirth animals, or born mutated. Its crazy. 3. There's brilliant acting overall. The main Scientist Jared Harris is excellent and is the son of famous actor Richard Harris. Also Irish actor Barry Keoghan stars (in Episode 4 I think it is). He's a big actor you'd know from Dunkirk, The Batman, The Banshees of Inisherin, plus many other TV & Movies. A very good Actor. 4. Most of the series is extremely accurate. Like the helicopter crash is true, but it crashed a later on. And the Miners stepping forward, but unfortunately nearly all either passed away or currently have health problems. Also the 3 Divers did step forward, but crazy as it seems they survived without ailments. Which considering the odds is amazing. Also the German Robot did arrive and break within minutes. Because USSR lied about the level of Radiation. Also the guys did end up cleaning off the roof by shovel and brush. Unfortunately to my knowledge, they did end up sick too. Things like the Fire Brigades are accurate for that era, as are the buses. There's actually a Ukranian guy called Sergei Sputknikoff who has a KZbin Channel called @UshankaShow who is worth checking out. He is now married with a family in the US, but originally lived in Ukraine when it was the Soviet Union. He's written a few Books about living in the USSR, moving to the US, getting married & having kids, etc. But he remembers the Chernobyl era and how well the Series got little details correct. He's like an Encyclopedia for that timeframe. He's worth contacting if you wanted to follow up. Contact: Sergei Sputknikoff KZbin Channel: @UshankaShow But overall he was very positive about the little details. If I think of other details I'll be sure to post. Sláinte

[@BiRios]

Fetuses DO NOT absorb radiation; that was a common misconception of the time. An actual partner to a fireman spoke up against the show for making it seem like she killed her baby when that baby’s fate was sealed when the bomb went off and no one was evacuated.

[@americanopenwheelracing3596]

0:15 Welcome to the world that WE grew up in.

[@frankwitte1022]

Thanks for recording and posting your reactions. I appreciated that. I did feel the steady cynicism was a bit tone-deaf but hey, everyone has their way of processing this series.

[@lucianaromulus1408]

Thats their typical behavior, just their personalities. They're German of course 😂

[@Dmitriy.0]

I was 11 years old living in Kyiv at the time of Chernobyl disaster. We didn't hear anything about this from the government until at least a week later, and even then nobody knew much. Only in mid-May (and mostly through the western media) when my parents realized how bad things really were, they took me out of school and we went to Moscow to live with our relatives for the Summer. Lies and coverups was USSR's MO, and Putin's Russia is no better.

[@999MOBSTER999]

You was acctually right about those 3 divers! They weren't asked IRL, just told to go there.

[@Leoluvesadmira]

The RMBK reactor is a unique to the soviet union. The reactor was know for hot spots and had cracked fuel roads before in 2 other RMBKs one at Leningard and Chernobyl number 2.

[@ПережареныйПельмень-е2з]

47:00 400 rubles ($700) is an average of two salaries per month. At that time. Now the survivors are paid about $ 500.

[@gumshoe2273]

A true horror series if there ever was one. More frightening than most.

[@dennismoore2752]

Nothing more scary than the truth. The damage done by the explosion was severe, but the damage done by the government was even greater. Lives lost to contain a failure and a lie.

[@operator0]

If I'm remembering correctly, you guys live in Canada. Canada has some of the safest reactor designs on the planet. They are called CANDU reactors, and they work in a fundamentally different way than almost every other reactor that has been built. They have excellent safety systems built into the design as well as inherent passive safety qualities stemming from the design itself. Their safety record is excellent.

[@norwegianblue2017]

I agree this is one of the best dramas in the last 20 years. Maybe the best. Absolutely riventing and top notch performances. Bone chilling because it is based on fact. I remember when this went down when I was in high school.

[@kibervatniki7552]

This is a fantastic series, and it's a comedy, not a documentary.

[@Mark-xh8md]

Also, when Chuck Norris goes to bed, he checks his closet for General Pikalov!

[@Travelinmatt1976]

There's a really good documentary on how the new cover was built. It was actually constructed at a safe distance and then slid into place, one of the biggest buildings to be moved.

[@nomenestomen3452]

Chernobyl is in the Ukraine, not Russia (it was part of the Soviet Union then). I was 11 years old then, growing up in Germany. Playgrounds were closed for almost a year and it was dissuaded to collect mushrooms for many years or to eat wild animals like wild boar or deer. Mushrooms still have a higher dose of radiation here in Europe till these days (but is now considered on a harmless level).

[@whitescar2]

Love to see more "Scandinavian" feels among Americans. Especially with the haunting ending music there.

[@newmoon766]

Three Mile Island happened in 1979. The US gov't didn't tell the public any more about what very nearly happened there than the Soviets did about Chernobyl. The official stance was, "We had a little oopsy, but it didn't actually blow up so that must make it no big deal, right?" But the truth was, it very nearly did explode. In New York.

[@beamertoy]

This mini series really got under my skin. I don't think anything has ever been more disturbing to me than this

[@aeliusdawn]

Under your skin, just like radiation

[@insulanerin7601]

I remember not being allowed to play outside in Berlin, Germany. My mother also would not let us drink more than one glass of milk a day and during the summer holidays we were not allowed to pick wild blueberries as we had done the year before. Too dangerous.

[@wakkadakka9192]

A really good show loved it 👍 Just keep in mind that even it is based on true events and real people - it's still mostly fiction with overdramatic scenes plus a bit of stereotypes for recognition My father was one of the volunteer liquidators, he gone 2018 Eternal memory and glory to all heroes who risked their lives to save the world

[@buddystewart2020]

"it's still mostly fiction with overdramatic scenes", of course it is. Because we don't know what really happened in that control room of the plant. It's not like a modern commercial jet where everything said on the flight deck is recorded (cockpit voice recorder). Most if not all of the conversations between the major figures in this, we don't have records of it, because the Soviet Union would never let them out, if they even had them. The depiction of the radiation wounds were severely criticized by a nurse that was there, and attended to the actual victims, in an extensive interview. I'm paraphrasing but she said it looked like the art director was let loose and given free reign to concoct whatever they thought. The actual victims didn't look like that. I think what they got right was, the sense of dread of the situation. The condemnation of the Soviet system that tried to cover it up. The sacrifice that many decent people made to try to get things under control. I won't say it's an enjoyable watch, but I think it's an important watch, even though it makes a lot of people scared of what is one of the most safe forms of energy production available today.

[@Curraghmore]

The parts that are not true or added for dramatic effect are pretty small.

[@wakkadakka9192]

@@buddystewart2020 "of course it is - because we don't know what really happened in that control room of the plant" I wasn't talking about what happened in control room, I was talking in general. Many events after explosion - are shown over dramatic or were completely invented from scratch specifically for this show. Once again all I'm sayin - it is a good show, but it is a fiction tv show for intertaiment. It's not a historicaly accurate documentary.

[@wakkadakka9192]

​@@Curraghmore The parts that are not true or added for dramatic effect are 70% of the show. Quick example - first episode starts from showing us how Legasov record tapes and then secretly hide them because evil KGB are spying on him. Nice overdramatic scene, really sets the right mood, there is just one problem.. nothing of that ever happen. Yes indeed Legasov had personal tapes - but he freely gave them to his friend, there was no secret about that. And thats just first minute of the show. Real events and real people mixed with fictional plot and fictional dialogues. Nothing wrong about that, it just has to be realised to avoid perceiving entertainment show as documentary.

[@jessbellis9510]

@@wakkadakka9192 He gave them to his friend but it was still a major risk to try and spread the info on them.

[@Richie8406]

31:01 Also, there is an irony that the director surely placed in this series. The smoking of the times. Those cigarettes will kill you faster than mild exposure to radiation. Remember, we receive cosmic radiation everyday. If you sleep in the same bed as someone else, you get more. Flying s up to 3x more than usual. Dentist, CT scan? MRI? People have a non existent understanding of radiation. It is part of you. The problem is intensity, proximity and time.

[@wrldchamps04]

The heroic efforts of so many cannot be understated...it was horrible but would have been SO MUCH worse...as hard as it is to believe.

[@4Kandlez]

Yes very heroic those guys telling someone else to go look at the reactor or suffer the displeasure of the party

[@愛を込めてロシアから]

@@4Kandlez What are you suggesting, idiot? Let the planet die?

[@lucianaromulus1408]

​@@4Kandlezthe heroism is the poor people under Communism that still sacrificed, not for the regime, but for their people. Our Politicians aren't much better here lol

[@Dmilewis]

I loved how the description at the end with the cards made it so easy to understand.

[@thoso1973]

The Kursk submarine disaster in 2000 taught the World, that the Russian government had learned very little from the Chernobyl disaster. It also proved Legasov's warning about 'government lies incurring a debt to the truth' to be prophetic.

[@Michael-it6gb]

I think you've been watching too many "documentaries" and TV-fiction. Legasov didn't even mention anything about "lies and not recognise the truth" in his tapes. Its all made for propaganda, dude.

[@borgun96]

How Chernobyl disaster would teach anybody for fire in torpedo room? There was no issues with reactor

[@thoso1973]

@@borgun96 I'm not talking about about the cause of the disasters: I'm talking about the aftermath and the web of lies and propaganda both the Soviet and Russian political leaders promotes to cover up their own incompetence and the failure of their regime.

[@borgun96]

@@thoso1973 then you should read more about Montana train crash to compare. Was it better about lies?

[@PUARockstar]

@@borgun96 russians always lie. That's the difference.

[@charlieeckert4321]

1:05:21 it is a painting of Ivan the Terrible and his son by Ilya Repin.

[@jobanh7ify]

I love how in any other movie Chernobyl is abandoned and with mutants, arms dealers and terrorist fighting each other for attention when in reality there’s a whole scientific community working there and keeping everyone safe by monitoring conditions in the whole area. However with the current russian invasion the world is holding its breath again so we may all die by asphyxiation before something worst happens again

[@spikedpsycho2383]

Sum up exactly What happened at Chernobyl. They were running a test to see how much residual power they could get from the reactor after an emergency shutdown in optimum conditions because the time frame to bring diesel generators to run the pumps needed to cool it, but the reactor design made such tests problematic and the crew was not apprised to the state they were supposed to conduct. Since the reactor used different materials, shutdown actually triggered a surge of additional power and with control safeties shut off to conduct the tests. That surge, resulted in a high pressure thermal runaway reaction and result it exploded, then superheated water turned to flammable hydrogen gas and exploded again casting materials out into the environment. Unlike US reactors encased in Containment domes made of several feet of solid concrete, Chernobyl and reactors like it, had no such feature.

[@Krackonis]

You know what was scary? Living through it.... Trust me.

[@adamrak7560]

iodine pills only help against the radioactive iodine poisoning. It does nothing against the radiation coming from outside. While this may not seem to help much, actually most long term effects from radioactive contamination are associated with radioactive iodine, (if you have only received very mild amount of activity) This is because the body collects iodine in the thyroid, if it is radioactive, even a tiny amount is extremely damaging. Other radioactive substances rarely accumulate at one spot, or not accumulate at all, and to make it even worse the iodine isotope we are afraid of is very highly active too.

[@heydude1112]

This Film is the most horror level than any other movies out there. There's no big bad evil monster coming to get you and you can't seem to "see" it. Im in the field of Radiology and the worst and best explanation it gave was the "bullet" scene where the scientist is explaining the equations/equivalent of getting exposed to high levels of radiation.

[@LtColSoundboard]

On one hand, definitely wasn't accurate in terms of the role a neutron plays in the science of it all. On the other hand, the Soviets sure understood bullets. They lived and died by them. And as for us, the audience, it was an excellent metaphor to instill the proper fear for this invisible, lurking antagonist.

[@1989Goodspeed]

1:21:41 That's Fares Fares, he's known in Sweden primary as a comedy actor. He was also one of the character-actors in the game "a way out". A game directed by his brother Josef Fares

[@johnnyd1790]

The mind blowing part is that the whole disaster could've been averted by the simplest knowledge: don't mentain the reactor at reduced power of 1600 MW/h for 10 hours, but restore it to nominal 3200 MW/h until the test and only reduce it then, and the test would've failed like usual and everyone would've gone home on their marry way like always.🙄

[@LtColSoundboard]

Yes, and no. The test needed to be completed before the plant was even open. Bryukhanov lied to the Soviet Government and said he had ran the test and that it was a success. He did that before the end of the year, so he could earn the Soviet Union's second highest honor: "Hero of Socialist Labor". Bryukhanov needed that safety test to be a success, to prevent his arrest and being stripped of his luxurious position in Pripyat. That's why the Chernobyl Disaster was the 4th attempt at that test...

[@johnnyd1790]

@LtColSoundboard what you just said did not contradict my statement of restoring the power plant / core to it's normal 3200 MW/h output instead of half. If you remember the nightshift, Tuptunov did say "I have never done this with the power so low, before!", meaning the test wouldn't have been a success most likely if they had found the power output normal instead of halved when they began the test, but at the very least it would have had the same result instead of that catastrophe.

[@LtColSoundboard]

@@johnnyd1790 The whole point of the safety test was for the plant to run at low power, to see if at a low power state the turbines could last 60 seconds until the diesel generators came online. Running the plant at 3200 mw wasn't part of the plan from the beginning. The night shift was inexperienced, yes. But the day shift safely failed this test 3 different times already. The way Bryukhanov and Dyatlov chased this test, I have a difficult time believing that the night shift alone was responsible for this. Dyatlov could have put the same pressure, the same threats of blacklisting those engineers and their careers, on the day teams. And under such reckless guidance, the results would have been the same.

[@johnnyd1790]

@LtColSoundboard I think you're confusing some elements, the power for the test needed be 700 Mw, the reduced state at 1600 was implemented just before the day shift started, because the test was programmed to take place during the day. But they didn't get the clearance to drop it to 700 in day so they postponed it for 12 hours. What they should've done is raise it back to 3200 then drop it again before the test to 1600 then to 700 even if it would've took half an hour more or so. That was a big mistake easily averted: knowing that 1600 Mw is not enough to burn the xenon away and you should never mentain under 3200 for more than an hour, 2 at the very most.

[@Corrinecreates]

1:31:58 Not true, touching her husband didn’t contaminate her, people with radiation sickness aren’t contagious their clothes are, all of Chernobyl was irradiated the baby was doomed either way, they weren’t evacuated fast enough she was already exposed the moment she took a breath after the explosion. Also the baby absorbing radiation is a myth, fetuses are the most vulnerable, the mother was still effected just not to the point of radiation sickness, but the baby was doomed at the start, even if they did live. She did nothing wrong by touching it being by her husband, and there was no way to save the baby unless she didn’t breath in the air, which she did because Ptipryt (I know I spelled it wrong) was irradiated and covered in fallout. I would also like to point out that this show is in the point of view of everyone at the time. They DIDNT KNOW, they didn’t know they weren’t contagious and they didn’t know that the baby doesn’t absorb radiation to save the mother. That’s what they believed, and that’s all they knew, and this is in their point of view.

[@johnmonk66]

I remember this, the east-north side of all plant life in England and Ireland turned brown. This could have ended half of Europe.

[@thenecessaryevil2634]

Lot of people don't get that the coal miners covering him in coal was actual a sign of respect. 'Now you look like the minister of coal' to tell him that he was one of them for being honest.

[@vision2g422]

this really is a great show, they did it very well, made even better by the facts of the story

[@j94_couch]

1:53:00 Sorry if it's been mentioned and I missed it, but all the music for this series was created from sounds made by nuclear reactors

[@themakkoning]

Crazy i forgot about these coffins in the show. I just learned about them from learning about the history of previous russian wars. The coffins they were buried in are a normal government thing they used to transport dead soldiers in the Afghanistan War. They are lined with Zinc and welded shut, super weird. There were some empty ones found dumped recently near some russian town, so i guess they still use them today as well. Cargo 200 was the term they used for them.

[@anastassiyaschacht1828]

the term Cargo 200 is still in use in the current war.

[@joachim2464]

The helicopter actually chrashed because the rotors hit the crane. It is a little bit difficult to spot. This accident actually happened and there is video footage of it, but it did not happen during that timeframe. It actually happened a good while later during clean up efforts

[@discipuladavinci]

I'm from Türkiye. It's a country with one coast facing Black Sea. And my big family lives in one of the Black Sea provinces. After Chernobyl explosion, following the next years in that coast provinces cancer cases have skyrocketed. Specially in my family, we have lost so many people from cancer. That coastal area is famous for producing tea and hazelnuts. That year, tea and hazelnut exports were interrupted on radioactive grounds. Imagine how far we are from Ukraine and yet its effects on us.

[@PeterDB90]

Is Türkiye Turkey? Just curious how your country translates to English

[@pogosmama1]

We are told that this cannot happen with other types of reactors, but in any reactor if the water level gets low enough and produces that much steam, etc…, it will happen. Fukushima lost its water, the hydrogen buildup blew the buildings away and the cores have melted through the bottom of the reactors, and this is still a 24 hour crisis, 11 years later, and the confirmations of core exposure and meltdown had to be done with remote equipment, but it was confirmed.

[@braincruser]

1:16:39 It is actually the opposite. Inanimate objects don't retain a lot of radioactive materials, and animals and plants do absorb nuclear materials, since they cycle matter through them and accumulate the radioactive minerals as if they were normal minerals. The process is called bioaccumulation. What is worse is that if you eat the exposed plants and animals, then the radioactive matter accumulates in you. So you get radioactive strongtzium(behaves like calcium) in your bones, irradiating you with 10-100X the normal dose since it stays in your body.

[@moarschtuff9233]

1:52:28 - there actually was a documentary on the New Safe Confinement, I think called Chernobyls Megatomb. It was on Netflix a few years ago but I haven’t been able to find it recently. The NSC was a collaboration of scientists and engineers from throughout Europe; I believe the design they went with came from a French firm. It included an interior apparatus that would further dismantle the remaining fissile material and reactor components from within.

[@OlaCh93]

It's crazy downplayed, but to this day many many people in Poland have thyroid issues, it's super common.

[@peteturner3928]

Great reaction as per usual guys. I visited Pripyat and Chernobyl back in 2020 just before Covid made the world go tits up and well before Putin decided to invade the country en-masse instead of just the Donbas region as his 'green men' were fighting in at the time. The attention to detail of this show to get the look and feel of the place correct is quite incredible. If the war ever sorts itself out I cant recommend a visit enough, so much was aloud to go wrong because of ridged party dogma that things could have actually gone a lot worse for most of western Europe if not for a few VERY brave souls. For another older HBO show that shows how the Soviet system stopped people from doing their jobs properly look up 1995's 'Citizen X' which tells the story of the hunt for the notorious Soviet serial killer Andrei 'The Butcher of Rostov' Chikatilo. Lives could have been saved if not once again for Soviet institutional dogma and officials trying to save face.

[@kathyastrom1315]

Citizen X is a fantastic film! Stephen Rea is terrific in it.

[@TheCrazyCanuck420]

Curious did you catch the virus that shall not be spoken of? Because after visiting Chernobyl that might put you on edge 😂

[@peteturner3928]

@@TheCrazyCanuck420 it was just kicking off when we got there. Some people had already started wearing masks etc in Ukraine, this was March 2020 but nothing was being closed etc until about a week after we returned (I'm from the UK and we never really made them a required thing until June-ish, so our Govt. dropped the ball big time yet again). Never crossed my mind it would be related to where we where as the rumours had been flying about outbreaks in China since January.

[@pogosmama1]

The roentgen readings were ultimately recorded between 12,500-14,000 roentgens per hour in and at the base of reactor 4. The highest (exponentially) reading ever recorded on the planet. Small pieces of the core that lie in the exclusion zone are super-hot still and will be for hundreds of years, along with all of the abandoned equipment. The melted core is still sky-high which is why the new safe confinement was built, and it will take roughly 250 years to contain and remove safely. It is still the most dangerous place on earth.

[@RoboSteave]

I think it is important to note the Soviet official in the first episode wanting to stop "misinformation". That's a big concern of some in our government today... Favorite character is probably the head coal miner.

[@donaldjz]

The government is misinformation

[@sutterkane3264]

True, don’t trust misinformation! Inject yourself with hand sanitizer! 😂

[@alexc119]

Watching your reactions reminds us of how quickly we as humans forget. This affected millions over most of Europe, and wasn’t comparatively speaking that long ago. And yet most of us aren’t taught what happened in school so that we can understand the many steps that led to this happening.

[@wessexdruid7598]

So much so that, when Russia invaded Ukraine last year, it claimed more lives and injuries.

[@Curraghmore]

One part that was not true was the story in Episode 4 of the firefighter's widow losing her baby because the baby absorbed the radiation that would have killed the mother. That's not how biology works or how radiation works. The part about 'catching' radiation poisoning from someone by hugging them or touching them was also exaggerated. It's actually pretty safe to touch someone who has radiation poisoning. But unfortunately there was widespread irrational public fear after the explosion that people affected by the radiation were somehow a risk to others around them, and it was a problem for the people who had to be re-homed after being evacuated from the affected area. No-one in the towns they were evacuated to wanted to host them or be close to them.

[@methodhardie9193]

That’s exactly it though, the show isn’t necessarily trying to give a definitive proof of what happened, but is representing what people believed at the time, and what was being theorised/understood, so the comment about the baby makes perfect sense when you look at it from the view of someone guessing as to what could have happened.

[@buddystewart2020]

@@methodhardie9193 ... I agree, that's the way the show should be presented, with all the lack of knowledge that would have been prevalent at that time. The only downside is, people that watch it today are generally too lazy to do any research on their own and will take it as fact, when it's wrong.

[@methodhardie9193]

@@buddystewart2020 true

[@manuela1986]

But the firefighters probably inhaled and swallowed a bunch of radioactive particles? Those would still give out radiation, making the 'carrier person' dangerous, I think. But them being poisoned by itself is not a danger for other people, no.

[@buddystewart2020]

@@manuela1986 ... Right, if you ingest something that is radioactive, and it remains inside of you, it will continue to emit radiation. If it's powerful enough, that could cause a problem for others around you. Surface contaminants on the skin and clothing can be removed, and the person would no longer be a problem to someone else after that's been properly done.

[@ashley4889]

I don't know if you'll see this comment, since it's so late - but I recommend putting both of you in the thumbnail! I love when people can talk to each other during a reaction, rather than just the comments, and I'm sad I overlooked this reaction for so long thinking that it was just one person TT^TT

[@Grigorii-j7z]

I was genuinely impressed with accuracy in the details in this show. Trash bucket that Legasov used in the beginning is exactly the same that I used to chase trash truck with back in 1995. Where the hell they got it?

[@leslieturner8276]

The attention to detail with everything down to the smallest detail is brilliant. Take for example the men who opened the valves to enable the water to be drained, in reality their torches did fail but they know enough of the pipe layout to navigate in darkness. Of course just a dark screen wouldn't make great television so they came up with torches that could be powered by hand, but they found out what such torches existed in the Soviet Union at that time and recreated them for that one scene.

[@lazyidiotofthemonth]

The series is very hit or miss with reality and science. There was never any danager of the corium causing a massive explosion, much less a thermal nuclear detonation because dripping into the water volume under the plant would just create a lot of steam, at worst they would have a radioactive geyser that would further contaminate the structure. for a Thermonuclear detonation to occur they have to crush a very high port of U 235/238(95% or more, Chernobyl's ratio was more along the lines of 15%) many times less than the natrual density of Uranium 235, Nuclear weapons use Shaped high explosive charges to accelerate two peices of Uranium at a significant fraction of the speed of light at each other. Also once Vasily was cleaned his body was not at all radioactive, he was merely sick, Lyudmilla's only exposure to radiation would have been in Pripyat.

[@Ryan_Christopher]

They shot on location in Vilnius, Lithuania. Plenty of ex-Soviet items lying around. Even the flats and power plant offices were from that era.

[@krashd]

1:16:08 This scene here stems from a notorious misconception about radiation in that metal objects somehow become irradiated and can become dangerous, they can't. The only effect ionising radiation has on metal is that it can make it brittle over time until the metal eventually fails by breaking down and crumbling. This misconception that metal that has been exposed to radiation can somehow become dangerous to people stems from the many "vehicle graveyards" surrounding Chernobyl where everything from buses to tractors to helicopters were abandoned in their hundreds. These metal vehicles _are_ dangerous to go anywhere near but that is only because they were used in the clean-up and so they are coated in a thick layer of highly dangerous alpha and beta particles. These vehicles had to be abandoned and isolated after the clean-up because there was no way of completely cleansing them.

[@CoastalSphinx]

"Induced radioactivity" is a very real thing, however it is usually caused by exposure to neutron radiation. On Earth, neutron radiation is almost entirely inside nuclear reactor cores, so it is mainly parts of the core and its immediate surroundings that become dangerous due to induced radioactivity. I agree with you that vehicles and similar large objects are very unlikely to have induced radioactivity. But there are many small pieces, for example bolts, that I would treat with great suspicion if they were found near a destroyed nuclear reactor, because they might have been in an area with high levels of neutron radiation.

[@blissfull_ignorance8454]

The music at the end of episode 5 was a Russian Orthodox monk choir, and the song itself is an Eastern Orthodox Christian funeral hymn sung at funeral. Quite fittingly, the title of that hymn is the same as the title for ep5 (Vichnaya pamyat) "Everlasting Memory".

[@kw7378a1]

It’s a weird thing but this series gave me more appreciation for the Russian language. It’s so beautiful in its grim sadness in this series.

[@blissfull_ignorance8454]

@@kw7378a1 yeah, Russian is a very rich language when it comes to expressing emotions, postive and negative ones, respectively.

[@PUARockstar]

it's not russian, it's Ukrainian Orthodox chorus, Lviv one to be precise.

[@PUARockstar]

@@kw7378a1 also, it's Ukrainian language. In russian it would "ve" instead of "vi". And the text itself is ukraianian version of old church slavonic.

[@gillbarry8681]

I would stay at my partner's side to the end. You have to remember this was the Soviet Union. Civilians were kept in the dark and even the professionals were severely restricted accessing such information as "Radiation sickness". Nobody wants to die. But ignorance makes society act stupidly.