The Big Problem With the HBO Chernobyl Miniseries: Vichnaya Pamyat - Part One

The HBO mini-series on Chernobyl stands out as one of the biggest successes in recent TV show-making. Surely that cannot possibly have anything to do with Soviet propaganda crafted by people the show’s creator Craig Mazin refers to as “masters of weaponized narration”. Episode Five of the mini-series is its gripping and chilling climax. Its title is Eternal Memory. Memory is a funny thing, particularly when it’s eternal. In the coming videos we will explore some of the key things episode five misremembers twisting the memory of Chernobyl and of the people involved.
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This script was written by Bobby, who has also crafted an incredible history paper exploring how misinformation and disinformation continues to impact the story of Chernobyl. You can read it here: docs.google.co...

[@Berd-p9u]

Addition: Bryukhanov was not at the Power Plant on 25th at 2 pm. He was in Kiev, on a meeting, getting pretty much hated on by the local members of the communist party, because of delays on construction of a couple sheds/barns on a state farm near Pripyat. The fact was, he did not receive the necessary material to have them built. For these failures he was threatened to be fired from his quasi-official role of being the mayor of Pripyat. And spent most of the noon and afternoon defending his role. After that, he picked up his kids and they went to his dacha, presumed to be in Yaniv/Yanov, where he remained until he was called by Chernobyl NPP telephonist Mrs. Popova into the Power Plant a few minutes after 2 am, April 26th.

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

Pin of approval.

[@georgH]

Does it mean it was really bikeshedding?

[@vulpes7079]

...but that's exactly what the series shows? Bryukhanov gets woken up in the middle of the night and rushes to Pripyat

[@markusw7833]

​@@vulpes7079Look at the script. What is the time and the date of the meeting in question?

[@Berd-p9u]

@@vulpes7079 I am talking about the fact that he wasn't in the plant talking with Fomin and Bryukhanov on the afternoon of 25th. A little sidenote to the testimony of Mrs. Popova. When she was instructed by NSS Boris Rogozhkin (station shift supervisor) to wake up the entire upper management of the plant, she had a tape which basically called them all. Except that the tape broke, so it took her hour and half to wake all of the upper management.

[@salland12]

it is interesting how the youtube comment section on literally any Chernobyl video is now filled with people who think they are an ''expert'' on the subject because they watched the HBO series.

[@cleanserofnoobs4162]

*Watches the HBO Show* "Good. I now know how the Chernobyl disaster happened. Now I don't need you." (This video).

[@DUKEHadToDoItToEm]

The more interesting part is how upset some of the people with knowledge get over minor inconsistencies Like the first 5 minutes of this video talking about how they got the control rods wrong, something about them being vertical not horizontal and something about the graphite My question is: Who cares? As someone trying to be entertained I certainly didn't. Nobody is using the HBO series as a blueprint for building their own reactor. It's the same energy as people who are like "if you look real close you can see the reflection of the film crew for 3 frames in the chrome on the side of the car and it ruins the entire thing" 🤓☝️

[@soylentgreenb]

OK. How about this. Dyatlov understood what had happened (not how, but that the core was seriously damaged) and was not at all like he was portrayed. The miners didn’t mine in the nude. The divers survived with fairly low doses and their efforts didn’t end up making any difference. The bridge of death was called this due to traffic accidents and nobody died there due to radiation sickness. ARS doesn’t turn you into a ghoul and the way it was portrayed was just laughable.

[@Veritas419]

Do you think this comment makes you smarter than the average bear?

[@maksphoto78]

@@soylentgreenb That Chernobyl Guy did a video about the "divers" recently.

[@kayjay135]

I think the show got the essence 100% right: "How does an RBMK reactor blow up? With LIES."

[@davidkavanagh189]

It's a total hatchet piece of a show. No better than standard western propaganda

[@vavra222]

@@davidkavanagh189 Its a shame, honestly. I still like the show for how its filmed, i enjoyed my 1st watch very much. It still managed to give me goosebumps at times and since i live in Czech Republic, i got to ask my parents and grandparents on how it affected them and what they were told at the time. Its sad that the show is full of inaccuracies and lies, but it managed to get me interested and i found this channel thanks to that, so it did something right.

[@vulpes7079]

​@@davidkavanagh189sorry, mate, was it the West or the East that blew up Chernobyl?

[@vulpes7079]

Not to mention the fact that he show constantly portrays Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian strength in the face of unimaginable danger but apparently if it doesn't praise the Soviet state it's "propaganda"

[@davidkavanagh189]

@@vulpes7079 That is not what I said. Learn to read and while you're at it, learn something about western commentary on all things Soviet/Russian every since the second world war before embarrassing yourself in the comments.

[@Lornext]

What is the cost of lies? How fitting for this series in reality tbh.

[@TheVeenmeister]

Another one that is. In the first episode... the older man(Zharkov) that stood up in the bunker telling that "people should simple be told to keep their minds on their work, and keep matters of the state... to the state". Mainly that whole part he had as a character is such an example of what is happening these days.

[@iitzfizz]

@@TheVeenmeister Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth...Sooner or later that debt has to be paid

[@tricotdiko1435]

So you are saying they made a mountain of gold by lying about the event as stated? HBO has my gratitude!

[@alan6832]

I don't think the HBO miniseries blamed the operators as this video claims. As I remember the miniseries, the operators, even the pushy one, didn't know about the graphite tips on the control rods, producing maximum power when about 80% raised. If the pushy operator had known, and he had wanted maximum power to burn off the xenon as fast as possible, he would never have raised the control rods past 80%, where maximum power would be located. This may be a simplification, but the HBO series fundamentally agreed with this video, that the operators were not informed of key safety characteristics of the plant.

[@markusw7833]

​@@alan6832What you just described is nonsense.

[@yamato_tomato]

this has to be one of the best rabbit holes I've ever gone down

[@dukecraig2402]

But it's absolutely pointless, who really cares if a TV program gets technical things and hierarchy situations wrong? It doesn't change anything about the fact that somehow somewhere in the system there was a bad design compounded by people who didn't know what they were doing calling the shots that led to the worst nuclear accident in history, and it's not like it was the first time either, there was some kind of an incident that happened around 75 or so with a reactor I believe in Lenningrad, then you've got how many incidents with their nuclear subs that were results of bad designs. The thought that some kind of details in an HBO miniseries being wrong is supposed to be some kind of a big deal that changes something is ridiculous, so what? The incident at Chernobyl happened either way so who cares about details in a TV show, anyone who knows anything knows better than to think they'll learn accurate history from TV shows. So big deal if an HBO program gets details wrong, it doesn't change anything that's important about what happened at Chernobyl anyway.

[@yamato_tomato]

@@dukecraig2402 I care

[@dukecraig2402]

@@yamato_tomato Well then I certainly hope you've learned your lesson about educating yourself about historical events by watching TV shows, even the History Channel programs are rife with historical inaccuracies.

[@teresashinkansen9402]

@@dukecraig2402 One of the problems is the bunch of fools who don't care and now pollute anything related to nuclear technology and accidents with their idiotic and fake knowledge and stupid references. I am so tired of that "not great not terrible" quote getting spammed everywhere and more. I wouldn't have an issue if such people keep it to themselves and within their fantasy community instead of spilling their inaccuracies and dumb quotes to communities with people who care about learning accurate facts.

[@luciencloutier3035]

:D

[@iEATW0RLDS]

No shit. Now youll be telling me the real Titanic never had Leo Dicaprio on it.

[@jannyjan90]

No there was no Jack or Rose Dawson on the ship I think the problem these shows now have ... but should NOT have is that people take these as historical documentaries.. ignoring they are also dramas and that for the sake of the drama things are changed There are people who will take shows like this as historical gospel .. not the dramatisation of the feel of the incident that it is but that is more an inditement of the fact that people have become less curious and lazy in their research of things.. which is why videos like this and the countless others are so good and helpful .. but these sorts of videos do also need to understand the difference between documentry and docudrama

[@vergilsshcum]

This comment makes no sense magot?

[@bobobandy9382]

@@jannyjan90 Anyone who thinks it was a documentary is a fool. That was NEVER claimed by HBO. Not their fault people are dumb.

[@johnharris6655]

I remember watching a clip of Admiral Hyman Rickover ,the father of the nuclear US Navy testifying before congress on Three Mile Island. At one point he said "In the navy we got a guy watching the dial. Then another guy watching him. Then I have another guy watching both of them. And if a light comes one in the control room, don't try and figure out why that light is on in the control room, go down to where that sensor is and see what is going on. "His point was there was to much reliance on Automation.

[@nn4wcc336]

This is to true. I was a "Nuke" Machinist Mate from 1984 to 1993. Was a Chief Machinery Operator on the USS Enterprise, CVN-65. In the reactor control room, there were two reactor operators with an Engineering Officer Of The Watch stationed right behind them. No move, no meter, no gauge was un-monitored. If an indicator showed something abnormal, the call was immediately made for the watch operator responsible for that piece of equipment to investigate it, report it and correct it. This to, was overseen by that watch operators supervisor, (Chief Machinery Operator, Cheif Electrical Operator, etc). Triple redundancy was built into every piece of the puzzle. If one thing, a pump, a valve, a circuit, we had another one in place to resolve the issue. Rickover stepped on some toe's, but he got it right.

[@johnharris6655]

@@nn4wcc336 Jimmy Carter was a young Nuclear Engineer in the Navy. He recalled an interview with Rickover. Rickover asked Carter if he did his best at the Academy. Carter, trying to sound humble said no. Rickover then asked him "Why not."

[@kotzpenner]

Crazy how much the SU relied on automation despite having almost endless manpower. Their tanks also rely on autoloaders, saving a crewmember but making it more prone to jam too.

[@Floedekage]

​@@kotzpennercrazy any tank even have an engine, we have proper good feet. Too much automation I say. And why not deliver the shells by hand? Automation gone amok!

[@someguy4512]

@@kotzpenner you gotta realize that a. Soviet tanks are lot smaller then your avrg western tank thus there isn't enough space for the crew to you know reload manually or even have extra rack for shells behind so instead they have Autoloader to compensate. and b. ever since WW2 the soviets realized that you gotta need to have good tech and a mechanized army this is why they have soo many variants of Troop transport such as BTR-80 and BMP-1 BMP-2 and many other vehicles the reason why is because Nato they don't wanna go through an other Barbarossa cluster f-uck especially with a technologically superior army, they needed to be fast and man power doesn't cut it when you get outmaneuver.

[@ASMRPeople]

I don't know, did we watch the same series? The mini series essentially blames the communist party.

[@WR3ND]

I didn't watch it. I'd like to, but I can't mentally invest it dramamentaries.

[@cipher48]

It was a very apolitical piece, really. It blamed the politicians of the party, not the party or the ideology itself

[@thenoltzone498]

​@@cipher48 Yeah, that's what I got as well. It was more an indictment of the endemic corruption and politicking within the Soviet bureaucracy and governance, than it was about any Communism vs. Capitalism debate. And it's kinda annoying that any discussion about the flaws this show actually has are reduced to just "it's western capitalist pig propaganda".

[@lindsayschmidt2177]

Yeah I’m really not understanding some of these critiques

[@girayhankaya]

​@@cipher48 not apolitical, it hides behind it but there's a sinister hidden message "communism inherantly becomes autocracy, and this would happen again" in reality it's about culture of russia, whatever happens in russia the end result will be autocracy :)

[@Vaultman24]

I mean, we all know that it probably wasn't intentional, but it supports the main thesis, about all the lies and secrets. To this day Chernobyl is surrounded by so much mythology that we still get confused. The truth is so scarce that even the show that was supposed to explain what had happened contained so many lies. It suits the narrative they were going for

[@Arrjik]

If you need to know what happened, just read the IAEA report, that contains probably the most accurate description of what happened based on testimonies, scientific theories, analyses and tests. But that would make for a dull reading I guess, duller than reading another book on "How it truly happened, by John Doe who has no connection to nuclear science whatsoever but wanted to write about it".

[@Isus666999]

Important to remember, in that kind of system, you would never get to become a deputy chief of one of the most prestigious institutions if you would not be a very loyal party member also the KGB would have to approve that.

[@anivicuno9473]

And your citation for this claim is.....? The soviet system is just a typical beauracracy. It would be as ridiculous to suggest that the deputy president of stanford is a loyal party member and approved by the CIA.

[@jannyjan90]

Yes.. your progress up the chain would have been just as much about your loyalty to the system and the state if not more so than your abilites in your role Stalin himself is a good example of this .. he was as much the leader because of his willingness to be less scrupulous than becuase he was capable of being a good leader

[@fare-5174]

Few people actually pay attention to the credits scene in the Chernobyl mini-series. The Legasov figure was actually a stand-in for the scientists who tried to make heads or tails after the disaster, not a 1-1 representation of Legasov, the person. Because it was a story for general consumption, there were "heroes" and "villains" and they were clearly defined. In truth, the USSR itself was rotten to the core for decades at that point. Because it was a mafia state with a prison culture, lying and corruption was the norm, and addressing mistakes was not. The biggest problem with Chernobyl was that it was in USSR at the time, and had the same rotten foundations. For all its faults, the mini-series managed to depict that reasonably clearly.

[@menninkainen8830]

Not Legasov. The female scientist was said to be the stand-in.

[@markusw7833]

@@menninkainen8830 Priceless.

[@DobroDed76]

Since you lived in USSR in that time, judging by your comment, why dont you tell us more?

[@GUnit2214]

Seems you saw something indeed but didn't get it quite right. It is Ulana Khomyuk who is the fictional character in the series, that in the director's vision represents the voice of all the scientists who participated in trying to expose the lies and dig through the cover ups.

[@floydlooney6837]

It was badly designed from the ground up.

[@SamwiseOutdoors]

One of the things that I really appreciate about your work is the fact that you're laying bare how much of Medvedev's narrative has wormed its way into the popular understanding of the incident, and how much we have all osmosed that narrative uncritically. I remember watching the series when it was new and talking about how accurate it was in my understanding, and that's because Medvedev has basically been able to monopolize the discourse effectively since day one. Thank you for shining a light on how much more complex and fascinating this event truly was.

[@TomSoyerHere]

This is the stupidest TV show I ve ever watched The most stupid thing in the first episode is that the people didn't know what happened and that in hospital they didn't have pills. That is a lie. this is a hospital in a city where nuclear power is. They had a special team prepared for such events. They had all the needed pills and they knew what was going on. The most stupid thing among the others in a second episode is that Moscow didn't know what was going on and they sent only Scherbina and Legasov --- in reality, there was the team of a dozen top specialists sent to that. What was the purpose of Scherbina wanting to look what was going on with the reactor when they were in a helicopter??? this is so stupid, also it was stupid of him to intimidate Legasov -- it's truly a lie. also, Scherbina was a good engineer, he knew the basics of how nuclear power plant worked. In this show everyone is stupid and makes decisions only because of the fear of kgb -- lol. Read the real documentary. The government was doing best to fight that disaster and many people volunteered knowing they would die -- this is what the REAL DRAMA of that disaster, you know you are going to die but you do it anyway because you know more people will die. Like firemen, in the beginning, knew that it was a reactor Damn, people living in the city where half of the population works on nuclear plant is not ready for such events and was not training for that???

[@TheVeenmeister]

I have written this to multiple reviewers of the Chernobyl series. On TV you need to explain things to the mainly uneducated viewer. That is why they are talking about graphite tips and bullets firing for thousands of years. So beware that some things are romanticized and specified on the average viewer that has no idea in how a plant like this works. If you go in too technical talk, or too political, viewers turn off the series halfway trough. So take the series with a grain of salt. It is mainly based on real life stories, but still made for people that have no idea about everything that happened.

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

There is a difference between dumbing down things for the layperson viewer, and completely reinventing the story to create new villains from nowhere, living or dead, or, more importantly, directly changing the story story to create a new version of the story that ironically follows the Soviet propaganda narrative.

[@menninkainen8830]

@@thatchernobylguy2915 so this is the only tv.-series you have ever watched or the only tv-series where you have any actual knowledge of the subject? Based on your criticism it still seems to be more accurate than like 95 % of tv-shows, or more.

[@markusw7833]

@@menninkainen8830 ...What?

[@menninkainen8830]

@@markusw7833 as a TV-series it's extremely accurate even if it's not completely accurate. It's not a documentary. Many TV-shows have only a vague relation to actual events, especially when they are depicting events further from history and even something like Band of Brothers still has errors and liberties taken.

[@markusw7833]

@@menninkainen8830 What is wrong with you? Are you watching the video at all?

[@tomaszprzetacznik7802]

A testament to the ignorance of the HBO series' creator is how it was received by those who were involved in the events of April 1986, as well as by historians and experts. The series faced a wave of criticism for its numerous oversimplifications and, paradoxically, for adhering to a version of events close to Soviet propaganda, which placed the blame for the disaster mainly on a few scapegoats, including the plant's director. For those interested in the truth, I recommend reading the interview with former Chernobyl engineer Oleksiy Breus on the BBC website, where he assessed how the series portrays these individuals, saying, "Their characters are distorted and misrepresented, as if they were villains. They were nothing like that."

[@tomaszprzetacznik7802]

For those interested Sheri Plokhy in his book about Chernobyl disaster cites anecdote that Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy and NIKIET that designed RMBK reactor and where responsible for submitting instructions and training for personnel of NPPs, where also famous for having more accountants then scientists. The problem that led to the Chernobyl disaster was an issue of the entire corrupt system.

[@flytrapYTP]

​@@tomaszprzetacznik7802 the corrupt system is quite literally one of the main takeaways from the show, I feel like I'm going insane, did ANY of you watch the show?

[@svenlauke1190]

the entire last episode is basically about how its NOT entirely the operators fault but the design and hushing up of the faults of the reactor by the state...

[@wwanca3771]

lack of media literacy is truly a horrible thing the show works on the premise of show don’t tell and tell don’t show it both shows you and tells you it was the soviet union

[@Zeeves]

The show was an insult, I’m glad I knew enough from personal research to not to be swayed by HBO’s blatant misinformation

[@Essah15]

If the Miniseries is based on a biased Soviet propeganda narrative of the events then it is ironic that modern day russia produced their own miniseries presenting their own biased version of it because they deemed the HBO show as western biased propeganda.

[@gustavocardoso8758]

Yeah, it seems to me the dude here in the video is Just talking shit

[@amandarhodes4072]

@@gustavocardoso8758 No he is right in everything he said. Firstly My father works for EDF energy and designs AGR / PWR nuclear fuel rods for a living. So when he says this show is garbage and unactual to real nuclear science you know it's not real events being portrayed. Russia and the soviet union loved to play the myth that it was the incompetence of the workers on the shift that caused the incident and not the poor design of the class of reactor and the ignorant demands of the kremlin demanding the reactor be turned off and on faster than was safe to do so. Just another way to save face then to face the reality of their mistakes.

[@gustavocardoso8758]

@@amandarhodes4072 yeah you are Just forgeting that a show does not need to be 100% accurate and that they make it very clear in the show that dyatlov was being used as an escape goat also they clearly portray the soviets lies in various scenes legasov rants about the price of lies for half the series. if you do not like the show its ok, but there is no need to make this a political matter, what else do you people need to understand? Someone telling you that USSR is bad and eat little Kids? You north americans are Just histerical and plain dumb at this point for being unable to understand the show and its message.

[@stepheng3985]

I think it highlights the shift in strategy when it comes to the development and dissemination of propaganda between the Soviet and Russian regimes.

[@0LT4R]

I think it makes perfect sense - take a shitty series that's based on Soviet propaganda and claim it is in fact biased against Russia, to gain even more leverage by feeding your society an even bigger lie and more propaganda. It's a great opportunity.

[@longlakeshore]

What bothered me in the trial scene of Episode Five of the HBO series was that while the operators were blamed Legasov (Jared Harris) admits "The operators of unit four did not know that pushing the AZ-5 button would destroy the reactor BECAUSE IT WAS KEPT FROM THEM.." This clearly implied that Legasov knew it wasn't entirely the fault of reactor operators but the series never explored the subject and I was left wondering why.

[@TiagoJoaoSilva]

Maisin wasn't looking to blame the Chernobyl operators - the thesis was that the operators couldn't know the fatal flaw in the reactor because it had been hidden from them - "what is the price of lies". Maisin couldn't start discussing who NIKIET and Minenergo were, everybody would have changed the channel; the KGB would have to be the villain because everybody knew already that the KGB was the villain. This need for simplification is also why the motivations of everyone had to be distilled to simple things - promotion, fear, anger, vanity, denial, etc. It's TV.

[@markusw7833]

@@TiagoJoaoSilva Except Mazin has Legasov voice that "Dyatlov broke every rule we have, and brought a reactor to the brink of destruction."

[@vulpes7079]

​​@@markusw7833that's the conciliatory narrative that some adopted, Dyatlov brought the reactor to the brink but the design itself brought it the rest of the way. That ignores the fact that if Dyatlov had know the reactor design was improper the experiment wouldn't have been carried out in the first place. In his mind and that of the operator's they'd be home for breakfast and that would be it

[@hyperbomb02]

The series does describe that the operators didn't understand that the AZ5 button would destroy the reactor. There are further lines where everything that was done that night was done thinking there was a fail-safe button.

[@40hup]

The AZ-5 shut-down button is completely irrelevant - not pushing it, would have given a best a few more seconds before the same desaster would have taken place. At that point, there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent the exponential power excursion and thus the explosion of the reactor.

[@michaeldugger8436]

The HBO series is a masterpiece.Sure, if you're a nuclear physicist then there's plenty to gripe about, but you're missing the point... which is kind of worrying considering that it's literally stated with the first lines of the entire series: "What is the cost of lies?"

[@mapoch9000]

so, eating writer's lies about historical events is getting the point of the show with such a motto?

[@iflipburger5218]

This Chanel got me to sleep more times than sleeping pills (in a good way love u)

[@williebruciestewie]

it's strangely hypnotic haha

[@erinbaldwin7071]

The content is excellent and his voice is very relaxing!

[@kairosmvr1900]

Literally me last night 😂

[@NIL0S]

I have no idea how I've ended up here, just pulled an all-nighter and a lot of this stuff goes way over my head. But, as somebody who thought the miniseries was good TV, please help me understand if I got the criticisms implied here correctly: 1) There was not just a design flaw in the reactor, but the manner in which it was designed was flawed in the first place and did not follow through with enough studies. 2) The fault, more than with the operators, was to be found a lot more at an institutional level. 3) Some characters, which were portrayed as heroes, were actually part of the problem, and vice versa, i.e. other characters which were portrayed as villains, were just scapegoats. 4) The miniseries is inaccurate with some of the technical stuff. Did I get all that correctly? If so, I still think that the miniseries was good drama, and that it did successfully convey a warning about the dangers of mixing hubris and ideology. Thanks for reading, or helping me understand better. I'm sure I've missunderstood some things.

[@markusw7833]

You understood more than many. By the time we're finished hopefully we'll have established that the mini-series is awful TV.

[@NIL0S]

@@markusw7833 I'm just trying to get some clarity. I find the Chernobyl disaster fascinating and am very into all sorts of fiction stemming from it, so getting an accurate general picture of what actually happened in historic reality, is important to me.

[@markusw7833]

@@NIL0S As this series of videos progresses you'll gain a much more accurate picture of what actually happened.

[@mapesdhs597]

@@markusw7833 It's a prime example of how a false or at least misleading narrative can be portrayed well in terms of conveyed drama, visuals, tension, etc. I would call it visual sophistry. In this era of high production value, it's never been easier to mislead the masses in this manner. Televised fiction becomes cemented fact in the public mindset. Likewise the publicly accepted notions of what is possible in space exploration, how orbital mechanics works and other issues, led to the existence of such absurd movies as Gravity, or movies like Armageddon which are entertaining but utterly riddled with errors. More grounded movies such as Deep Impact receive less attention, they rely on emotional narratives instead. Oddly enough, the most interesting portrayal of such things I've seen is the 8 minute clip on YT of the Russian asteroid disaster movie called, "Mira" (look it up). NIL0S, your summary is good. The problem with history is that at the time of an event, in the near aftermath and long after, there is always a complex web of vested interests in a particular narrative maintaining dominance, whether these are political, financial, military or even cultural (there was a strong desire in Western media back in the 80s to portray the USSR as being backward, Cold War attitudes still widespread). Heck, we're still arguing about exactly how WW1 began, likewise countless incidents during WW2, or here's my personal favourite, the never ending screaming at the sky about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet almost nobody in the general public has even heard of Operation Meetinghouse (look it up), even though it killed far more people than both nukes combined. Both sides had good reason to divert attention away from such conventional bombing raids, while emphasising the nukes meant added pressure on Stalin not to expand beyond the captured territories in Manchuria (also, an irony, without these two nuke attacks, it's entirely possible the war in Korea could have gone nuclear, as there were many in the US defense establishment pushing for it, such a MacNamara, but events in Japan provided a sober reminder of what that would really mean, so such pressures were rebuffed). They say history is written by the victors, but it's also written by those who stand to gain from particular accepted versions of events, in all sorts of ways. I've no doubt there are countless big headline events down the decades about which we'll never know the full truth, there are always those involved with too much to lose. The assassination attempt upon Trump is a more recent example, with entities such as Google even censoring one's ability to search about it (as I write this, Google's autocomplete doesn't work, whereas it works fine on Bing or DuckDuckGo). The masses are manipulated constantly in so many ways, whether it's overtly via TV drama such as the HBO series, or quietly by powerful search engines and social media tech giants, sometimes pandering to what people want to believe perhaps because it helps them sleep at night, or other times because an encouraged fear helps to sell product. Fear and consume, as Michael Moore once said. One author wrote, "There always has to be some kind of current crisis", otherwise there can be no clicks, views and ad revenue for the mainstream media giants. Or to quote Terry Goodkind, "People will choose to believe a lie either because they want it to be true, or they're afraid it's true."

[@thecardboardsword]

@@mapesdhs597 do you normally assume hbo dramas are documentaries?

[@civishamburgum1234]

Tis mans personal vendetta againts this piece of media is thourroly enjoyable.

[@montevallomustang]

Wtf did I just read 😂

[@tinetannies4637]

It's also a bit ridiculous. He's trying to gloss over a proverbial forest by pointing to a few distorted trees. The fundamental points of Chernobyl -- that it blew up, that it lacked a containment vessel, that the Soviets kept it suppressed until it was independently discovered by the West -- all these facts remain. Nibbling at the edges is an effort at distraction and deflection.

[@Gobble-mike-hawk]

@@tinetannies4637 So it's okay to lie a little bit about a tragic real life event? Can't wait for the 9/11 miniseries where the canadian pilot flies a space shuttle into the north tower. Apparently that's okay because the fact that the tower collapsed and a plane caused it remains true. 🤡

[@Gobble-mike-hawk]

@@tinetannies4637 So it's okay to lie a little bit about a tragic event? Can't wait for HBO miniseries of nine eleven that has canadian space shuttle crash into north tower. Binlanden is the goodguy protagonist who is trying to free americans from oppression of capitalism. Apparently that's okay in your head because the fact that a plane crashed into the building and it collapsed, remains accurate. Just little nibbling at the edges of truth

[@convenientEstelle]

​@@tinetannies4637 You know all of that is in the first few episodes of the series? This channel's point is that the series fundamentally misconstrues the internal politics around that disaster.

[@lindsayschmidt2177]

I generally like this channel as someone who is fascinated by Chernobyl, and while it’s true the series got the science wrong, I feel like a lot of these critiques aren’t really valid. The show is not an actual documentary. It’s a fictionalized version of what happened. Things were changed to keep it entertaining and relatable. Nobody wants to watch a fictionalized show that is essentially just a lecture.

[@danjamesdixon9835]

Bryukhanov speaks with a strong Liverpudlian accent throughout the show and this guy is analysing the sociopolitical intricacies of the Soviet scientific community 😂

[@felipequaresma4215]

Love how one moment the series sticks to soviet propaganda and another anti soviet propagabda

[@markusw7833]

It happens.

[@TomSoyerHere]

This is the stupidest TV show I ve ever watched The most stupid thing in the first episode is that the people didn't know what happened and that in hospital they didn't have pills. That is a lie. this is a hospital in a city where nuclear power is. They had a special team prepared for such events. They had all the needed pills and they knew what was going on. The most stupid thing among the others in a second episode is that Moscow didn't know what was going on and they sent only Scherbina and Legasov --- in reality, there was the team of a dozen top specialists sent to that. What was the purpose of Scherbina wanting to look what was going on with the reactor when they were in a helicopter??? this is so stupid, also it was stupid of him to intimidate Legasov -- it's truly a lie. also, Scherbina was a good engineer, he knew the basics of how nuclear power plant worked. In this show everyone is stupid and makes decisions only because of the fear of kgb -- lol. Read the real documentary. The government was doing best to fight that disaster and many people volunteered knowing they would die -- this is what the REAL DRAMA of that disaster, you know you are going to die but you do it anyway because you know more people will die. Like firemen, in the beginning, knew that it was a reactor Damn, people living in the city where half of the population works on nuclear plant is not ready for such events and was not training for that???

[@NazarovVv]

Just one thing I'd like to point out. Eternal Memory doesn't refer to physical human memory. Вічна пам'ять in Ukrainian, Вечная память in Russian, Вечна памет in Bulgarian and probably a whole lot of other Slavic languages refers to the deceased. In other words when you say "Vechnaya pamyat (name)" means the person/persons' lives shall never be forgotten and will be honored. I know it's probably meant metaphorically in your excellent video but I thought it was worth pointing out.

[@heinrichb]

*Eastern Christianity. It refers to memory eternal, an exclamation during a funeral or memorial service in accordance with the Byzantine Rite and referring to the eternal remembrance of souls of the deceased by God. You will see this used across Orthodox Churches as well as Eastern Catholic Churches. In the Western Rite it's known as the eternal rest.

[@Miraihi]

​@@heinrichbRight, "Eternal remembrance" would be a more correct translation.

[@AWK_667]

If the cover of a book says it’s legit, it must be legit. No doubt.

[@blacknapalm2131]

This video was pretty good. *Not great not terrible*

[@chrisfoxwell4128]

Next, Yuri would never wear green socks. No one knows how that got in the script either.

[@markusw7833]

You just wait until we get to Mickey Mouse.

[@cozza819]

The only thing i remember from this show was when the reactor had started blowing up and something was clearly very very very wrong and the dude just said "call the electricians" i couldnt stop laughing. Me and my friends still use that quote today when somethint goes very wrong just say call the electricians 😅😅😅

[@scfan7231]

This is so interesting! This is even a much better story than the film tells.

[@zephyr8072]

A guy named Medvedev talking absolute bollocks? Seems to be a running theme in those parts.

[@chevicus]

i must say, that my mother couldn't watch Chernobyl, because everyday life of soviet people was shown very far from reality. Legasov (deputy director of very big NII and vice dean of chemistry department of Moscow State University would never live in a small flat somewhere. My grandpa was professor of economics in Kiev State university and was living in 3 room flat in center of Kiev). Also, we had honor knowing Vladimir Gubarev, an author of "Sarcophagus" play, the play he made on material gathered from being journalist in Chernobyl, when disaster took place. As he told us, he could stomach about 1.2 of episodes, then he just stopped watching

[@markusw7833]

How come?

[@IbishuCovet]

what? how come what?​@@markusw7833

[@TomSoyerHere]

My favorite stupid episode is the coalminers..... The USSR Minister of Coal Industry is of course "white collar", he was a minister all his life and never went down the mine.... In the American worldview, that's the way it is. However, if we look at the real biography of the real minister Shchadov, I quote: "He began his labour activity from the age of 15. After graduation from the technical school, he was assigned to a mine and was appointed as a mechanic of the mine site, since May 1949 he was the head of the site, then deputy chief mechanic of the mine. After graduation from the Higher Engineering Courses - chief engineer of mines, since 1955 - head of mines. Manager of the Mamslyuda Trust (1960-1963). From 1966 worked at the Vostsibugol Combine as Deputy Chief, then Chief of the Combine, then General Director of Vostsibugol. Deputy Minister (1977), First Deputy Minister (1981), from 1985 to 1991 Minister of Coal Industry of the USSR."

[@jannyjan90]

@@TomSoyerHere It's called.... artistic liscence I also can't imagine that once the miners heard the situation they needed much persuading to help... but.. drama This is after all a drame first and historical depiction of an event second

[@someguy4512]

@@jannyjan90 ehhh no its not there is a fine line between "artistic depictions" and " propoganda "

[@martinhumble]

I remember the event vividly as being a Swede. For years there were restrictions for which berries, mushrooms and wildlife that could be eaten. My main take away from the series, apart from the always excellent Stellan Skarsgård🇸🇪, was the atmosphere it portrayed - rather than facts. No dramatisation cares more about being exact over being "good TV". For myself, I've read up on beforehand and watched the series as quasi-documental entertainment. And, well made at that. Thank you for your comments - as the negative side of simplified, or biased dramas are taken as (relatively) completely factual documentaries.

[@monsterlord8327]

Im germany we still have those restrictions in some parts of the country

[@singularlyinepthuman]

Absolutely agree. I'd read widely around the subject for many years. I have been horrifiedly fascinated by Chernobyl since it happened when I was a child. The series is just that, a series for entertainment purposes, if it makes some people decide to further learn of the event then that's a good thing.

[@RabenmundK]

As a 47 yo German, i still remember vividly the confusion and panic of the adults around me short after the Chernobyl disaster.. and that we weren't allowed to play in the forest and playgrounds (or gather berries and mushrooms) that year.

[@christinakaur8766]

Still can't hunt or forage in parts of Austria as well.

[@sonsofthewestredwhiteblue5317]

HBO went to lengths to establish that the one immutable, reconcilable fact in terms of what transpired that day was that the shift supervisor was an elite rank of a human being who seems to have been destined to be on duty that night thus exposing humanity to the yawning chasm that was his contempt for those subordinate to him on an org chart

[@dukecraig2402]

Oh nonsense, you're acting like HBO was involved in some kind of a conspiracy or cover up, anyone who knows anything about the world knows better than to think TV programs are 100% accurate about thing's, if the book that the guy who wrote the script off of was flawed then that's on whoever wrote the book. None of this makes any difference anyway, so what if finer points and details are wrong either way Chernobyl was a bad design compounded by humans screwing thing's up that led to the worst nuclear disaster in history, and nothing about details about it that are wrong in an HBO miniseries changes anything about that, it's not because thing's are wrong in a TV show is why people can't live there anymore, so big deal if their TV show didn't get everything right, it's not supposed to be a history lesson anyway.

[@barryclay9084]

Good on ya, mate!

[@Theodore-ku2ci]

Chernobyl guy, I love you please don't die on me. ☹️

[@eugennomatterr7311]

It'll be fine he did not work for boeing

[@jeanlucdiscard]

Only 3.4 Roetgen, equivalent to a chest xray I'm told.

[@markusw7833]

@@eugennomatterr7311 :)

[@grahamrobbins7926]

According to Craig Mazin said most of the script & story came from Voices of Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievitch, which he clained during the companion podcast which ran concurrently with the shows initial run, though I suspect he was referring to the Ignatenko family storyline. There can be little doubt about Medvedev's book being a source for a lot of the erroneous information re: the design & events leading up to the disaster. As someone who had a fascination for all things nuclear throught the years (and remembers when Chernobyl happened) I was struck at how the showhow got some things that seem otherwise unnecessary to change and/or would not have deeply impacted the storyline.

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

Voices From Chernobyl has also been thoroughly dragged through the mud in terms of inaccuracy; even Lyudmilla Ignatenko has gone public stating that her story was changed completely. Kupnyi actually talks about this before talking about Medvedev's book, which episode 5 was largely based on.

[@grahamrobbins7926]

@@thatchernobylguy2915 I suspected as much. The whole "the baby absorbed all the radiation so mom could live" bit that was allegedly taken from Voices of Chernobyl is just ludicrous. Thanks for clarifying, and keep up the great work, I love you channel! :)

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

@@grahamrobbins7926 Lyudmilla Ignatenko's child, Natasha, was born with congenital heart problems and liver cirrhosis. Radiation had nothing to do with her death; they developed a lot earlier in pregnancy.

[@grahamrobbins7926]

​@@thatchernobylguy2915 Yeah, I remember reading their daughter had a heart condition or something and died shortly after birth, but I didn't know about the liver on top of that, neither of which would be tied to ionizing radiation exposure of course and apparently were diagnosed prior to the events of 26 April. I know people can exaggerate their experiences and distort the truth sometimes when they are asked to recall said event, but I just don't understand why Ignatenko or Svetlana or Medvedev or any of them would lie about easily refutable stories. Perhaps animus vs. the Soviet overseers, or maybe just good ol' fashioned greed (write a book, make it "exciting", and cash cheques).

[@menninkainen8830]

@@grahamrobbins7926 I thought that was just to imply how little average soviet citizen understood things like radiation. Practically no one would think that line to make any sense, right? People just can't be that stupid in the 21st century.

[@Veritas419]

All of these details and insights are very interesting. Despite all of the flaws and subterfuge surrounding the RBMK, the fact of that matter still remains that those men in that control room were the only people on the planet that somehow managed to blow up a nuclear reactor.

[@ChrisMatthewson]

And if you were told to operate a machine but important things about that machine were kept from you, how would you be to blame for what happened when it went wrong? That is the beauty of it: The operatives were doing their jobs as they have always done their jobs. They did nothing wrong. What made it explode was a series of things of which the operative had little to no knowledge about.

[@menninkainen8830]

@@ChrisMatthewson That just tells us everything we need to know and understand about soviet system and soviet education. No one would have let those guys with their training, experience and understanding to run a reactor in the west. Series was excellent in portraying the Russian / Soviet mentality and what a disaster waiting to happen it is.

[@ChrisMatthewson]

@@menninkainen8830 Yes, they may have been slightly inexperience; after all the turbine rundown test was supposed to be carried out by the more experienced day shift but was put on the nightshift people instead. That wasn't their fault it was the fault of the person or persons who decided that. And it doesn't matter if you are 18 or 80, if reactor flaws are covered up and suppressed, then you can't blame the operators lack of knowledge of them.

[@davidb9039]

I read that the displacer tips were made of Zirconium, which is basically neutron inert, and thus by displacing the water in the control channel, which was a neutron poison in the RBMK reactor, with Zirconium, which was effectively neutral to neutrons, this added reactivity caused a prompt power shift in the SUR equation and then exceeded design limits which were much lower than western standards due to substandard materials and a design that favored refueling while in operation to insure continuity of power and minimize refuel downtime. Refueling while under power required numerous penetrations and weld points that don't exist in western designs because each weld is a potential failure point. Then there was of course the pressure vessel design which could only withstand the failure of a single fuel cell assembly (suffered 4 or 5), and the total lack of an adequate containment building (the sheet metal shed was not designed to withstand anything more than a standard commercial Industrial building). I always wondered why they didn't go into the refueling process in the show... they used to routinely brag about how much more efficient they were since they could refuel while at power... Also the heavy reliance on the computers of the era... I'm not even sure what this comment is anymore... CHEERS!

[@markusw7833]

The displacers were made of graphite, the refueling machine may have had something to do with a dual-mode plutonium production, the fuel assembly failure was more than one I think and there was no pressure vessel as this was a graphite channel design, and a containment dome may have been insufficient.

[@Blazs120gl]

The promotion motive most probably came from the older Discovery Channel docu series Zero Hour, which had a episode about the disaster. The narrator mentions it around the 21 minute mark. In that episode, there is also Nikolai Steinberg who talks about Dyatlov's personality and the lack of authority/prestige prevented everyone to speak up against his decisions about the test. It's very telling that, although this Zero Hour episode also interviewed Stolyarchuk, he only talks about the steam separators, probably becasue he refused to back up Steinberg's depiction of Dyatlov or the narrative forged by the KBG (or Discovery simply cut it due to it not looking for a diversity in opinions).

[@markusw7833]

Hm, is that the furthest back it goes?

[@Blazs120gl]

@@markusw7833 Most probably not, as we can see there are lots of self-entitled witnesses with books full of cool stories and interviews...

[@MinSredMash]

You should know that Steinberg's words were taken completely out of context in that crap-tastic documentary. Steinberg has never said that the operators should have protested Dyatlov's instructions. When he actually watched that part of the documentary, he had some very rude words to say about the filmmakers' manipulation of the interview footage...

[@markusw7833]

@@MinSredMash Interesting.

[@Blazs120gl]

​@@MinSredMash Hmm I haven't heard about that one! Valuable insight, thank you! I guess that English speaking guy was unreasonably emotional/hostile about the staff involved. Then it's even harder to understand how Steinberg gave Discovery a pass... I guess it's very hard to change people's minds if, as the KGB figure narrated it in the series, we must have heroes, villains and punishment. As someone who was a child in a former socialist country, I can confirm that there was no to bad luck or honest mistake, but always a blame and a punishment.

[@tomaszprzetacznik7802]

Craig Mazin has no clue about the realities of life in the Soviet Union. The creator of the HBO series also completely misunderstands the mentality of the people he tried to portray, which results in a series drawn in such broad strokes that it borders on caricature. The characters in Mazin's miniseries behave like those from the comedy "The Death of Stalin" (an adaptation of the comic book of the same name), which has little to do with reality. While the format of a series requires strong characters and simplified storylines, the biggest issue is likely the cultural barrier and sheer ignorance. The worst part was that Mazin often depicted still-living people without any moral qualms about how he portrayed them-whether he might be wrong or if he had actually verified the facts.

[@tomaszprzetacznik7802]

Speaking of facts, for those who would like to read and explore the topic further, I recommend the book *Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy* by Serhii Plokhy. It is a very well-researched and solid work by a renowned author.

[@walkerdefaul8487]

Oh I weep for the former Soviet stooges lmao

[@___Bruh__]

Damn I really loved the Chernobyl series because I thought it was accurate. It's still really good, but I wish they had you in the writers' room lol.

[@xxnoxx-xp5bl]

Did I miss Chernobyl being anything other than a HBO drama? I don't tecall it ever claiming to be full accurate.

[@markusw7833]

Yes, you did miss it. Watch the first Masters of Weaponized Narration video.

[@veronicamaine3813]

It never was claimed to be fully accurate but they undeniably never made it clear that they had embellished etc a lot. Sadly people seem to treat it like a documentary.

[@mcfail3450]

The issue is it, like many entertaining media that change the facts to be more entertaining, didn't state it wasn't entirely true. Film and show makers should take responsibility in these situations and just add a disclaimer that the story is still debated or that the show took liberties for entertainment purposes.

[@markusw7833]

@@mcfail3450 Except the creator of the mini-series has openly said that they were actively not trying to take liberties and dramatize, but only selectively and deliberately adapt the truth to TV. It is maddening how people assume to know the intention of the creator over the creator's own words. So assertive about it too, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

[@TomSoyerHere]

This is the stupidest TV show I ve ever watched The most stupid thing in the first episode is that the people didn't know what happened and that in hospital they didn't have pills. That is a lie. this is a hospital in a city where nuclear power is. They had a special team prepared for such events. They had all the needed pills and they knew what was going on. The most stupid thing among the others in a second episode is that Moscow didn't know what was going on and they sent only Scherbina and Legasov --- in reality, there was the team of a dozen top specialists sent to that. What was the purpose of Scherbina wanting to look what was going on with the reactor when they were in a helicopter??? this is so stupid, also it was stupid of him to intimidate Legasov -- it's truly a lie. also, Scherbina was a good engineer, he knew the basics of how nuclear power plant worked. In this show everyone is stupid and makes decisions only because of the fear of kgb -- lol. Read the real documentary. The government was doing best to fight that disaster and many people volunteered knowing they would die -- this is what the REAL DRAMA of that disaster, you know you are going to die but you do it anyway because you know more people will die. Like firemen, in the beginning, knew that it was a reactor Damn, people living in the city where half of the population works on nuclear plant is not ready for such events and was not training for that???

[@gadyavladik]

Im very appreciative of your pronunciation of names. Its so rare to find a youtuber who really tries

[@MostlyPennyCat]

An interesting thing I've found is only one video ever discussing a neutron flux spike at the edge of reactor core. After AZ-5 was pressed and all rods started to enter the core, apparently the very first thing that happened was at the opposite edge of the reactor. The water that sits at the edge of the reactor was immediately displaced by graphite, spiking neutron flux and subsequently water pressure, combined with the positive void coefficient this is the "sudden spike" before shutdown seen at that other reactor. Everyone just says "graphite types rods" and moves on. The reason there's a water not graphite at the edge of the reactor is welded seals will never be as strong as sheets of metal in the middle. It was these welds, joins, valves and seals that warped, cracked and failed, jamming the control rods with only graphite in the reactor. You don't NEED to explain this or know it, but nobody ever goes that one step further.

[@MinSredMash]

I am struggling to follow your comment here. When you say 'edge' of the reactor, do you actually mean the 'bottom?' Because that's where the positive scram effect takes places: the entire bottom of the reactor. Also there is no real evidence that the control rods jammed in place. Your reference to welded seals seems to be confused.

[@thomasjones6413]

It's not a documentary, and who woulda thunk hollywood writers have biases and embellished for dramatic effect... I'm so shocked

[@8bitorgy]

Never underestimate narrative manipulation. Really.

[@gustavocardoso8758]

Yeah especialy in this video cause this guy is full of shit. You people need to go back to school and learn text interpretation all over again. You guys clearly missed the whole point of the show when they talk about lies and how they portray the communist party and their officials.

[@dr4d1s]

I get that being accurate is important aspect to history and I appreciate that you spent the time addressing the inaccuracies. On the same hand though, this is a TV show and there are going to things they get wrong or outright change for dramatic license or whatever. In this day and age we should just be glad that more people are aware of the horrible tragedy that Chernobyl was and is. If you want to be entertained and learn a thing or two about a historical event; whach a TV show or movie about it. You will usually get the gist of what happened. If you want to actually learn about a historical event; read a few books wrote from either side.

[@Toin9291]

You helped me make my presentation for science class! Thanks so much you helped me alot

[@maknirak]

One thing that never made sense to me about the HBO series was: if the USSR was so obsessed with their image, why wouldn't they fix the RBMK reactors as soon as possible? Risking another accident like Chernobyl would be way worse for their reputation than admitting to a design flaw.

[@teaandloops2864]

In all societies common and individual good collide. USSR did not have many specific mechanisms that would resolve such situations beneficially. To correct a flaw, designers, supervisors, builders etc would have to admit to failure and face the punishment - this individual avoidance eventually causes structural breakdown once small unaddressed flaws accumulate (perhaps to the point they can no longer be ignored) That is what the series refers to with each lie incurring a debt to the truth

[@gabrielrodriguez821]

Let's go, this show is filled with every myth, half truth and misconception of Chernobly ever told

[@2782Jack]

I feel that I don't even have enough science literacy to understand what this video is talking about but it seems well constructed, good job!

[@arthurconanthebarbarian1288]

Thanks for your video! I don't know much about the Chernobyl incident, but the series have left me suspicious enough to fact-check it after the viewing. Apart from the incident itself, the portrayal of the Soviet people and culture felt off, too. (I've read a lot about that era but I'm not an expert, so it's just my thoughts) The cane guy from the bunker scene was speaking nonsense imo -- communist ideology was more of an official speech sweetener, no one really thought about Lenin and the Stalinist attitude was not encouraged in Brezhnev era, seen as too aggressive. In the first scene with Uliana, a poem is read on the radio, and it goes something like "a true Russian warrior dies a true Russian death" or something like that. That's surely far too metal for early Perestroika, even in Stalin era such epithets weren't common. Also the scene where she talks to the ex-shoefactory worker -- the entire exchange is just a "communism bad" PSA, no one would just casually behave like that guy. Being a boss is also about being hard-working and trustworthy, or at least convincingly looking so. This cartoonish villainness of some characters just makes it the same kind of slop as Reagan-era action movies. I feel like the set designers did a better homework than the scriptwriters.

[@hcilliers]

This is the type of content that makes KZbin worth it!

[@AboveEmAllProduction]

Ikr I pay like 4000 dolar a month on utube finely i get movie that worth it 😊😊😊😊😊😊

[@bigjim2times]

I got enough messages from the series to comprehend this catastrophe (from knowing nothing at all). That's all that matters to a commoner like me.

[@spitfire0005]

what was gorbachevs view on all this? who did he blame? what actions did he take? did any of the scientists change opinions after his outbursts? what did he think of chernobyl before and after the accident?

[@SnifflyWhale]

Maizin wants to feed into old western ideas of what communism was, what its flaws were. He wants Heroic Individuals to stand up against Monolithic Communism. The problem is the real story shows that communism wasn't so monolithic after all. Quite the opposite in fact. The story is one of rival ministries duking it out for who gets all the blame for the clusterfuck they all had a hand in creating. Bits of these ministries kept secrets from each other, lied to each other. There's an interesting story there, but Maizin comes in with this preconceived idea of what happened, and he just hammers the reality to fit.

[@RobertCraft-re5sf]

Regardless of the actual personalities of the real men, the series was spot-on. The show made a powerful and accurate point about Soviet Russian life and how they ran things and the dangers it led to. Legasov's tapes and suicide for example, are the only reason we know many of these things. I think it is likely the information was kept from them.

[@Trasmor]

I'm taking the miniseries as good show. If you want pure facts there is a good book from Serhii Plokhy about the disaster and everything around.

[@Powertampa]

I think what fits best is what various disaster documentaries always like to say. It was never just one thing that was the cause, but many small issues that all conspired to cause an accident. What HBO did well is portray the disgusting behavior of contempt some absolutely had for the work they did. On an individual level they all had their own idea of what they should be doing and some of them cared more than others. They also showed that the RBMK is not exactly the most competent design. Perhaps one could argue that the whole control rod theory is standing proxy for that. Would it have been better to perhaps change the script to do a flashback to the flawed development and other nonsense going on that created the environment necessary for the disaster? Absolutely and it would not have made for bad TV either. I suspect they were strapped for cash on it and wanted to fit it into a mini series to keep it engaging instead of drawing things out. That they used questionable sources for it is nothing new either. See it's kinda on brand that a series that essentially portrays the trainwreck that was the USSR is in itself falling down the same sewer pipes and makes a complete fumble of what could have been a good story. In the end it doesn't matter much anyways, because we all know that it was an accident that was bound to happen one way or the other. The political system and the way it handled scientific research that flys into the face of economic progress created a climate that made disasters not a question of if, but when. I mean look at what else happened during these times and the causes for them. Planes crashing cause no one gave a shit about loading them correctly and no on speaking up. There was so much contempt, incompetence and classism going on among all the political squabble that it is surprising the other nuclear incidents didn't create more fallout. I mean if watching that series doesn't make you distrust anything that comes out of the USSR then has it really failed to portray anything? Think back to how much material you covered on this. Can't put all of that into good tv either given some of it just isn't interesting for a general audience. We are all here, because we have a deeper interest in what really went on. I still enjoyed the series even if a lot of it felt like it was pushing the scientific and even political parts under the table. Yet still it felt like it got the message across, that the whole accident was inevitable and a product of the clusterfuck that was the USSR in so many ways. Plus you have to remember that a general audience needs some help to navigate a story like this. A full on accurate account would confuse the living hell out of them. Maybe it got the emphasis wrong in parts, but it certainly can't be faulted for how it showed the whole thing had tons of opportunity to not happen and yet due to many parties involved it did. The problem will, in all aspects, always be the people. Be they incompetent, lying or ignorant. The reasons matter less when the outcome is the same and even less when the behavior is a product less of their own volition, but one bred by the political system and climate that saturated so much of life for them. They could have done more, but didn't. All of them. Small character flaws and failures and they conspired to cause the accident. Replace any one of them and the outcome could have been different, but that's history. And really if it creates renewed interest in the whole thing some may eventually uncover what happened and that might, like yourself, inspire some more coverage of the truth. Personally, I don't even really care about the specifics anymore, because it all eventually ends up just being "well that's the Russians for ya" and that's frankly all the information anyone needs as to why something bad happened in the USSR. The cavalcade of fuckups Chernobyl just the crown jewel really. Lastly. It is HBO. They are not exactly known for making the best of decisions or anything. Going into it with the expectation of being entertained and not much else creates less disappointed than expecting any sort of integrity for the truth. They themselves are just a product of their climate as well. It's close enough to Hollywood to not expect much. I mean I'd put it past them to make a mini series on the ole killdozer and getting the facts wrong. That case has been misrepresented so much on the internet that it would be easy to pick the wrong hero too. Is that bad? Yeah, no argument there. Getting them to change though with the cards they been dealt. Difficult. You can't protect everyone. Critical thinking is a skill everyone should have, but not many do. Taking away wrong "facts" and not doing the research they only have themselves to blame for it. Expecting more integrity than that attitude can support and the disappointment is programmed. I'm not trying to defend them either, but I also don't think that it is as detrimental as it seems to you. It was good tv and eventually it will end up on the pile with the rest to be forgotten.

[@tony9146]

Exactly! A bit long but well written! It was never meant to be a fully accurate documentary of every single little detail, as that would make for an incredibly long and boring story. It’s like the creator of this video is unfamiliar with the basic concept of a television dramatization.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, are you suggesting that there are no top control rods because they would stick out into the reactor hall when extracted? Because what you see on the floor of the reactor hall is not the Upper Biological Shield, that's several meters below the hall floor. There's _a lot_ of steam piping under there

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

What we're saying is that the claim that the graphite "tips" enter the core first is complete bogus, because given the length of the control rods, they would be sticking out into the floor of the Reactor Hall. They were in fact displacers that sat in the middle of the reactor to, as their name implies, displace waters.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

@@thatchernobylguy2915 I think that needs a separate video because I can't visualise that over text. As far as I'm aware, the control rods went Blank-Graphite-Blank-Boron-Blank And either BGB or BBB was in the reactor. When they are first inserted, at the bottom of the reactor, a water filled blank is displaced by graphite, boosting the neutron flux at the edge of the reactor. And that this is what jammed the rods, a reactivity spike that caused the channels to warp and jam the control rods. And it doesn't happen at the inserting end because the water filled blank is immediately displaced by the boron. Are you saying that's _not_ what happened?

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

More or less, what you're saying is right, yes. Except the control rods didn't jam. This can be verified as the control rods only descended approximately 1/3 of the way. As it takes about 18 seconds for a control rod to fully descend, and there was about 6 seconds between AZ-5 being pressed and the first explosion; the rods descended the entire duration of the runaway and they stopped descending because they no longer existed.

[@markusw7833]

@@MostlyPennyCat 5-meter graphite tips entering the core from above do not exist. Yes, the displacement of water columns under the graphite displacers - the water columns being at the bottom of the core and the graphite displacers being in the middle of the core - is what initiated the destructive runaway reaction. You're focusing too much on the control rods being jammed (like the mini-series). Proper sources emphasize the coefficients of reactivity, which will be covered in part three of this series.

[@darbodrake89]

​@thatchernobylguy2915 so your contention is the word tip?

[@Chutley]

this channel is great and i appreciate you posting what you find on your deep dives! I hate to point this out but the E at the end of "erudite" is silent

[@markusw7833]

You haven't heard of the Greco-Roman goddess Erudite?

[@harrisonallton795]

An excellent start to a Saturday. Let's go!

[@vandeheyeric]

Another brilliant work, and I appreciate it. It is a kind of sick irony that Dyatlov proved to be more of a stand up man than Legasov in the end. Also, what struck me most was listening to Mazin's commentaries, which I think show that he took the wrong lessons from this (in part due to biases and an agenda regarding Climate Policy). He kept hammering on about "the experts" or "scientists" and trusting them, which sent a chill up my spine even before I knew all the info you have packed in. Science is an invaluable tool, and honest scientists are vital. But "the experts" and "scientists" can get things wrong even when trying their hardest to tell the truth, and that's before you get into utterly politicized, tainted subjects where many "experts" or "scientists" are either credentialed liars or are at least willing to become so in order to protect or get Theirs. And Mazin was not a completely ignorant dupe; he talked in depths about Soviet manipulation, politicization, and propaganda and he did a fair amount of research. But even he was taken in by some of the clever propaganda. And that's chilling. Thank you for trying to set the record straight.

[@markusw7833]

Good comment. We're pro science and expertise ourselves, but reality can be much different from assumptions.

[@Uncl3H0ck3y]

You came away from the series thinking it scapegoated Dyatlov and his managers? Really? The whole point was to layout that they were mislead by the design being stated that they can’t explode, didn’t know about the kill switch… it was clear about the design being the core fault.

[@rodrigosouto3712]

Make a video telling the story of the other RBMK nuclear power plants (Leningrad, Ignalina, Kursk and Smolensk) I liked your channel, greetings from Portugal!

[@gergelygaal1456]

Wow!! As a huge fan of the HBO series, and as someone who have read a scientific book on the matter from Hungarian sources (I am Hungarian), I am taken aback of your video. The Hungarian book is mainly focused on technical aspects of the RBMK reactors and the positive void coefficient and doesn't really mention the operators errors. It focuses on design and science errors and on the massive lies on the number of estimated casualities and the scale of the fallout. I found it strange that an acknowledged publication from nuclear scientists from Hungary, a state which has been directly affected by the consequences of this disaster is deviating so much from the narrative of the mini series which conveys its message so convincingly. Now the picture is starting to be clearer, because of the facts you pointed out in this video. It is so ironic though that the main message of the show is what lies cost and they did basically lie about the causes and their very hero himself...

[@markusw7833]

Irony is enormously present.

[@lilpotato7428]

I think a key misunderstanding by many is that of the difference between a docudrama and a documentary. Shows/movies like HBO’s Chernobyl, Titanic, etc. are loosely based on the events but dramatise and add characters to the events for storytelling purposes. They are not true nor entirely accurate works. If it was 100% accurate it wouldn’t be as marketable/interesting to a wider audience which is what a company/production is aiming to do. Further, anybody who seeks to accurately learn about an event should watch or read sources who make critical but fair arguments that are supported by a variety of evidence (not trying to say this video doesn’t, just that many people take what is being said to them as gospel without critically thinking about it). In the case of Chernobyl for instance I would not solely rely on USSR released or archival materials nor solely use witness testimonies and oral histories but instead use them as a means of fact checking one another. When wanting to learn more about a historical event through reading I would be critical of the background of the author too (I.e., I’d read the work of a qualified historian over a journalist or amateur historian as a qualified historian is taught how to read, write, and analyse histories).

[@markusw7833]

Nice drivel. A TL;DR video is coming out by the end of the week.

[@OliverSG1]

Im confused...youre slating the producers for following a book, but your counter is that 'in this other book....' how do we know which is right?

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

One book has been thoroughly debunked by the actual surviving data, scientific reports and witness testimony of the night of the disaster; the other book is basically a quoting a newspaper article and an eyewitness in the extract :)

[@jannyjan90]

Especially when the reputation of the soviet union was at stake.. i can't ever see them adjusting things to make themselves look better.. could you?? And they certainly would never have covered things up or set out to debunk something close tot he truth

[@CadenKarow]

I've been waiting for this video

[@Argosh]

8:40 can't really argue with that, it is pretty unanimously accepted that Unit 4 was a banger.

[@SleventyFive]

You're really hammering on the operators being at all faulted as proof of conspiracy, but from INSAG-7: "There is a need to shift the balance of perception so as to emphasize more the deficiencies in the safety features of the design which were touched on in INSAG-1, and to recognize the problems conferred by the framework within which plant operation was carried out. However, INSAG remains of the view that in many respects the actions of the operators were unsatisfactory."

[@markusw7833]

What this channel hammers on, for example in the Masters of Weaponized narration videos, are myriad specific details. Stick around through the several parts of this series and you will see more of them. Yes, we are aware of conclusion statements in INSAG-7, particularly in the opening international section, that try to gloss over for example that INSAG-1 is a shameful document comprised of clear lies that should be retracted. What we value INSAG-7 for is the details it provides, not some of its conclusion statements that hardly follow from them. We have caught this report in multiple instances having notable flaws. Our approach to a statement like that is detail oriented, which we expound. Meanwhile, what is the actual meaning of "the operators being at all faulted as proof of conspiracy"? What sort of argument is that? Is this the argument you think this channel is making? How do you watch the video you're commenting on and this is your response to it? I'm genuinely curious.

[@DUKEHadToDoItToEm]

I loved the HBO series so I'm excited to watch this but before starting I have to ask the question: "Got wrong"? Or purposefully ignored/rewritten/other to make the show entertaining? Because that second thing happens all the time with historical drama TV shows

[@markusw7833]

Watch the first Masters of Weaponized Narration video. That explains it. Yes, they got it wrong.

[@Lornext]

"Purposefully" misrepresenting history always has a cost... The cost of lies.

[@DUKEHadToDoItToEm]

@@Lornext I've only watched 10 minutes so far, put it on while cooking earlier In that 10 minutes the only thing I heard was that they got something wrong about graphite tips on control rods and the rods going in vertically instead of horizontally? I think that most of the world will be okay with this "lie", it's not going to unravel the future lmao. The guys who made the show aren't nuclear engineers and you probably aren't either and it's doubtful in the future anyone will be using HBOs Chernobyl as a blueprint for building reactors. I hope the rest of the video actually has something, anything, worth actually being upset about lol

[@criticality2056]

​@DUKEHadToDoItToEm but they could have researched a bit

[@alanywalany6460]

@@DUKEHadToDoItToEm If you think media doesn't and hasn't affected the knowledge or more accurately the percieved of the public then you must've never discussed events that have been dramatised on film or TV.

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

I loved the series but you can see there's simplification going on to portray Dyatlov as solely to blame and Legasov as a hero.

[@gustavocardoso8758]

No that intent is not there. go and watch it again, pay attention to what legasov says about lies, and how they portray the communist party officials in the meating, it clearly implies that lies of the party where the true cause of the disaster and they were using dyatlov as an escape goat

[@zuccero23]

I saw it quite long ago but I do vividly remember that she show pointed to a structural failure of the state as a very important cause, rather than just the workers

[@lindsayschmidt2177]

That’s honestly just how the storytelling medium works. The audience needs a hero.

[@tinetannies4637]

Did Chernobyl blow up? Yes. Did it create a massive disaster? Yes. Did Chernobyl lack a containment vessel? Yes. Did the USSR suppress the accident until it was independently discovered by the West? Yes. All the details raised in this video are trying to dismiss a forest by pointing to a few distorted trees.

[@markusw7833]

lol

[@ceee338]

big red flag probably with a hammer on sickle on it is hilarious

[@MitchM240]

I have to say I was shocked to find out the HBO doc was not accurate. Until I found your channel a few months ago I thought it was nearly truth, of course some liberties were taken for dram but otherwise I thought it was accurate. All information tended to indicate that. Man, have my eyes been opened.

[@borislugosi54]

Maybe you are being humorous, if so ignore my comment... the show being discussed isn't a documentary.

[@MitchM240]

@@borislugosi54 No I am not being humorous. Of course it’s not a documentary I used the wrong word. But it was touted by many “experts” as being extremely accurate. Until I dug deeper I thought it was. I doubt I am in the minority.

[@borislugosi54]

@@MitchM240 I didn't want to sound like a jerk if you were being sarcastic. Regardless i didn't want to sound like a jerk. It definitely carried an air of authenticity. I understand your sentiment.

[@Zeeves]

I had a lot of trouble getting through this series just because of all the inaccuracies. Very sad to misrepresent such a tragic event for dramatized entertainment. unfortunate

[@isaacclark5833]

Never heard someone say H but make the *h sound* while saying it, very interesting...

[@Kendo121e]

Its not a documentary

[@vintobytes]

Okay it's cool that you showed mistakes, I appreciate that. But we all have to understand that it cannot be 1 to 1 accurate, I like that you showed the mistakes, so it's more legit we could say

[@axtonjcranston1064]

Forgive me maybe I missed the details but why do you say the actor behaves like a kid who gets his lunch money stolen?

[@markusw7833]

His excessive meekness. This is a stereotype that influences the misrepresentation of the real Valery Legasov. This particular aspect of his portrayal was disliked by a number of people, I believe including his daughter. The real Legasov was apparently a much different figure, and his role in Chernobyl was much different. Writers and actors are fundamentally much more superficial people than is commonly known. They are prone to conjuring neat extremes in who people are that rather than illuminating human nature distort it.

[@fkxfkx]

So you’re saying churnoble never happened? But I saw it live with my own eyes on TV

[@markusw7833]

o.O

[@233kosta]

To answer the thumbbail - in every conceivable way 😂

[@cadence764]

I felt the HBO series was more on bashing communism

[@HovisOats]

Not a bad thing in itself, in fairness

[@cadence764]

@@HovisOats it defeats the purpose

[@user-fs9mv8px1y]

Communism in terms of bashing is a horse so beaten its a fossil We really need more media that's overtly critical of capitalism, people need to realize the danger

[@ryszakowy]

@@cadence764 no why every single thing that led to the disaster was a result of communism and fear

[@enigmaticchickenmcnobody]

Based honestly

[@yoazzizgrass]

I understand the need to clarify the fiction in the show... but no one ever seems to realize Mazin has spoken about his sources and research. HBO ran a podcast alongside the show each week, and Mazin was on each episode. Never seen anyone quote him when they start picking at the shows authenticity/ level of fiction.

[@markusw7833]

We have listened to it. There's actually very little there. Nonetheless, it makes sense to review it at the end of this series of videos.

[@JackChurchill101]

As someone who knows nothing of nuclear power plants, and thinks that this was one of the best made mini series ever, I accept that it's full of truth flaws. But I would hope people take the show as a reflection of themes, to inspire emotions and ideas, - rather than a block fact documentary. Thank you for the video. Fascinating.

[@cow_tools_]

This is all very interesting and well researched, but it's very silly to cast this as "pro-Soviet" propaganda. Far from being pro-Soviet, you've demonstrated it's really pro-Legasov and pro-Scientist propaganda, which obviously is the motive for dramatizing the story for popular consumption, rather than anything pro communism. Everyone I know who watched the series agrees that the whole show was very anti-Soviet and even anti-communist, rightfully or wrongfully. It's obvious to everyone.

[@markusw7833]

The actual historical Soviet propaganda was pro-scientist, initially at least. What you see isn't dramatization but propaganda. It's amusing how people who don't understand anything assume everything is done on purpose from a position of knowledge. The HBO people simply didn't know any better/couldn't read and understand the proper sources, so they ended up transmitting Soviet propaganda. Yes, the show ends up blaming the government and the KGB equally wrongly, but that doesn't change the fact it literally shows Soviet propaganda. You could say this is the cost of lies - you lose the ability to determine what truth is.

[@eliomarnahr201]

Death by a Thousand Cuts

[@canadianragin]

One thought: the internal openness of the USSR about the causes of the disaster is not the same as being open to the international community, which is what I think the show was broadly going for re: the KGB guy. Was this the case? I apologize that I haven’t watched other videos in this series yet, but that is something I think it is worth discussing

[@markusw7833]

Politburo meeting notes were not public.

[@An_actual_walrus]

You did not see the HBO series because ITS NOT THERE

[@zacdemarest5493]

"the Haych BO-" dropped.

[@dopejoel]

Guilty conscience. No wonder he killed himself

[@TheLarsole3]

Wait, wasn't all of this literally the big twist at the end of the show?

[@markusw7833]

No.

[@Sownll5980]

Yo this channel lit

[@mega4488]

Oh my god lets fucking go

[@LloydWaldo]

All my research indicates they didn’t actually blow up an rbmk in the shorting of this movie.

[@melodymacken9788]

The KGB did a cover up on reactor 4 years earlier because of radiation escaping.

[@clockworkcookie]

why the f are youtubers obsessed with exposing the flaws of the science in the show. anyone with a brain cell knows things are mega simplified for tv/movies especially if the subject is as complicated as nuclear physics .

[@markusw7833]

In honor of your single working brain cell your comment will appear in the TL;DR video coming soon.

[@TruthIsFreedom7777]

Chernobyl design was promoted as obviously "safe and effective 🙄

[@МарияБондаренко-п7з]

nice video

[@NotBroihon]

Bro, the Chernobyl series might've gotten a lot of stuff wrong but it wasn't pro soviet 💀 Gorbachev was anti soviet union lmao

[@markusw7833]

That was still the Soviet Union and what the mini-series managed to do was incorporate Soviet propaganda.

[@NotBroihon]

@@markusw7833 good one

[@markusw7833]

​@NotBroihon Do you know the word the Soviet Union had for people like you? Find the pair of videos with the Soviet flag as the thumbnail background, and watch them. I would bet money you won't succeed.

[@NotBroihon]

​​@@markusw7833and there's always people like you who see anything about the soviet union and then assume it's pro soviet propaganda because it actually must have been worse. Get your head out of your red scared a§§.

[@NotBroihon]

@@markusw7833 idk why but my answer keeps disappearing unless sorting by newest. thanks youtube.

[@markomicovic5308]

I didn't understand again. Did the operators that day operate the reactor within the limits of what was allowed 100% or did they break some rules because of the test that was supposed to be performed?

[@markusw7833]

This is only part one.