Chernobyl Episode 5 - Vichnaya Pamyat | Reaction and Review

[@sebastianhuvenaars6537]

"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid"... Hearing Legasov's quote I can never not think of how we have been dealing with our climate and biosphere for decades. Powerful line.

[@anatolyadyatlov7301]

That's funny.

[@seanmcmurphy4744]

Not only that, our country's whole public discourse is dominated by lies. The Covid conspiracy theories that caused the vaccine and masking refusal that resulted in 235,000 unnecessary deaths. The lie that the election was rigged. QAnon, the Great Replacement conspiracy, chemtrails. The recent ridiculous lies that Hurricane Helene was caused by the government or FEMA had run out of money. But unlike Russia where the lies were imposed by the government, in the US we did it to ourselves with social media

[@Smokie_666]

@@anatolyadyatlov7301 I appreciate your comment adding credibility to Sebastian's statement.

[@anatolyadyatlov7301]

@@Smokie_666 Sweet Sebastian and sweet Smokie live in the Soviet Union, are members of the Party and realise nothing.

[@BigIronEnjoyer]

And a real bitter irony here is how much better a position we'd be in with wider use of nuclear power - something that was derailed by Chernobyl.

[@ravensshadow2179]

Boris"s character arc is one of my favorite in cinema

[@VerowakReacts]

Stellan Skarsgard sure knows how to pick amazing roles!

[@ariochiv]

Operation "How Pissed Can We Make Verowak?": Successful

[@VerowakReacts]

Ugh!!! But in a good way and a bad way 😜

[@markhamstra1083]

@@VerowakReacts If you want to get upset in a different way, spend some time watching the videos of That Chernobyl Guy ( @thatchernobylguy2915 ). There are essentially three groups who could plausibly be blamed for the Chernobyl accident: the plant operators, the scientists and engineers who designed the reactor, the state actors who controlled information about the reactor. While the videos of That Chernobyl Guy are not as lavishly produced or as entertaining as the HBO miniseries, if you persevere through them, you will find that he makes a very strong and well-evidenced case that Mazin’s production, despite all its high-minded talk about the cost of lies, is mostly based on Soviet lies and propaganda that recast the actual villains as heroes by shifting the blame onto their mostly blameless victims. In essence, Valery Lugasov was no hero exposing the Soviet state, but rather he and the other scientists and engineers who were responsible for the design and scientific management of RBMK reactors did a terrible job, and what they actually produced was a reactor design that was all but certain to eventually cause an accident like Chernobyl, even when run in complete compliance with the operating procedures that these scientists and engineers gave to the plant operators. They knew some of that before the accident, learned a lot more soon after, and colluded with the state actors to lie to the international investigators and others by concocting the story that the blame for the accident lay with irresponsible plant operators who ignored established procedures and drove the Chernobyl reactor into a dangerous state that could not have been anticipated by its designers. That is a massive lie that Mazin repeats in his morality tale about the cost of lies because he credulously based his script on what should be discredited sources like Grigori Medvedev’s _Chernobyl Notebook_ instead of on a sound understanding of the dangerous design of the RBMK reactor, the history of RBMK failures and accidents before Chernobyl, and the extensive documentary evidence that has been surfaced since the accident and since the “blame the plant operators” tale was conceived. In short, be entertained by Mazin and HBO, but be prepared to dig deeper if you want to know something closer to what actually happened at Chernobyl and who really deserved to be blamed and held accountable. It’s a very different tale than what this miniseries tells.

[@manusoftar]

that speaks about how good of an actor was Paul Ritter, you can come quite close to hate him when playing Dyatlov as if he was the actual guy. May he rest in peace.

[@woeshaling6421]

Of all the aspects; frustration, politics, death and destruction... the thing that sticks with me the most is the many people who layed down their lives to clean up the mess. We all owe a debt of gratitude to them

[@Yevgeniy-UA]

In case you don't know. "Vichnaya Pamyat" means "eternal memory"

[@VerowakReacts]

I looked it up since I had no idea! ☺️ But thank you!

[@Yevgeniy-UA]

@@VerowakReacts Thank you for the reaction. I hope you liked this show 😊

[@bigsarge8795]

I love the conversation with Boris and Valeri in the garden. It always gets me right in the feels

[@chrism7395]

The presentation is a masterclass in how to communicate a complex idea

[@eaglevision993]

Analog Soviet Powerpoint presentation.

[@thisisscorpio6024]

In the end, you finally showed some luv for Boris. You were so mean to him.

[@VerowakReacts]

Understandably so though! In the beginning he's so different but he changes throughout

[@kapilavastuvasin]

a lot of people are mean to Boris because they dont get russian humour. when he was being a dick to Legasov, it wasnt serious- its the russian way of saying ' stop screwing around and give me a crash course' and the last bit of ' now i dont need you' is the compliment of job well done. Having interacted with Russians (as in real russians, not russian immigrant descendants), this is how their humour works. Their threats are not just words and just words are not threats- if Scherbina was serious about tossing legasov outta the chopper if he didnt comply, he'd ask the soldier to open the door, bring legasov to it and then utter his threat. These are just small nuances of culture that western audiences miss.

[@kyrosv1289]

Thank you for the reaction Verowak!! :)

[@VerowakReacts]

My pleasure!! 🥰

[@davidmarsden192]

@25:13 - your reaction - PERFECT! I too was 'WTF' when I saw that!!

[@SixFour0391]

Imagine telling someone that you willingly gave your life for a good cause...and them telling you that it wasn't enough. What a heartbreaking thing to hear.

[@kinokind293]

I always enjoy watching an engineer react to engineering malfeasance. In this case it was hands over the face. As it should be. What a wonderful series. I had never seen or heard of Jared Harris before, and just found out he is the son of the great Richard Harris. No wonder. And Skarsgard is Skarsgard. He mentioned in an interview that he was a kid when the accident happened, and that they wouldn't let them play outside . . .

[@davidmeans6477]

Great reaction. The beginning and ending lines of this series is so powerful, and apply now more than ever.

[@VerowakReacts]

There are so many good lines, it's worth rewatching to pick up on more of then

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

Great reaction! In the real life trial, three other men at the plant were charged with various mismanagement crimes but were left out because it would have complicated the story. Legasov never testified at the real trial. His testimony was introduced as a transcript of an interview and differed significantly from the show. Each time I see the show, I am still amazed at how the casting director was able to find good actors who looked so much like Brukhanov, Fomin, Diatlov, and Akimov. Nina Gold did the casting and also did Game of Thrones and Andor, which is why so many of the cast are in one or the other. At least 11 were also in Game of Thrones and a couple were in Andor. Sadly, Paul Ritter, who played Diatlov, passed away in 2021.

[@Yora21]

The story of pretty much every major industrial disaster starts with numerous safety devices being broken and not fixed for years, and a long list of regulations and procedures being ignored. Even giant machines with incredible power don't just explode. It takes quite a lot of things that have to be done to make them explode.

[@JackOiswatching]

It's truly amazing how the show tells us what happened, step by step, and the payoff is that the audience just feels even worse about it all. Normally you'd feel pretty jazzed about the truth coming to light but it's just so depressing and terrifying. Amazing work, amazing series.

[@VerowakReacts]

If this was all fictional, I would have loved finding out the truth and thought it was so neat. It's not quite the same when there's some truth to it lol

[@proosee]

The picturing the disaster is one part, but it's impressive how the writer captured the soviet reality, because people are forgetting how evil it was.

[@Phil-p7p]

Excellent reaction. Well done!

[@VerowakReacts]

Thank you!! 😊

[@markkringle9144]

The three heros who went into the water were, ironically, protected from the radiation by the water. That's why they didn't die of the exposure.

[@danielkarlsson258]

You're a very smart lady. Thanks for the great reaction! 👍

[@VerowakReacts]

Thank you! 😊 It was my pleasure

[@-Knife-]

Such a great mini series. So glad we had real life heroes that prevented this terrible disaster from becoming significantly worse.

[@NicholasSarsby]

Xenon has a half life of 9 hours, so thats why legasov explains that the only way to manage that reactor safely was to do it over a 24 hour period so that the xenon pit the reactor found itself in would have decayed away. Xenon is a strong neutron absorber so thats why the reactor stalled. The operators were guilty of criminal mismanagement but they had no way of knowing the design flaws of an RMBK reactor.

[@ariconsul]

I think it's important to remember and to see the people who stood up and sacrificed. In every episode, people were willing to lie but also others were willing to sacrifice, to give, and to tell the truth.

[@VerowakReacts]

I couldn't agree more. People doing good things should be talked about more than those who are negative. The ones telling the truth and doing what they can to help are what helps me keep my faith in humanity

[@bloodymarvelous4790]

When the control rods were lowered, and the graphite tips entered the core, the intense heat from the increased reactivity warped the control rod channels, preventing them from entering further into the reactor which might have reduced reactivity once the boron entered the core. Instead the graphite tips got stuck inside the radioactive fuel and endlessly increased the power output.

[@conan5885]

I can't watch this series without tears, both for how tragic it was and as an European, even if my country is at the very edge of Europe and we weren't affected. I was 13 when this happened, and still remember the news and the footage like yesterday, as well as the fear at the time that we could be hit by radiation, even if far away. To me the 80's will always be the best decade ever, but there where also quite a few great tragedies for sure...

[@joshualore]

Thoroughly enjoyed revisiting this wonderful series with you, thanks!

[@kentbarnes1955]

"Damn people". Douglas Adams in his book "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" uses the phrase "people are a problem". This is an excellent dramatic series (yes...the destruction of the wildlife was perhaps over done). I have always felt the series was pretty accurate, however since I have discovered a KZbin channel called "That Chernobyl Guy". Those videos do cast some doubt on things in the series. Another KZbin channel I would shout out is the channel named "Kyle Hill". He has visited Chernobyl, and in fact toured some of the most dangerous areas still today. Very interesting. Full Disclosure: I obtained a degree in 1983 in Nuclear Engineering. US reactors are completely different from the RBMK design. I've got some excellent stories that would inspire great confidence in our nuclear operators (many of whom I worked with). An excellent series reaction as always. Keep up the good work.

[@SvenGold]

Yeees, finally. Got to admit, the last weeks, from time to time i checked youtube if you uploaded this :). Best series in the last few years if you ask me.

[@VerowakReacts]

Sorry for the wait, life uh... got in the way 🤣

[@SvenGold]

@@VerowakReacts thats nice of you, but no need to explain yourself! I / we (viewers) are not entiteled to a schedule.. And i know how much work it can be to edit and re-edit such reactions until youtube is fine with them.

[@LeRoy-z5f]

Hope you're doing well. And you're right, people suck. Especially another of people in powerful positions. They can't allow anything that can be perceived as weakness. Glad you were able to finish thus fantastic series. 🙂

[@VerowakReacts]

I'm doing well yes thank you!! I hope you are too!! I definitely try my best to stay away from people who refuse to show any weakness or faults 😨

[@vplusah]

Thank you very much.

[@letitiabeausoleil4025]

Hi Wak. Great show. Thanks again.

[@mp63au]

Lol I was waiting your reaction to 31, great series, great reaction. Take care.

[@VerowakReacts]

What an amazing series! Please let me know what other series are amazing so I can watch them! If you want to support me here's how: Patreon (full length & polls): www.patreon.com/ Subscribe to the channel: kzbin.info Follow me on Twitter for stuff and selfies: twitter.com/verowak Become a channel member: kzbin.infojoin

[@havok6280]

Generation Kill. John Adams. Queen's Gambit.

[@mrtveye6682]

Completely different kind of show, but "Firefly" is a fantastic and - unfortunately - pretty short show (so no long time commitment needed, like for other outstanding shows like "Breaking Bad"). I yet have to come across someone how didn't felt in love with Firefly, no matter if they where sceptical or not generally fans of that genre.

[@alexspindler1]

You've already seen Band of Brothers but the other Tom Hanks-HBO collaboration The Pacific is similarly good. And the Disney The Right Stuff series was also quite good.

[@goodshipkaraboudjan]

Bit random but "Underbelly" is a great series about the true crime world in Melbourne Australia. It couldn't be aired in Victoria when it came out due to fears it would effect jurors in ongoing cases.

[@stillbillylondon]

Can't go wrong with season 1 Fargo, the anthology tv crime series. The seasons are all stand-alone comedic "dark tales" with varying quirky, violent, insane, driven, cheating characters and locations, with a touch of "super natural".

[@Yevgeniy-UA]

Dyatlov is guilty and not guilty at the same time. I mean, he is guilty of criminal mismanagement and violation of safety regulations, but all that wouldn't lead to disaster if the Soviet State would have built the reactors the way normal people build it...

[@VerowakReacts]

I love how they set it all up from the beginning of the series to the end. Outrage at first, then so much frustration at the end!

[@markhamstra1083]

Don’t be so sure. Dyatlov, the other plant operators, what they were told could and could not be done in the operation of an RBMK reactor, and what actually happened in the Chernobyl accident are all grossly misrepresented in this miniseries, which is fundamentally based on Soviet propaganda and misleading stories told in the aftermath.

[@eaglevision993]

I know the series needed an antagonist and the easiest prey was Dyatlov. But you should check the real story about him. He never acted like this in the control room. He was not easy to work with since he had high expectations on himself and everyone else. Audio transcripts from the control room show that there was no agitated mood until the explosion. It was a calm and professional atmosphere right until AZ5 was presses. It was also not pressed in panic but just to shut down after the test. The indicators were simply too slow to show what was going on in the core in realtime to warn the staff.

[@HalkerVeil]

It gets interesting when you see how this show caused a chain reaction in Russia and how it leads to the events of today.

[@malarkey2217]

Chernobyl is in Ukraine and the area was captured and controlled by Russian troops. They gave up the area and retreated five weeks later after international outrage. The radioactivity of the site remains safe. The radioactivity of the wider exclusion zone though, now has many hotspots, thanks to 1000+ Russian troops and dozens of tanks churning up the dusty soil.

[@tchjdaedn]

The Russian soldiers started digging defensive trenches without having been warned about the radiation and they started getting sick.

[@midnight1672]

@@tchjdaedn In a way it feels like the Soviet Union - or at least it's handling of the truth - is back with ex-KGB Putin in power. They're right back to telling their people lies and having people afraid of reporting bad news to their superiors out of fear for punishment. I guess in a way I should be happy about that because it gives Ukraine a better fighting chance against the Russians with how ineffectual it makes their military.

[@edwinlemus8530]

An example of human behavior and enterprises; it can happen anywhere in the world; we are ripe for it.

[@bradpriebe9218]

Great reaction to a phenomenal series.

[@highlightshadow]

Generations of neutrons in a reactor are measured in nano-seconds. Given even a doubling of prompt neutrons required, it would take little more than a few milliseconds to go from normal to exploded. Thats why reactors depend on delayed neutrons from other factors -- it would be impossible to control a reactor based on prompt neutron generation alone. When you're at the atomic scale -- the number of atoms required to generate a 25Kt bomb is a mere few hundred grams.... the early bombs in manhatten project had pits of 50-60 KG of high enriched uranium but it only took a small fraction of that fissioning to generate the trinity test.

[@auntvesuvi3872]

Thank you, Verowak! ☢

[@tyhawkins7757]

This is not a documentary, it’s a horror film!!

[@JamesSmith-bd2is]

The expression on your face when you heard about the official Soviet death toll! I felt an urge to duck and hide behind something and that was before you mentioned your need to throw or break something. It's nice to know that my survival instincts haven't dulled. 😂

[@PelosiStockPortfolio]

When you show up to court and see Roose Bolton is the prosecutor you know you're gonna have a bad day

[@VerowakReacts]

I'm pretty sure they locked the doors 😨

[@Stewart682]

During the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine when the Russian army was approaching Kiev from the North in February 2022 the soldiers dug in around Chernobyl and the army never told them that they were digging into contaminated soil. Reports of contaminated soldiers are withheld to avoid the families learning about it.

[@Gerald-rn4yu]

Lot of eye rolling and naming people "douchebags" in this Chernobyl reaction. And rightly so! Some memorable and/or chilling moments in this final episode: - Boris Shcherbina and Valery Legasov talking outside on the bench: "they mistakenly sent the only good man". - Valery Legasov testifying, judge wants to conclude hearing. Boris Shcherbina stands up: "Let him finish!" - Chernobyl RBMK-1000 reactor nominal maximum thermal power production was 3 200 MW. In scram shutdown reactor output jumped to 33 000 MW thermal, 10x normal operational output. Valery Legasov, not a hero of Soviet Union but a Hero of Planet Earth. Вечная Память

[@JohnnyUtah15]

The only other movie I have seen Stellan Skarsgård portrayed an evil character was in the two-part Dune movie, which I realized you’ve reacted to, the more recent version, not the 1984 release with Sting.

[@VerowakReacts]

He's good at playing morally ambiguous characters or slightly evil characters. He was great in the Dune movies.

[@lewisshemery2585]

The water saved those divers. It blocked most of the radiation.

[@VerowakReacts]

I would have thought the water would have been super toxic. I'm glad they survived though, I really thought they would have died soon after going in

[@Knightmare435]

It wasn't just the water. The air and water were both extremely contaminated, but they got extremely lucky in that the obnoxiously thick diving suits (With full rebreathers) they had been given, while cartoonish overkill for the water levels in the ductways, was exactly what you would need for protection from the Alpha and Beta particles. The suits kept the radioactive isotopes away from their skin, and the rebreather stopped them from inhaling them into their lungs, so the only radiation they had to worry about was the relatively uncommon Gamma radiation, which could penetrate anything they could have carried with them regardless. Likely they got more radiation exposure from the surrounding environment of the reactor while they were getting suited up than they did in the actual ductways because of this protection.

[@charlesedwards2856]

Fun fact I just learned: Jared Harris, who is the lead Legasov, is the son of Richard Harris who played Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films before his death.

[@buddystewart2020]

If you want more info on Chernobyl, there's a couple of youtube channels that provide more info. Kyle Hill has a couple of videos where he went there, and they're very interesting indeed. And there's Charlie, who has a channel called The Atomic Age. He's a nuclear engineer, and has reacted to Chernobyl. He points out some of the technical mistakes in the series. He's not trying to tear it down, he actually likes it a lot, but like most things done in film, they just get stuff wrong. I don't know if you would actually want to react to any of this, probably not, but you might find it super interesting to do on your own time.

[@ashleyowen7664]

given you have watched this, i recommend watching "Battle of Chernobyl", it's 1 hour 30 minutes, but has actual footage and pictures of the plant at the time, the clean up process and real interviews from people who were there, including Gorbachev himself

[@johnpittsii7524]

Hi Verowax hope you are having an great and awesome day ❤

[@VerowakReacts]

Hi John, I am, I hope you are too!

[@jeffreyphipps1507]

"The Queen's Gambit" - despite it's title, it center's around the character (the woman) playing chess and not chess itself. It is fiction, but there are several female chess players in real life. The story also addresses addiction a lot as well.

[@NPA1001]

The Best Limited series I think I have ever seen. After the critical acclaim and success of this show HBO asked the Show runner, Craig Mazin, to name what he wanted to produce next and HBO would back it, he said he wanted to make an adaption of his favourite Video game ‘The Last of Us’ which he then went onto make also with similar critical acclaim.

[@NestorCaster]

3:30: quite a lot. It doesn’t guarantee you immense power in politics or government, but as a private citizen, it gives you damn near everything, if not, access to everything(resources, money, education, higher social status and privileges, etc.). That’s why it’s a legitimate bribe/award for his compliance, when given to Legasov. Ppl got to understand, ppl like Legasov were confronted constantly between telling the truth, and dead, as well as social destruction in the midst of those sides. To choose a moral, ethical and practically wise position and telling the truth, would mean certain painful death-- period.

[@iKvetch558]

Welcome to the final episode...well done getting through this show...it is a tough one. I really like the way the makers of the show added the notes at the end to cover some of the things they got wrong, simplified, or made more dramatic...I just wish they had done more of that, or been more honest. For example, they say that "it has been reported" that everyone on the "Bridge of Death" died...but those reports are very much NOT true....so technically, they are being truthful, but not quite. Other things they do not admit to, I can understand...such as the fact that Legasov was not even at the trial of Dyatlov and company...but it is kind of necessary to turn him into a kind of hero figure and have him do much more than he really did so that the story can be simplified enough for most folks to keep track of.

[@Hayreddin]

That Chernobyl Guy has a whole series dedicated to HBO Chernobyl and with sources to back up what he says (usually displayed on screen). At first I thought this series was mostly truthful with some dramatization, but after having watched a few of his videos I realize it's mostly fiction and some things are not just distorted or adapted but completely wrong, starting from what I thought was the most factual and useful thing, how the reaction functioned and exploded. Also, it seems to me like Dyatlov has been greatly vilified while Legasov was much more similar in real life to how Bryukhanov or Fomin are portrayed in the series.

[@iKvetch558]

@@Hayreddin I have watched a lot of Chernobyl Guy's videos, so I know a lot of the stuff you refer to. I think his stuff is a little too "advanced" for most folks, so I only mention more accessible sources like History v Hollywood. But if people show more interest, I will usually let them know about Chernobyl Guy and/or Chernobylite. Like you, I have definitely lowered my opinion of the show's accuracy over the years as I have studied and learned more about events.

[@AJ1987LV]

There are over 200 comments, so I didn't went through all of them, so I don't know if anyone mentioned it already before, but the official Soviet death toll of 31 includes only those who died after initial exposure, like plant workers and firefighters. There is no actual official record of all deaths that were caused by Chernobyl, also because back in Soviet times, the doctors refused to record people health damage as result of radiation, therefore many of cases were simply not recorded and lot of people who were liquidators, never got acknowledged as ones.

[@SixFour0391]

Even if someone is competent, if the perception is that they aren't, they'll treat you as if you aren't. True power is exceptional competence. The Soviet Union understood this, and so do those in the public eye. "Our power comes from the perception of that power." If you are weak, you cannot allow the perception that you are. So you lie. And lie. Because being seen as weak is so much worse than actually being weak.

[@RageHex]

This show is showing what it is like to live in these types of regimes. How lies are more important then the truth. I would rather live in a free society with faults, errors and failures.

[@G1NZOU]

In fairness to the USSR, they don't exist anymore to update the death toll, Gorbachev described the Chernobyl accident as one of the primary causes of the breakup of the Soviet Union. While the USSR was in a process of liberalisation before it collapsed they didn't have time to properly reform and correct past coverups and mistakes, so the official figure remains what it was in the 90's, as there is no longer a single Soviet politician or government department that can revise the figure.

[@barry.m9681]

👍fantastic reaction ❤🇦🇺

[@VerowakReacts]

Thank you so much!! 😊

[@neptunusrex5195]

The story isn’t so much about the accident, it’s the story of the people who lived, suffered, and died. The series is the people’s story. The people sacrificed everything - their health, their home, their professional reputations and careers, even their very lives to do what the situation required of them. They went willing to their deaths to save others, to save their countrymen, to save the people of neighboring countries, they sacrificed all for the sake of the greater good. As the character Khomyuk says so solemnly, “they died rescuing each other”. The story may get details wrong or changed for dramatic effect but the series makes the viewer feel the experience, trauma, and emotion of the events surrounding Chernobyl. The story is not the accident’s story, it is the people’s story.

[@KaneoHakune]

How do you not have The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton in the shelf?

[@VerowakReacts]

I've never read it, I really should (after watching the movie though)

[@MH-jx1hc]

Regarding the official statistics of the Soviet Union, it's important to remember that it fell apart only a few years later. It ceasing to exist plays a significant role in it failing to keep long term records regarding the number of deaths.

[@UpLateGeek]

They didn't pull any punches in their depiction of people dying of radiation poisoning, but from what I've heard it's worse. There really is no way to show how utterly horrific and painful it is. I think the fact that I already knew a bit about how much of a horror it is, that's why I couldn't manage to get through the first episode myself. Watching you react to it was hard enough, but I'm glad I at least made it through your reaction to the show. Anyway, I choose to take a ray of hope from the ending. If Lyudmilla Ignatenko can defy the odds and have another child, at least something good came from all this.

[@GhostShipBaychimo]

I highly highly highly recommend that you watch a series from The Chernobyl Guy called “Half-Lives” especially the episodes on Dyatlov and Legasov Because this series does a terrible job retelling the actual events of that night and the months that follow.

[@zXSleeZy]

If you want to see more from the zone, i'll recommend watching shieys excursion into chernobyl. 1h + video. Maybe you could react to it even. What makes his videos more interesting is due he's there not with the guards for a tourist viewing. They do their own thing. Highly recommended watch even if you decide not to react to it.

[@Andy76swe]

Awesome series... Directed by a Swedish director 😎

[@MRxMADHATTER]

The whole world (except for those who died) dodged a bullet. This could have ended FAR worse. Thank God for those people who did the right thing. But it would never have been neccesary if not for the ones who did wrong. You can't cheat the truth.

[@zpitzer]

In the movie Dune (2021) Stellan Skarsgård plays a pretty evil person :)

[@VerowakReacts]

I've since seen both Dune movies, and he plays a great villain lol

[@40ozmangi]

Vero used to smile before this Series ..... >_> ......

[@VerowakReacts]

Haha I definitely still smile afterwards

[@sodiumcrush]

It takes its toll but I could watch stories of the evils and incompetencies of bureaucracy and the judicial system all day long. Living through them on the other hand is a completely different story. ...Warnings we never seem to heed. Yes... The actors were amazing. Lots of tough dialogue to get through. Lot's of tough scenes to ponder. Great reaction...

[@Sinewmire]

If you enjoyed Skarsgard in "dubious morality" mode have you seen Andor?

[@VerowakReacts]

Yes!! Season 1 is on the channel, and I'm so excited for season 2 next year!!

[@Sinewmire]

@@VerowakReacts excellent, I'm so glad you've seen it! I'll have to go check out your reaction! I guess there's always Mamma Mia...

[@garethlawton5278]

A pedantic point but the soviet union death toll remains unchanged because it no longer exists, not that they would have changed it but most of the time that we think of when we see that date, Russia has been running things.

[@eveliendorien]

Unfortunately the real lyudmilla ignatenko [the woman who lost her child after childbirth] also lost her house in kiev last year due to russian bombings [it was articled in several news outlets]

[@kapilavastuvasin]

Glad to see you finally warming up to Boris. A lot of people are mean to Boris because they dont get russian humour. His behaviour in kremlin is standard beurocrat behaviour of any high beurocrat - this is exactly how Hillary Clinton would treat some ivy league expert called in to sit in a meeting with the president, fyi. Its his behaviour in the chopper that sets him as giant douchecanoe with audiences, when he was being a dick to Legasov, it wasnt serious- its the russian way of saying ' stop screwing around and give me a crash course' and the last bit of ' now i dont need you' is the compliment of job well done. Having interacted with Russians (as in real russians, not russian immigrant descendants), this is how their humour works. Their threats are not just words and just words are not threats- if Scherbina was serious about tossing legasov outta the chopper if he didnt comply, he'd ask the soldier to open the door, bring legasov to it and then utter his threat. These are just small nuances of culture that western audiences miss. And you can tell that Boris listened well. Him telling legasov to 'stfu and talk to me about things you know and not about what you don't' is a good move from a person in charge of crisis management - their main task is to keep the people focussed on their primary jobs, on the primary job and not get overwhelmed with what everyone is thinking - the safety and all that. The immediate task was how to put out fire, rest everything is secondary and even Legasov knows, thats why he is there- to put out the fire, not plan evacuation. Beyond that, Boris is a pretty gruff but firmly in the side of doing the right thing.

[@threemarksat210]

I really enjoyed your reactions to this entire series! The show is haunting, mesmerizing, and well made, all at the same time. I also learned that you're a CE, which is fun. I believe the main theme of this show is the evil of communism, with the Chernobyl disaster as a perfect backdrop. Now that you've seen the whole thing, I wonder if you thought about that at all while watching? You sort of danced around it in your reactions, but you never said the word. I only ask because you BSCEs are supposed to be pretty smart and all, and I'm curious what you think. Cheers! : )

[@nielgregory108]

It's shocking that younger people are so surprised at how Soviet Russia worked. Shocking!

[@Vort317545]

For those that don't know. The Room he's brought to after the trial and where he meets the head of the KGB. That room is KGB execution room not the drain in the floor the slight slant to the room floor. It's so blood drains away and makes it easy to clean the room after your shot in the back of the head. In the Soviet Union and occupied country. Nearly every factory had such a room, every public building. Step out of line and your brought to that room, never to be seen alive again. How do I know this? Well, I had family in Latvia. That disappeared into that room. That was Grand Soviet Union.

[@Ur_Quan]

And here's the thing about those rooms-they say that after a while, you can hear things. Whispers. Echoes of those who died there. It's not the walls talking, though; it’s the floor. The blood, seeping in after years of executions, never truly leaves. You hear the stories of the doomed, their last words trickling back up from the concrete, always the same: 'You're next.' It starts quietly, and then, before you know it, the whispers turn to screams. That's when you realize-the room never lets anyone go.

[@daz_n]

It's a gruelling, tiring watch, but so well done.

[@havok6280]

It is important to note that we have had nuclear power since the 1950s. In all that time, there are 3 major disasters everyone knows. One was because of a design flaw, another was operator error, and the final was a tsunami. Nuclear power is remarkably safe, efficent, cheap and clean. Modern reactors even recycle nuclear waste. I have friends who lived on top of reactors. All of the US aircraft carriers and more than half of our subs run on nuclear power.

[@iKvetch558]

Minor correction...all US submarines are powered by nuclear reactors...I am pretty sure that the last non-nuclear sub the US operated was retired in 1990.

[@havok6280]

​@iKvetch558 all is more than half. Also the Navy has unmanned subs that are not nuclear. The Manta Ray for example.

[@iKvetch558]

@@havok6280 LOL...OK, fair points. But it is worth noting that the US does not count the Manta Ray as a submarine, it is classed as an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle. But I guess I should have said it was a VERY minor correction.💯😁

[@mrtveye6682]

True. But still the issue is, there is never ever 100% safety, and if something goes really wrong, no matter how small the odds are, it can get catastrophic on a near global level. Flying is the safest way to travel statistically, and it's getting safer with every accident you can learn something from. And still, accidents happen. But as tragic as it is, that only affects the few hundred people who are on that unfortunate flight, not many millions of potential victims.

[@iKvetch558]

@@mrtveye6682 Well...we have learned from Chernobyl that we should not build a bunch of reactors that are unsafe, so as long as we do not do that again, we should be very safe from another Chernobyl. Other than that, all the new generation reactor designs are passively failsafe, so the planet would be considerably more safe if we were to implement them.

[@carthos4402]

Important Note: the death toll of 31 is maddening yes, but you also have to consider that only 5 years after Chernobyl, the Soviet Union collapsed and the government reformed. So there isnt any "Soviet Union" left to alter that number. They don't exist anymore. Now its the Russian Federation, essentially a different country.

[@cherylsims5636]

Oh girl you missed the MOST IMPORTANT in the ending credits.. i told to to watch the. In his memories Mikhail Gorbachev wrote the true cause of the break up of the Soviet Union was Chernobyl. It bankrupted the country. Whats happening today is even sader. Putin has Russian forces invade Ukraine over this stupid war and some of the tank crew dug up the ground in the exclusion zone to hide their tanks. Consequently many have died of radiation poisoning I enjoyed your reaction. You cut too much of the key scenes however so missed a lot of stuff is my only complaint. Well HBO always does good stuff. If u like their mini series I'd suggest ""HBR ROME."" Its like a 20 disc series about Rome during time of Julius Caesar, mark Anthony, Cleopatra..its somewhat historically accurate but more of an excellent drama series following a few of the key players.

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

To date there is no evidence that any of the Russian troops at the Chernobyl plant in the early days of the invasion died. We only know that many got sick. No other information about them is available.

[@D3aD0n3]

I like your hair

[@Randomizer939]

25:13 Russians gonna Russia, never changes or changed in couple hundred years.

[@jeffreyphipps1507]

Chernobyl and many of the resources that were being used by Russia were located in the Ukraine.

[@DeHerg]

before you praise Shcherbina too much, according to a 1991 washington post article: 1. he was the one who ordered Pripyat not to be evacuated (didn't just not resist the order, he gave it) 2. in 1988 he drafted and signed a decree that forbade doctors to use cancer as a cause of death on any certificates and all this was under Gorbachev, the time of perestroika and glasnost, just imagine how this would have been handled under the previous general secretary Brezhnev!

[@VerowakReacts]

Everything that I say about the characters on the show is based on how they are shown in the series.

[@DeHerg]

@VerowakReacts I know, just giving additional information

[@user-vc5rp7nf8f]

you're pretty

[@VerowakReacts]

Thank you 🥰😊

[@markpekrul4393]

As great a film as this is about the events themselves, perhaps its greatest service is as an indictment of the Soviet system.

[@drcoolx]

americans aint any less than them

[@markpekrul4393]

@@drcoolxSeriously? Ask the people who lived under the Soviet regime for their opinions.

[@drcoolx]

@@markpekrul4393 yeah the soviet were scumbags but what I am saying is americans have equally bad for people maybe not to Americans but to the outside world

[@dallesamllhals9161]

Huh? 'cause "The West" Does Not Hide Shit? How Old Are You??? 🤣

[@markpekrul4393]

@@dallesamllhals9161 Oh, my... .

[@domainmojo2162]

Governments man... politics and beaurucracy.

[@deepermind4884]

So many lives destroyed, crippled, harmed, by the selfishness of cutting corners & concealing facts from the very people who would've benefited from the knowledge. We can either create a world ruled by lies or a world ruled by Truth. When will all the lies end? When we start serving Life as the greatest good & stop siding with the world view that says Life means nothing, therefore we can distort it any way we want. God help us all.

[@dallesamllhals9161]

12:26 Chef's kiss (Gwen DeMarco is SO HOT...sry' 2024+)

[@TheTaintedWisdom]

2:51 - Yeah, imagine if Trump had been brought up on charges that fast...

[@flea1972]

👍✌️🤟🤘

[@fewwiggle]

The cost of putting people in positions of power based on their loyalty to the ideology/state, not on competency . . . .

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

Or on their family loyalty, nepotism, as in the case of a certain former and possibly soon to be again US president?

[@fewwiggle]

@@GeraldH-ln4dv Please remind me, how many family members were in Trump's Cabinet?

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

@@fewwiggle Do you really think that the cabinet are the only powerful people in an administration? Seriously? Does Jared Kushner, who was *appointed* to a position as an official senior White House advisor jetting around the world playing "diplomat" rings any bells, genius?

[@fewwiggle]

@@GeraldH-ln4dv "genius" Thank you for noticing!!! "appointed to a position as an official senior White House advisor" A political position where you want and need loyalty and smarts -- Kushner provided both . . . .

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

@@fewwiggle "The cost of putting people in positions of power based on their loyalty to the ideology/state, not on competency" is what you posted. Replace ideology/state with family and notice that you used the word competency and see if you can guess where you've gone wrong. Kushner had zero experience in foreign affairs. Zip. Zilch. Nada. And instead used his position to further enrich himself as foreign governments sought favor with Trump through his son-in-law. You could look this up instead of just digging yourself a deeper hole. Trump cultists are so amusing.

[@jakubfabisiak9810]

Chernobyl disaster is a perfect example of communism in practice.

[@TheLinkku77]

Still these reactors are functional in Russia

[@DavidMacDowellBlue]

The real Dyatlov was nothing like this. Not at all. He was a well liked and respected supervisor who was one of the first to realize what had happened and went deep into the reactor to try and fix the damage. When he figured out the explosion had happened, he tried to get people to leave, but they refused. Dyatlov was one of the heroes. Dyatlov was convicted and endured ten years in the equivalent of a concentration camp in Siberia, with inadequate food or shelter or clothing or medicine, kept warm the wood they could cut down each day with hand tools. This was the Gulags, slightly better than the Nazi Death Camps. But only slightly. For that matter, the tips of the control rods were NOT made of graphite. It was a more complicated and subtle problem with the design which could not be fixed by simply replacing the control rods. One of many dramatic liberties taken, although in this case totally understandable. Many if not most of the changes make no real difference in terms of the story. Boris was put in charge in another disaster, an earthquake. He accepted help from the West, and in the process saved thousands of lives. He was another hero, a great man.

[@mattu235]

Many people have asked how Nikolai Fomin returned to work after his release, but all you need is to look at the date. It was the 90s, aka Yeltsin's Russia and let's just say that if you gave that man something to drink, he'd give you a job. After the new government in the 2000s, he rightfully had to retire from his position. To be fair to Nikolai Fomin, though, because this is something the show doesn't mention, out of the 3 responsible for this, he was the only one who deeply regreted his actions and let's just say that he tried to do 13 reasons why to himself a lot of times. He is the only one alive to this day. I am not saying that he should be forgiven, but I am saying that we should be fair with our criticism, especially for events like this.

[@VerowakReacts]

It's good to know that he regretted his actions. They don't touch on that whatsoever, so in the series, I'm just left to assume that no one really cared lol

[@mattu235]

​@@VerowakReactsAs I mentioned in my other comment, this show has a small element of Russia bad, America good. That's why as accurate as it is they don't mention the political stuff that change that story a bit. As someone who despises communism and therefore the Soviet Union all I am advising is be more objective and don't personalise.

[@shawnmiller4781]

@@mattu235I should post. Out that HBO is pretty much a British owned cable channel. That is why so many of the actors in this series were British based ones, just like band of brothers

[@GeraldH-ln4dv]

There were 6 people tried at the real trial. Station shift supervisor Boris Rogozhkin, reactor division chief Alexander Kovalenko, and inspector Yuri Laushkin were also tried and sentenced but were left out of the show because it would have drastically complicated the story to double the number of people charged. Out of the 6, only Diatlov denied the responsibility of any of the managers.

[@mattu235]

@GeraldH-ln4dv Brihanov also blamed it all only on the design of the reactor. As far as I know he never acknowledged his part in all of this instead choosing the easy solution.

[@davidpax]

The Russians didn't like the series, so they made a film about the event. It was a hero story without much of the citique of the sovyet system . Apparently they haven't completely discarded the communist past.