❤BIBLE VERSES OF THE DAY❤ ROMANS 6:8-14 NIV 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
I just want to say if you go there for any sort of tourism in the future. Don’t take anything from the exclusion zone. All Of it is radioactive material. Also to ever was stupid enough to take one of the fire fighter boots from the hospital basement you are one stupid mf.
Gods are imaginary avatars that represent parental figures keeping us safe from the Universe - we need gods to ease our minds, to ward off existential panic and hopelessness - and every people on earth has a god of some kind: Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna, Mitra, Ahura Mazda, Ra, Zeus, Odin, Pele - except Buddhism, which acknowledges spirituality but doesn't attribute it to any set of spiritual beings, just as something that people can find for themselves. I could accept Christianity as the faith of the land, and generally a benevolent one, except that its practitioners become judgmental, hateful, irrational and superstitious. A religion that approves of burning women for witchcraft, of murdering homosexuals because their biological destiny, of embracing political lies in the name of Christ, of allowing its holy men to prey sexually on children, is not benign.
"How did these people get in charge?" Government of the United States of America when a world wide pandemic called COVID19 hit and the response was "it will all be over soon, 9 cases will be down to 0 when the warmer weather comes" What is the cost of LIES?
To understand what happened, you have to understand the Soviet Communist culture and system. Speaking out was fatal, believing what you were told was survival. No other option was available.
Absolutely correct and it was so bad even your family couldn’t be trusted not to turn you in. Folks socialism and communism are designed to keep elites, elite and everyone else in their place.
Soviet Union can best be described as Marxist Syndicalism put into practice. Most critics of Marxist Socialism refer to Marxism as a "Cult of the State" in spite of the fact that many Marxist view Marxism as anti-State. Even one of the earliest criticism of Marxism Mikhail Bakunin who was also a Socialist is the one who coined the phrase "Cult of the State" when describing Marxism. As if you nationalize everything into a "Worker's State" which is what Marxist advocate, you will have nothing but a Massive State that dominates every tiny aspect of Society. Marxist believe that this "State" will eventually fade away, but anyone who knows better knows, it will NEVER fade away. It will feed itself and keep itself alive at the expense of the people that it has now enslaved. This is why you will see some people refer to Fascism as Honest Socialism and Marxism as Dishonest Socialism. Fascist embraced the idea of the Totalitarian State as it's hard coded into the ideology, where Marxist Created Totalitarian States with the dream of becoming "Stateless" while pretending they were not Totalitarian. Fun thing to also think about. Marxist in spite of calling themselves International Socialist are National Socialist. The reason for that is their "Nation" is the "Working Class" Nations are a Social Identity, not lines on a map. As a result, their Nationalism is the Working Class, a world Working Class Revolution, Worker's States, etc etc etc.
@@Alte.Kameraden Except the Fascists didn't nationalize everything into the sate, they mass-privatized. So wouldn't Fascism be honest capitalism or something then? Also Marx would hate the ideas that led to the Soviet Union, since he despised both Vanguardism and Baracks Communism. Also neither Marx or the Bolsheviks were syndicalists. Bakunin was closer to a syndicalist. Syndicalists don't want the economy run top-down from the state or top-down from capitalists, but bottom-up from syndicates/unions/workers-coops/etc.
@@Painocus Which is a lie. Even when it comes to say the Nazis where that myth originated it isn't true either. For the Italian Fascist it's not even in the same ball park. To sum up the evolution of Fascism. 1. 1914 they were Marxist Revolutionary Syndicalist when they created the first Fascist Manifesto. They advocated for "ACTION' in the revolution. As they viewed Socialist parties were too inactive. Btw their first manifesto was "Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista" Revolutionary Internationalist Action Fascio. 2. By 1915 they switched to Nationalism because they wanted Italy to join the Great War to hasten the Revolution. So became National Syndicalist. 3. By 1918 the Italian Fascist became their own separate movement from the other Italian Socialist. Believing the other Socialist were shams and were Inactive and unwilling to resort to Action for the Revolution. 4. By 1921 the Italian Fascist created their own political party the "National Fascist Party" National was in the name because prior to this parties foundation Fascism wasn't a Nationalistic movement as the word itself in Italy is an alternative word often used for Union, ie Trade Union or Syndicate. 5. I don't exactly remember when but either by or during WWII they switched from National Syndicalism to the idea of the "Corporate State" or as Gentile stated "Everything inside the State, nothing Outside the State." Totalitarianism, it can not be totalitarian if everything is PRIVATIZED as you stated. In short, either they're Totalitarian and nationalized everything into the State, or they're not. If you're considering that they privatized everything, then you're blatantly wrong or admitting they're not Totalitarians. In spite of the fact the Fascist created the term Totalitarian to describe their Total State Control of Every Aspect of Society. People who say they privatized are literally calling them as opposed to Totalitarianism in spite they created the idea... well technically Marx did, but Marx didn't call it that. The Nazis used their own term for Totalitarianism, and it was "Gleichschaltung" or accurately called Coordination or Synchronization. If you think the Nazis privatized industries, that is a myth with it's roots from the Economist Magazine during the 1930s, and actually has no real basis in reality. In actuality they basically turned the entire economy into a State controlled Cartel, and Cartels are no different than Syndicates, Unions, or Soviets, they're all synonyms of each other. It's often said the Nazis created the term Privatization, which isn't true. You will not find in any of their literature or speeches a word that describes Privatization. Easiest way of debunking this actually comes from a historian many often cite to prove it Germa Bel who I quote "Additionally, the Nazis privatized some public services which had been previously provided by the government, especially social and labor-related services, and these were mainly taken over by organizations affiliated with the Nazi Party that could be trusted to apply Nazi racial policies." If you can see the contradiction in that statement bravo. He is primarily referring to the DAF ie the German Labour Front which wasn't Private and was directly controlled by the Party, and that Party was the State as no other party was allowed to exist. So right there we have a historian stating that Party ownership = Private Ownership, in spite of the fact the Party is the State. Similar to the Soviet Union.
As the series goes along, it's clear that Dyatlov isn't stupid, he's an expert, and that's why he knew what had happened the moment he looked out the shattered windows. And so he knew exactly how bad it was and couldn't handle it, all he could do was pretend it was OK because the alternative was unthinkable. The acting is phenomenal.
Yes. It can't be true, because if it is, such a catastrophe has never happened on this planet. and if we deny it loud and long enough, maybe it will go away.
The only thing that can really be said in his defense is that, until Chernobyl, the core of a nuclear power plant had never before exploded and nobody ever even thought it was scientifically possible that they could explode in normal operation, so what was happening was literally impossible in his mind even though he was seeing it with his own eyes.
@@charlize1253 I get it and I agree. I've worked with a ton of very smart folks. And they often come to a conclusion and manipulate the evidence to make their conclusion work. ------ Doctors do this all the time, lawyers, engineers, and scientists. ----- If you are charismatic and convincing enough you can get tons of people to buy into your conclusion and argument for the facts. ------ So it's not uncommon.
One of the saddest miniseries ever made. Based on a true story that happened in Chernobyl Ukraine in 1986. An accident like this could have been avoided.
The accident itself was caused by faulty technology, that was the unavoidable part. It's all the resulting BS: the Russian beaurocracy and its blind faith to an old regime.
@@tawogtrailersThe reactor doesn't. But the steam pressure in the containment building can build until the containment vessel blows up. And it did. Which is why radioactive vontamination was spread over such a wide area. So what's your point?
I remember this well. I walked into the living where the TV was on, and regular broadcasting was interrupted. They told us that radiation meters across Europe were going off. Each country thought they had a nuclear incident happening inside their borders. Within a few hours it was realized that all this radiation in the air was coming from behind The Iron Curtain. By the time we all found this out, it had been going on for days!
There was a Nuclear Physics Professor at a Kyiv University, who went into his lab that morning, unaware of the explosion. All his radiation measuring equipment was going nuts when turned on. At first, he checked things to make sure the calibration of the equipment was OK, then he got alarmed that the small research reactor there may have had a failure. Nope, it was fine when he checked on it. He then thought some nation had an above ground nuclear weapon test. But, he checked the fallout composition, which then gave away it was a reactor leak somewhere. Officials came to him later on, and confiscated his radiation measuring equipment.
See, now I have no recollection of this at all. I was in college at the time it occurred and actually went to Europe that very summer. The Soviets kept this under wraps very well. This is an incredible miniseries. Very well done and a great reaction.
This is a phenomenal series. Each episode adds to your understanding of the event and of the minds of those who would do anything for their country vs those that would do anything to help their fellow man. Great reaction!
Hey Cali B, keep in mind that most of the info we learn about radiation in the show, we learn about almost immediately from experts like Legasov. --------- The general public had no idea what was happening except on pirate radio. --------- Large parts of the Kyiv population were sent out to celebrate May day (May 5th and the accident was in April) it was said, "nothing was wrong it was just a regular factory accident."
I can remember this event. The USSR tried to gaslight the rest of the world but news started leaking out right away. As cold war kids we knew exactly what was likely happening and it was terrifying. My eldest daughter was not quite 1 year old and the juxtaposition of her joyous being and our love for her while this was going on was quite something. New subbie and thanks for sharing your reaction.
So some things about radiation. The main danger in the immediate stage of the Chernobyl disaster was highly radioative short lived particles, the reason they are short lived is that they are extremely radioactive, and because of this have very short half-lives. That said not all short lived particles are extremely dangerous, Radioactive Water for example(that is the water itself and not stuff in the water) has a half life of about 5 seconds, and after 6 half lives the percentage of the radioactive paprticle drops to near zero, so in about 35-40 second Radioactive water is pretty much safe to handle. The more dangerous short lived particles can and will kill people if they dont evacuate pretty much immediately. That the reactor was on fire is even worse because it is aerosolyzing radioactive particle, and all of them are worse when you inhale or ingest them. When they were talking about tasting metal they were mostly tasting Uranium, Steel, Cobalt,Zirconium that was at least some part radioactive. Far worse was the Firefighters and plant workers that had nothing in between them and the core, as they would be receiving radiation from an active Reactor Core, and lacking the normal amount of shielding, means they were receiving thousands of lifetimes of normal background radiation. the average person receives between 100 and 300 REM, about 100 REM is from exposure to the sun, and up to 200 REM from radiation from the ground your home lives on.
Nurse: Do we have iodine pills? Doctor: Why would we have idoline pills? Ahh: BECASUE YOUR'RE A HOSPTIAL NEXT TO 3 NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS. Maybe you should know what to do if something goes wrong at the FU*%KING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.
My thoughts exactly. "Maybe... because you are literally sitting on a bloody damn nuclear power plant, man?! Protect yourselves at least from thyroid cancer..." (Since then I read that in real life the Pripyat hospital did have iodine pills, but only a small stock.)
Hey Cali B, I lived during this horrific event. I was so scared it would reach where i live would get radiation carried on the wind. -------- Thankfully the wind didn't blow in our direction. -------- That's literally the difference between playing outside and not drinking or eating anything grown in the area of Eastern Europe during this time. It came down to which way the wind blew. -------- Just like you experience with the Cali fires on a yearly basis. ----- Imagine the smoke would give you cancer. That what the world faced in this mishap of the highest levels.
CAli B, you reaction to this first episode was so priceless. I have never seen enyone so upset and frustrated at the TV screen for what they were watching. ------ Your mind can't comprehed what is happening on screeen and the level of denial by the peole in charge. ----- I think your mind is offically boggled. -------- I would be rooling with laughter at your facial expression and hand gestures if this disaster didn't lead to so many deaths and cases of cancer in the general population of at least 20- 30 million in the path of the dispersed radition. ----- All you can do is shake your head in disbelief.
One detail with all the guys refusing to believe the reactor was gone. The state wanted to base itself on nuclear power as the future, so they covered up information about RBMK reactors and their ability to explode. These guys are working backwards from what they'd been taught, that there's no way the reactor could explode. So they didn't believe reports, or meter readings, and thought no one was in immediate danger. You know, aside from trying to pin the blame on each other
Yes, this is, basically (largely) quite accurate. Be sure to watch the credits at the end of the series, it shows you what happened since then and it's devastating. I was 6 when this happened, and we were concerned all the way over here in California.
So the people on the bridge are 'presumed dead' but we don't actually know. The USSR didn't track them and what records we did have were lost as the government collapsed. Their dose was no where near the firefighters so cancer was likely but some may have survived. Also the firefighter actually knew what they were walking into, they had trained for fighting a radioactive fire but the radiation suits were on back order. You'll see very few people in proper protection as they didn't have enough suits to go around.
No, this is far from being a documentary, more a fiction based on a real event. Lot of BS during the serie iv you think about the science, the datas, the caracters and the events. They didn't even understand the accident cause, wich is a shame.
Didn’t expect a reaction to this series but very happy you’re doing it. Love the enthusiasm and passion you’re showing for the human lives at stake in this episode. It gets so much more intense. No spoilers, so I’ll just wait for the next one ✌🏼
10/10 An intense, incredible start. Second viewing, and it's as terrifying now as when I first watched it. The first part goes right back to the start, the accident itself, and sudden reaction to it. It is quite possibly the most chilling thing I have ever seen. Watching again it's Paul Ritter who stands out early on as Anatoly, talk about sticking to an official line. Production values are off the scale. They truly take you to the place of the explosion, and make you feel that thick, metallic atmosphere. It's quite incredible. 10/10
I had a good friend who died from a rare form of cancer that was more common among people exposed to the fallout from Chernobyl. He had beem a physician in Minsk. He almost certainly was a victim of this disaster but never recognized as such. He left behind a wife and child. He was one of the nicest and smartest people I have ever known.
I was a kid when this disaster happened, living in Hungary. We were not told about it in time, we didn't know it happened at all, only after few weeks. I remember we were eating unwashed cherry from the tree..
Very good choice of serious series. As someone who was born in USSR I can say its pretty close to reality save for sone characters and timeline changes. And yes, those party members were as stupid as they're portrayed here, if not worse.
After apisode five, please consider watching a short epilogue. They will explain how Chernobyl looks right now and what happened to all the people who were involved in the liquidation
this happened in 1986, in England where i live, lamb and beef still show elevated radiation levels due to the Chernobyl fallout contaminating grass and land
Can you believe that just a few months ago the Russians camped out a battalion of Russian soldiers on the grounds of this plant? They were there about five days before realizing their mistake and pulling out.
@@cathyvickers9063you can not have ARS from the red forrest unless if you EAT about 100kg of soil of the worst spot in the red forrest. All the Zone is well mapped and monitored. If you want such dose you'd have to go on some spots in the Unit 4 wreckage or go to the spent fuel storage.
A bit of info on Soviet workplace culture: Essentially, organized bullying. The Central Committee, responsible for economic planning, set unrealistic goals and everyone was terrified to not meet their work quotas. So the workers lied and reported unbelievable success, their supervisors lied to their bosses, and so on up the chain. And if anything went wrong, it was of the utmost importance to blame one of your underlings before your boss pinned the blame on you. The result? A culture of workplace bullying and intimidation, born from fear, anger, corruption, and misinformation at every turn. Byrukhanov might have known he was at fault on some level, but the impulse to deny any wrongdoing or danger was simply too strong. In real life Fomin was even less useful than he's portrayed here, he was so overwhelmed by what had happened that he spent much of the early hours after the disaster in a corner of the meeting room repeating over and over again 'What happened? What happened?' in a small child's voice, or so some accounts say.
This is generally pretty accurate. Lots of small changes were made for dramatic purposes. If exposed to severe radiation you do not taste metal for example. Dyatlov was not this much of a huge jerk. Radiation burns and vomiting would take hours, not minutes. Things like that. But overall it gives an startlingly accurate depiction of the basics, including all kinds of (sometimes heart-shredding) details. You will end the series with a fairly good grasp of how nuclear reactors work and what radiation poisoning does. I so look forward to your reaction to this amazing series. Brace yourself for episode four, though.
Looking forward to seeing your reactions to the rest of this series. A very emotional series and for me what really makes it scary is more so than a horror movie. This really happened or most of it.
I remember this very much. It actually started some panic amongs people here in Sweden when this accident became known. And that the radiation had come all the way here.
The whole spiel by the chairman of the executive committee talks about "faith," faith in the correctness of the Socialism they've labored under for decades, faith in the Revolution embodied in a bald inexperienced lawyer from Samara and an economic system dreamed up by an intellectual who never worked a day in his life. But what it is, what Marxism and Communism always has been, is Utopian thinking, mixed with compulsion and (in the case of the Soviet Union) a managerial system built around upward failure. Whatever conscience their would be - what would qualify more rightly as actual faith, and in good faith at that - it inevitably gets tamped down by the mixture of the previous three features. Because conscience will likely come into conflict with that Utopianism, compulsion, and failure hierarchy. Only when things get to the point that they do in this series are real measures taken. And even then not without still sliding back into "official numbers and reports" rather than the truth.
I watched a story about a less than 2 gram piece of the graphite was found about 1/4 mile away in 2015. It was just to the side of an ant colony. The ants were still working on moving the graphite away from the colony. Over the years how many millions of ants died to get that out of the colony.
The main reason that Chernobyl was such a disaster was the Soviet system of infrastructure. the Soviets convinced themselves they didn't need containment vessels in their nuclear reactors because of their Superior scientific expertise. at the same time promoted people not for their competence and expertise but ONLY their loyalty to the Communist Party.
Why were they like that? All sorts of reasons but a couple of points in particular. 1. In the Soviet communist system there was basically just one big power structure instead of real separation between institutions such as executive goverment, companies, academia, judiciary, etc. So lacking counter-balance and accountability and people often promoted based on now well they played the party political game instead of real competence. 2. Ideological adherence to communism at all costs meant mistakes and issues were hidden at all levels as things had to be portrayed as perfect/infallible. This was supported by the authoritarianism needed to force everyone to be comunist and prevent the unpersuaded from leaving.
All the people in this episodes with names are real people. The reason for all the denial is that you had to pretend that the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise where nothing bad ever happened. If you raised an issue, it was all your fault. All of them are desparate to avoid blame at any cost. Perception mattered, not reality. And they had the Russian attitude that the people exist to serve the state, not the other way around. People's lives weren't a huge concern.
Remember, for the reactor to explode was in everyone's eyes impossible by design. To them, it was as likely the damage was caused by a whale falling out of the sky. They were wildly irresponsible, but there's things they didn't know that played into this.
That there is a generation who doesn't even know what Chernobyl is or was terrifies me. That because they never feared the cold war they have no understanding of radiation is also is terrifying. Chernobyl was a case study of why collectivism can not handle a crisis. It was both the worst idictment of the soviet communist system, and perhaps the greatest testament to the brave soviet people who gave their lives to save others. As for radiation...basic rule if you can feel anything so much as a tingle....your already dead....it's just a matter of time.
In that time, for them it was IMPOSSIBLE to even think about a core exploding. Even the scientist didn't understood what happened until they saw it with their eyes and still couldn't comprehend how could the core explode.
There's a quote from 1984 that comes to my mind regularly when these kinds of corrupt power structures are portrayed in media or seen in real life: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him. These with which any party intellectual would overthrow him in a debate. The subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand much less answer." Toxic political movements survive on convincing people that lies are the truth. Corrupt authoritarian power structures survive on convincing people that the price of living by truth is too high and it's better to live as if the lies are the truth. The officials at the heart of the structure (the "party" or USSR gov) are the ones rewarded for propagating the lie and forcing people to live within the lie which explains why we see the party-climbers running the power plant absolutely refusing to acknowledge the truth. They were specially selected for that kind of mentality. In 1984, when Winston is first captured by the Thought Police, he follows this quote with, "And yet, he was in the right. They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true. Hold onto that. The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard. Water is wet. Unsupported objects fall toward the earth's center." By the end of the torture, he is so reprogrammed that he believes that 2+2=5 while still knowing it equals 4 (ie "double think). He goes back into society, willing to live the lie fully because the cost of even thinking the truth, much less voicing it, is too terrible to contemplate. In the scenario of Chernobyl, it's so telling that they (officials and citizens alike) are still so afraid to believe that 2+2=4 that they'd doom themselves to an imminent, painful death rather than tell the Kremlin that 5 is wrong.
Due in no small part to the meddling of the Russian state, there is a lot of dis- and mis-information about this event, and it is worth mentioning that this miniseries does dramatize some things. ... some things. In terms of the science, it is bone-chillingly spot-on... not just in what happened or how and why they dealt with it, but also how radiation affects the body. It's unlikely we'll ever know the exact behind-the-scenes discussions with the Russian state members, but their methods of dealing with the situation are also very probably accurate. The real problem is the number of deaths this event caused. Some are known for certain, others are not. The problem here is that radiation is not a bullet; one shot, one kill. Radiation is more like... well, like smoking cigarettes; it's a of a roll of the dice. The more exposure, the more rolls, the more likely you are to get unlucky, but after enough time it gets difficult-to-impossible to know for sure if the cancer you got is from this one event or if it's part of the normal background cancer rates. Sure, you can do the math and get an estimate, but that's all it is; an estimate. You can't KNOW for certain if this one cancer patient is from Chernobyl, or from cigarettes, or if they just got a bad roll of the dice. I believe this miniseries does place itself on the high end for reported deaths, which, well... it's a dramatization. That's what they do. Once you're done watching this, I strongly encourage you to look around for some other media, and of course to think critically of the sources of that media, and what sources THEY cite as well. This is an amazing miniseries and, again, the creators did not slouch in their research, but it is vital that we strive for the truth, because - ............... well, you'll see.
Ahhhh CAli B, local and national Soviet party officials find a way to violate every level of human rights with blatant disregard for the humanity of those around them in the name of mindless propaganda.-------- Every measure of civil liberties and human rights is violated in this series. -------- PLus the effects makeup work in this series will send a chill down your spine as you have never felt before. Including Game of Thrones. ------- Brace Yourself.
As an eastern Europe (Ukraine) guy, it's both funny and sad for me, when young people of USA/Western Europe/Canada/etc see, how '"communism" actually look in real life. In fact, this movie even shows it a bit better, than it was in real life
This is so true. I've seen one guy say "Your life costs nothing in a capitalist state". I told my mom who grew up in SU and she was like "Oh boy, he'd be so surprised if he knew anything about real world"
a bit of context....the chernobyl nuclear power plant existed during the soviet time under communist regime at the height of the cold war. when both USA and USSR were racing to come off as superiour nations. The soviet regime consisted of the party ( communist party ) members of this political party was like a chain command...the under person reporting to the top....it was super effed up. No one was suppose to appear weak or have any mistakes in fear of how it would look to the western enemies...so this major screw up was trying to get swept under the mat asap to avoid big news breaks etc....thats why all of them were in denial...because even the small guys like the scientists and plant directors were found that they made a mistake they would have been imprisoned and exhiled..thats why they were minimizing it all and make it look like its not their fault....
It's not that they're reckless or stupid, really. It's just that they all have a theoretical background that gives them a reasonably good understanding of the machine that they are working with, and their understanding (which is comprehensive but sadly flawed) tells them that there is no possible way for the core to explode. That is in the center of each of their minds. This thing some people are saying happened, cannot physically happen. There is no way in the physical universe it could, as far as they know. The people who are saying that it HAS happened, sounds to them like the people sound to us that say "aliens built the Egyptian pyramids and the Earth is flat". It can't be anything but delusion. Additionally, there's another calculation going on under that layer of "it can't possibly have exploded". That calculation goes as follows: if I entertain this notion that the core has exploded and that this is a massive crisis, and am right, I am completely fucked. If I'm wrong, and this is a minor problem, I'm also completely fucked. So if I make a big deal out of this and call it a crisis, no matter what the case may be, I'm fucked. If I treat this as a minor issue and it turns out it's a huge crisis, I'm fucked, for obvious reasons. But if I say that it's a minor issue and it IS a minor issue, then I'm fine. So the ONLY THING I CAN DO that has even the REMOTEST chance of me ending up NOT entirely fucked, is to treat this as a minor issue. Treating it as a crisis is absolutely, completely and utterly a losing move for me.
I was 15 years old when the accident at Chernobyl happened. It was all over the news. It was pretty scary then, coming from the prospective of a kid who did not know anything about nuclear energy and the dangers of it. Finding out more about it years later and the reality of what happened was even scarier as an adult than when I was a kid. I know that nuclear power has benefits, but I would never want to work in a nuclear power plant or live near one. I watched this series when it was first released and it was a real gut punch.
I so very much enjoyed your review of Band of Brothers which may be the BEST mini-series ever. This is probably the 2nd best. I'm thrilled you get it that it's NOT the Reactor exactly (although the design of the RBMK reactors was crap)...but the people and the way it was handled that is the true evil. I graduated eons ago with a degree in Nuclear Engineering. I've worked in multiple of OUR Nuclear Power plants. This mini-series gets the events of the Chernobyl accident mostly correct (only a few things were "simplified" to make the presentation digestible). I anxiously await your redone installment. Peace
2:23 that is the graphite, that was on the tips of the rods, which are used to cool the core I guess... the show implies that Dyatlov knows perfectly well what's going on…
Nuclear reactors are fueled by an element called Uranium 235, which is an unstable atom that has an asymmetric number of neutrons and electrons. Because it is unstable and asymmetric, it only exists in nature for a millisecond because it tends to gravitate to a stable state by shedding neutrons and electrons until it has a symmetric number (the Uranium in nuclear plants has to be artificially manufactured and kept in stasis using technology or else it would all spontaneously disappear). The act of breaking down by shedding neutrons and electrons (called "fission") generates enormous amounts of light and heat (in the famous proportion E=MC2), and a nuclear plant captures that heat and uses it to generate power. That's how a nuclear plant works in a nutshell. The danger is that if the Uranium is not contained, the neutrons/electrons flying off of the Uranium act like bullets, penetrating and wrecking everything that they touch, including the cells of any humans nearby. That's why the engineers are vomiting and their skin turns red, because they are being silently penetrated by millions of particles penetrating their bodies like bullets, causing damage to their bodies with every second of exposure. In addition to the millions of particles flying around and penetrating everything, the secondary danger is that Uranium and its by-products are also incredibly poisonous to humans even in tiny doses, so even if you are not in the immediate range of the flying electrons and neutrons, the residue that they leave everywhere will slowly poison you.
So… remember within the last year we had a train carrying extremely dangerous chemicals derail? And the train company offered $5,000 per FAMILY before any health studies had been done? And that the condition of taking that $5,000 was that they couldn’t sue the company ever, in the future, for any health results!!?? This sort of thing hasn’t ended.
This happened, nearly 40 years ago. And that place still can’t be visited without wearing protective equipment. Very sad, that money took precedence over public safety. We didn’t hear about it here in the U.S. until days after the explosion had occurred.
If reactors are built right things like what happened here cannot happen, Reactors in the US all have a heavy reinforced containment wall built around them. Nuclear power is really the only clean replacement for coal and oil-fired power plants, you just have to not be cheap when building them. Reactors cannot explode like an atomic bomb you need weapon-grade plutonium for that. what happened in Chernobyl was a really big dirty bomb, a steam explosion that blew scattered radioactive stuff into the air.
Here in Ireland, people were afraid when Chernobyl happened - radiation was detected in Irish sheep, and for a long time afterwards. Not much - but it hadn't been detected before. The Republic's government of the day was so ill-prepared for any kind of nearby nuclear disaster - and Chernobyl IS relatively nearby, with wind currents sending radiation this way too - that they didn't know what to do. In the end, they sent one iodine (anti-radiation) tablet to every household in the country. One! We shoved ours in one of the kitchen drawers. One tablet. When every single person would need to take more than one a day to try and suppress radiation sickness. To this day, many children with radiation sickness, physical deformity, and mental disabilities continue to be born in the region, many languishing in grim orphanages etc around Belarus - but, apart from the pandemic years, a number of Irish charities continue to bring 'children of Chernobyl' to the Republic for free holidays every summer; they stay with host families, who welcome them in and give them odinary, healthy food, fresh air, fun activities - all felt to extend those children's lives by years. It's a bit depressing to hear someome say they've never heard of Chernobyl, apart from this TV show, as good as it is.
Great series. A true life horror story. As a kid, I heard of this incident and was really interested it in. I will stop there, since anything else I mention about the interest, might be spoilerish.
Revelation 8:4 talks about a star called "Wormwood " falling from heaven and making water bitter. Chernobyl means Wormwood. Some believe that the disaster was the Third Trumpet of the Bible.
Cherbobyl is one of my special interests. There was so much that went wrong from the fact that the crew that was working wasn't equipped to run the test in the first place(tlots of newbies)to the culture of the time to the way the reactor was built. The deeper you dive thr worse it gets. There were over 10000 people from the beginning to the end that were affected by the tragedy.
He was in charge because he was a member in good standing of the communist party. Yes, he was a trained engineer but as a loyal party member he could not believe an accident of this magnitude was possible.
What you will learn is that these leaders while certainly not taking it seriously honestly didn’t know the core could ever explode. Nothing like this had ever happened in the world before. They absolutely should have done more but with it being a Soviet state and not understanding how the core could explode I can see why they kept saying it’s nonsense. Definitely not but I get it.
Probably one of HBOs best shows in the last 10 years.. experttly made. Drfinitely a commentary on capitalism etc but also this really happened and they really did ignore it all until it was nearly too late. Lots of people born in that area have been said to still have a lot of effects from the chemicals etc, ..
The only thing that can be said in Dyatlov's defense is that, until Chernobyl, the core of a nuclear power plant had never exploded and nobody thought it was possible that they could explode in normal operation, so what was happening was impossible in his mind despite seeing it with his own eyes. It doesn't excuse his inaction and lack of leadership, but it explains why he was in denial for so long despite the evidence
I have not seen Chernobyl, but I know a lot about the accident. Radiation was even discovered in Sweden. The government said you couldn't eat any berries and mushrooms on the east coast, because it rained on them. They took precaution. ☢️⚠️ I would like to visit Chernobyl one day (for tourists)
The management got where they were by believing everything they were told and doing everything they were told to. It might work if nothing ever went wrong but things do.
the mentality of the Soviet Union back that was so weird. Whatever The State or your direct supervisor told you was correct, cos "why would they lie? how could they be wrong?" you didnt question..you just did what you were told.
They were denial because it was believed that RBMK reactors cannot explode. They can melt but cannot explode. In theory they were right but nobody was aware about crucial design flaw but still in normal circumstances (not in situation they created by their incompetency and breaking all safety regulations) they could (in theory) safely avoid this situation. But what had happened here was chain of events that could not be reverted and impossible (from their perspective)) had happened
❤BIBLE VERSES OF THE DAY❤
ROMANS 6:8-14 NIV
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
You're gorgeous 😍
I just want to say if you go there for any sort of tourism in the future. Don’t take anything from the exclusion zone. All
Of it is radioactive material.
Also to ever was stupid enough to take one of the fire fighter boots from the hospital basement you are one stupid mf.
Gods are imaginary avatars that represent parental figures keeping us safe from the Universe - we need gods to ease our minds, to ward off existential panic and hopelessness - and every people on earth has a god of some kind: Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna, Mitra, Ahura Mazda, Ra, Zeus, Odin, Pele - except Buddhism, which acknowledges spirituality but doesn't attribute it to any set of spiritual beings, just as something that people can find for themselves. I could accept Christianity as the faith of the land, and generally a benevolent one, except that its practitioners become judgmental, hateful, irrational and superstitious. A religion that approves of burning women for witchcraft, of murdering homosexuals because their biological destiny, of embracing political lies in the name of Christ, of allowing its holy men to prey sexually on children, is not benign.
"How did these people get in charge?"
Government of the United States of America when a world wide pandemic called COVID19 hit and the response was "it will all be over soon, 9 cases will be down to 0 when the warmer weather comes"
What is the cost of LIES?
@@philshorten3221 That was Trump who said all that -- don't blame "the government", blame President Trump. Have you forgotten already?
To understand what happened, you have to understand the Soviet Communist culture and system. Speaking out was fatal, believing what you were told was survival. No other option was available.
Absolutely correct and it was so bad even your family couldn’t be trusted not to turn you in. Folks socialism and communism are designed to keep elites, elite and everyone else in their place.
Yes, I agree 100% really sad few people know about the communists and the atrocities they committed and how bad and controlling they really were.
Soviet Union can best be described as Marxist Syndicalism put into practice. Most critics of Marxist Socialism refer to Marxism as a "Cult of the State" in spite of the fact that many Marxist view Marxism as anti-State. Even one of the earliest criticism of Marxism Mikhail Bakunin who was also a Socialist is the one who coined the phrase "Cult of the State" when describing Marxism. As if you nationalize everything into a "Worker's State" which is what Marxist advocate, you will have nothing but a Massive State that dominates every tiny aspect of Society. Marxist believe that this "State" will eventually fade away, but anyone who knows better knows, it will NEVER fade away. It will feed itself and keep itself alive at the expense of the people that it has now enslaved.
This is why you will see some people refer to Fascism as Honest Socialism and Marxism as Dishonest Socialism. Fascist embraced the idea of the Totalitarian State as it's hard coded into the ideology, where Marxist Created Totalitarian States with the dream of becoming "Stateless" while pretending they were not Totalitarian.
Fun thing to also think about. Marxist in spite of calling themselves International Socialist are National Socialist. The reason for that is their "Nation" is the "Working Class" Nations are a Social Identity, not lines on a map. As a result, their Nationalism is the Working Class, a world Working Class Revolution, Worker's States, etc etc etc.
@@Alte.Kameraden Except the Fascists didn't nationalize everything into the sate, they mass-privatized. So wouldn't Fascism be honest capitalism or something then?
Also Marx would hate the ideas that led to the Soviet Union, since he despised both Vanguardism and Baracks Communism.
Also neither Marx or the Bolsheviks were syndicalists. Bakunin was closer to a syndicalist. Syndicalists don't want the economy run top-down from the state or top-down from capitalists, but bottom-up from syndicates/unions/workers-coops/etc.
@@Painocus Which is a lie. Even when it comes to say the Nazis where that myth originated it isn't true either. For the Italian Fascist it's not even in the same ball park.
To sum up the evolution of Fascism.
1. 1914 they were Marxist Revolutionary Syndicalist when they created the first Fascist Manifesto. They advocated for "ACTION' in the revolution. As they viewed Socialist parties were too inactive. Btw their first manifesto was "Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista" Revolutionary Internationalist Action Fascio.
2. By 1915 they switched to Nationalism because they wanted Italy to join the Great War to hasten the Revolution. So became National Syndicalist.
3. By 1918 the Italian Fascist became their own separate movement from the other Italian Socialist. Believing the other Socialist were shams and were Inactive and unwilling to resort to Action for the Revolution.
4. By 1921 the Italian Fascist created their own political party the "National Fascist Party" National was in the name because prior to this parties foundation Fascism wasn't a Nationalistic movement as the word itself in Italy is an alternative word often used for Union, ie Trade Union or Syndicate.
5. I don't exactly remember when but either by or during WWII they switched from National Syndicalism to the idea of the "Corporate State" or as Gentile stated "Everything inside the State, nothing Outside the State." Totalitarianism, it can not be totalitarian if everything is PRIVATIZED as you stated.
In short, either they're Totalitarian and nationalized everything into the State, or they're not. If you're considering that they privatized everything, then you're blatantly wrong or admitting they're not Totalitarians. In spite of the fact the Fascist created the term Totalitarian to describe their Total State Control of Every Aspect of Society. People who say they privatized are literally calling them as opposed to Totalitarianism in spite they created the idea... well technically Marx did, but Marx didn't call it that.
The Nazis used their own term for Totalitarianism, and it was "Gleichschaltung" or accurately called Coordination or Synchronization. If you think the Nazis privatized industries, that is a myth with it's roots from the Economist Magazine during the 1930s, and actually has no real basis in reality. In actuality they basically turned the entire economy into a State controlled Cartel, and Cartels are no different than Syndicates, Unions, or Soviets, they're all synonyms of each other.
It's often said the Nazis created the term Privatization, which isn't true. You will not find in any of their literature or speeches a word that describes Privatization. Easiest way of debunking this actually comes from a historian many often cite to prove it Germa Bel who I quote "Additionally, the Nazis privatized some public services which had been previously provided by the government, especially social and labor-related services, and these were mainly taken over by organizations affiliated with the Nazi Party that could be trusted to apply Nazi racial policies." If you can see the contradiction in that statement bravo. He is primarily referring to the DAF ie the German Labour Front which wasn't Private and was directly controlled by the Party, and that Party was the State as no other party was allowed to exist. So right there we have a historian stating that Party ownership = Private Ownership, in spite of the fact the Party is the State. Similar to the Soviet Union.
As the series goes along, it's clear that Dyatlov isn't stupid, he's an expert, and that's why he knew what had happened the moment he looked out the shattered windows. And so he knew exactly how bad it was and couldn't handle it, all he could do was pretend it was OK because the alternative was unthinkable. The acting is phenomenal.
For Sure. Cognitive Dissonance
Yes. It can't be true, because if it is, such a catastrophe has never happened on this planet. and if we deny it loud and long enough, maybe it will go away.
The only thing that can really be said in his defense is that, until Chernobyl, the core of a nuclear power plant had never before exploded and nobody ever even thought it was scientifically possible that they could explode in normal operation, so what was happening was literally impossible in his mind even though he was seeing it with his own eyes.
I think it's much more of a pride ego thing and just being a "company man" ..
@@charlize1253 I get it and I agree. I've worked with a ton of very smart folks. And they often come to a conclusion and manipulate the evidence to make their conclusion work. ------ Doctors do this all the time, lawyers, engineers, and scientists. ----- If you are charismatic and convincing enough you can get tons of people to buy into your conclusion and argument for the facts. ------ So it's not uncommon.
One of the saddest miniseries ever made. Based on a true story that happened in Chernobyl Ukraine in 1986.
An accident like this could have been avoided.
How does a RBMK reactor explode? Through lies.
Yeah and some idiot took one of the highly contaminated fire fighters boot. And that’s nearly as stupid as the event itself.
The accident itself was caused by faulty technology, that was the unavoidable part. It's all the resulting BS: the Russian beaurocracy and its blind faith to an old regime.
@@neil2444 RBMK reactors don't explode.
@@tawogtrailersThe reactor doesn't. But the steam pressure in the containment building can build until the containment vessel blows up. And it did. Which is why radioactive vontamination was spread over such a wide area. So what's your point?
I remember this well. I walked into the living where the TV was on, and regular broadcasting was interrupted. They told us that radiation meters across Europe were going off. Each country thought they had a nuclear incident happening inside their borders. Within a few hours it was realized that all this radiation in the air was coming from behind The Iron Curtain. By the time we all found this out, it had been going on for days!
There was a Nuclear Physics Professor at a Kyiv University, who went into his lab that morning, unaware of the explosion. All his radiation measuring equipment was going nuts when turned on. At first, he checked things to make sure the calibration of the equipment was OK, then he got alarmed that the small research reactor there may have had a failure. Nope, it was fine when he checked on it. He then thought some nation had an above ground nuclear weapon test. But, he checked the fallout composition, which then gave away it was a reactor leak somewhere. Officials came to him later on, and confiscated his radiation measuring equipment.
See, now I have no recollection of this at all. I was in college at the time it occurred and actually went to Europe that very summer. The Soviets kept this under wraps very well. This is an incredible miniseries. Very well done and a great reaction.
This is a phenomenal series. Each episode adds to your understanding of the event and of the minds of those who would do anything for their country vs those that would do anything to help their fellow man. Great reaction!
Hey Cali B, keep in mind that most of the info we learn about radiation in the show, we learn about almost immediately from experts like Legasov. --------- The general public had no idea what was happening except on pirate radio. --------- Large parts of the Kyiv population were sent out to celebrate May day (May 5th and the accident was in April) it was said, "nothing was wrong it was just a regular factory accident."
I can remember this event. The USSR tried to gaslight the rest of the world but news started leaking out right away. As cold war kids we knew exactly what was likely happening and it was terrifying. My eldest daughter was not quite 1 year old and the juxtaposition of her joyous being and our love for her while this was going on was quite something. New subbie and thanks for sharing your reaction.
this is even more scary for those of us who were alive back then. Even in uk this was a scary event and we were thousands of miles away.
So some things about radiation. The main danger in the immediate stage of the Chernobyl disaster was highly radioative short lived particles, the reason they are short lived is that they are extremely radioactive, and because of this have very short half-lives. That said not all short lived particles are extremely dangerous, Radioactive Water for example(that is the water itself and not stuff in the water) has a half life of about 5 seconds, and after 6 half lives the percentage of the radioactive paprticle drops to near zero, so in about 35-40 second Radioactive water is pretty much safe to handle. The more dangerous short lived particles can and will kill people if they dont evacuate pretty much immediately. That the reactor was on fire is even worse because it is aerosolyzing radioactive particle, and all of them are worse when you inhale or ingest them. When they were talking about tasting metal they were mostly tasting Uranium, Steel, Cobalt,Zirconium that was at least some part radioactive.
Far worse was the Firefighters and plant workers that had nothing in between them and the core, as they would be receiving radiation from an active Reactor Core, and lacking the normal amount of shielding, means they were receiving thousands of lifetimes of normal background radiation. the average person receives between 100 and 300 REM, about 100 REM is from exposure to the sun, and up to 200 REM from radiation from the ground your home lives on.
Nurse: Do we have iodine pills?
Doctor: Why would we have idoline pills?
Ahh: BECASUE YOUR'RE A HOSPTIAL NEXT TO 3 NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS.
Maybe you should know what to do if something goes wrong at the FU*%KING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.
My thoughts exactly.
"Maybe... because you are literally sitting on a bloody damn nuclear power plant, man?! Protect yourselves at least from thyroid cancer..."
(Since then I read that in real life the Pripyat hospital did have iodine pills, but only a small stock.)
@@Nobli82 I'm sure they had iodine pills. The fact they didn't know they had it was the bigger problem.
Hey Cali B, I lived during this horrific event. I was so scared it would reach where i live would get radiation carried on the wind. -------- Thankfully the wind didn't blow in our direction. -------- That's literally the difference between playing outside and not drinking or eating anything grown in the area of Eastern Europe during this time. It came down to which way the wind blew. -------- Just like you experience with the Cali fires on a yearly basis. ----- Imagine the smoke would give you cancer. That what the world faced in this mishap of the highest levels.
CAli B, you reaction to this first episode was so priceless. I have never seen enyone so upset and frustrated at the TV screen for what they were watching. ------ Your mind can't comprehed what is happening on screeen and the level of denial by the peole in charge. ----- I think your mind is offically boggled. -------- I would be rooling with laughter at your facial expression and hand gestures if this disaster didn't lead to so many deaths and cases of cancer in the general population of at least 20- 30 million in the path of the dispersed radition. ----- All you can do is shake your head in disbelief.
Oh I'm so happy you're reacting to this. One of my favorite mini series of all time.
One detail with all the guys refusing to believe the reactor was gone. The state wanted to base itself on nuclear power as the future, so they covered up information about RBMK reactors and their ability to explode. These guys are working backwards from what they'd been taught, that there's no way the reactor could explode. So they didn't believe reports, or meter readings, and thought no one was in immediate danger. You know, aside from trying to pin the blame on each other
The emergency call to the fire department is a recording of the original call in 1986.
Maybe the scariest phone call of the 20th century...
Communist logic:
Mistakes do not happen in a Communist utopia and nuclear reactors do not explode in a communist utopia. Utopia is perfect.
Yes, this is, basically (largely) quite accurate. Be sure to watch the credits at the end of the series, it shows you what happened since then and it's devastating. I was 6 when this happened, and we were concerned all the way over here in California.
So the people on the bridge are 'presumed dead' but we don't actually know. The USSR didn't track them and what records we did have were lost as the government collapsed. Their dose was no where near the firefighters so cancer was likely but some may have survived. Also the firefighter actually knew what they were walking into, they had trained for fighting a radioactive fire but the radiation suits were on back order. You'll see very few people in proper protection as they didn't have enough suits to go around.
Thanks for picking this series!
Hope you enjoy it!
The science behind it all is explained very well in the last episode.
No, this is far from being a documentary, more a fiction based on a real event. Lot of BS during the serie iv you think about the science, the datas, the caracters and the events. They didn't even understand the accident cause, wich is a shame.
Didn’t expect a reaction to this series but very happy you’re doing it. Love the enthusiasm and passion you’re showing for the human lives at stake in this episode. It gets so much more intense. No spoilers, so I’ll just wait for the next one ✌🏼
10/10
An intense, incredible start.
Second viewing, and it's as terrifying now as when I first watched it. The first part goes right back to the start, the accident itself, and sudden reaction to it. It is quite possibly the most chilling thing I have ever seen. Watching again it's Paul Ritter who stands out early on as Anatoly, talk about sticking to an official line. Production values are off the scale. They truly take you to the place of the explosion, and make you feel that thick, metallic atmosphere. It's quite incredible. 10/10
I had a good friend who died from a rare form of cancer that was more common among people exposed to the fallout from Chernobyl. He had beem a physician in Minsk. He almost certainly was a victim of this disaster but never recognized as such. He left behind a wife and child. He was one of the nicest and smartest people I have ever known.
I was a kid when this disaster happened, living in Hungary. We were not told about it in time, we didn't know it happened at all, only after few weeks. I remember we were eating unwashed cherry from the tree..
wow
The minute those firefighters drove up there, they were dead.
i was 5 years old at this event, I live 1000 miles away,
And we were told not to play outside! that is how toxic chernobyl was!
Very good choice of serious series. As someone who was born in USSR I can say its pretty close to reality save for sone characters and timeline changes. And yes, those party members were as stupid as they're portrayed here, if not worse.
Younger generations often don't understand Communism and How the State operated under such ideology so they get confused watching period dramas
After apisode five, please consider watching a short epilogue. They will explain how Chernobyl looks right now and what happened to all the people who were involved in the liquidation
Can't wait for your reaction of the next episodes! Nicely done!
this happened in 1986, in England where i live, lamb and beef still show elevated radiation levels due to the Chernobyl fallout contaminating grass and land
This is such a brutal series but so well done.
Can you believe that just a few months ago the Russians camped out a battalion of Russian soldiers on the grounds of this plant? They were there about five days before realizing their mistake and pulling out.
I heard they had radiation sickness from the soil.
@@cathyvickers9063 You are 100% correct.
@@cathyvickers9063you can not have ARS from the red forrest unless if you EAT about 100kg of soil of the worst spot in the red forrest. All the Zone is well mapped and monitored. If you want such dose you'd have to go on some spots in the Unit 4 wreckage or go to the spent fuel storage.
Welcome to the Soviet Union! George Orwell’s “1984” was only slightly exaggerated.
A bit of info on Soviet workplace culture: Essentially, organized bullying. The Central Committee, responsible for economic planning, set unrealistic goals and everyone was terrified to not meet their work quotas. So the workers lied and reported unbelievable success, their supervisors lied to their bosses, and so on up the chain. And if anything went wrong, it was of the utmost importance to blame one of your underlings before your boss pinned the blame on you. The result? A culture of workplace bullying and intimidation, born from fear, anger, corruption, and misinformation at every turn. Byrukhanov might have known he was at fault on some level, but the impulse to deny any wrongdoing or danger was simply too strong. In real life Fomin was even less useful than he's portrayed here, he was so overwhelmed by what had happened that he spent much of the early hours after the disaster in a corner of the meeting room repeating over and over again 'What happened? What happened?' in a small child's voice, or so some accounts say.
This is generally pretty accurate. Lots of small changes were made for dramatic purposes. If exposed to severe radiation you do not taste metal for example. Dyatlov was not this much of a huge jerk. Radiation burns and vomiting would take hours, not minutes. Things like that.
But overall it gives an startlingly accurate depiction of the basics, including all kinds of (sometimes heart-shredding) details. You will end the series with a fairly good grasp of how nuclear reactors work and what radiation poisoning does.
I so look forward to your reaction to this amazing series. Brace yourself for episode four, though.
Great reactions, as always. Thanks for sharing.
don't worry, you'll come to understand how the Soviet Union handled its business with its population just with this series.
Looking forward to seeing your reactions to the rest of this series. A very emotional series and for me what really makes it scary is more so than a horror movie. This really happened or most of it.
I remember this very much. It actually started some panic amongs people here in Sweden when this accident became known. And that the radiation had come all the way here.
The whole spiel by the chairman of the executive committee talks about "faith," faith in the correctness of the Socialism they've labored under for decades, faith in the Revolution embodied in a bald inexperienced lawyer from Samara and an economic system dreamed up by an intellectual who never worked a day in his life. But what it is, what Marxism and Communism always has been, is Utopian thinking, mixed with compulsion and (in the case of the Soviet Union) a managerial system built around upward failure. Whatever conscience their would be - what would qualify more rightly as actual faith, and in good faith at that - it inevitably gets tamped down by the mixture of the previous three features. Because conscience will likely come into conflict with that Utopianism, compulsion, and failure hierarchy.
Only when things get to the point that they do in this series are real measures taken. And even then not without still sliding back into "official numbers and reports" rather than the truth.
I watched a story about a less than 2 gram piece of the graphite was found about 1/4 mile away in 2015. It was just to the side of an ant colony. The ants were still working on moving the graphite away from the colony. Over the years how many millions of ants died to get that out of the colony.
19:05 the people aren't the villain, the USSR government is
The best intro on the youtube reaction space
The main reason that Chernobyl was such a disaster was the Soviet system of infrastructure.
the Soviets convinced themselves they didn't need containment vessels in their nuclear reactors because of
their Superior scientific expertise.
at the same time promoted people not for their competence and expertise
but ONLY their loyalty to the Communist Party.
2:48 "... i've never heard of Chernobyl before." 😮
this will be an amazing watch
She probably regrets her perky intro.
A reaction I didn't know I needed. Thank you
Lady is a thief, bear full of Free gift scam.
Why were they like that? All sorts of reasons but a couple of points in particular.
1. In the Soviet communist system there was basically just one big power structure instead of real separation between institutions such as executive goverment, companies, academia, judiciary, etc. So lacking counter-balance and accountability and people often promoted based on now well they played the party political game instead of real competence.
2. Ideological adherence to communism at all costs meant mistakes and issues were hidden at all levels as things had to be portrayed as perfect/infallible. This was supported by the authoritarianism needed to force everyone to be comunist and prevent the unpersuaded from leaving.
All the people in this episodes with names are real people. The reason for all the denial is that you had to pretend that the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise where nothing bad ever happened. If you raised an issue, it was all your fault. All of them are desparate to avoid blame at any cost. Perception mattered, not reality. And they had the Russian attitude that the people exist to serve the state, not the other way around. People's lives weren't a huge concern.
Remember, for the reactor to explode was in everyone's eyes impossible by design. To them, it was as likely the damage was caused by a whale falling out of the sky. They were wildly irresponsible, but there's things they didn't know that played into this.
That there is a generation who doesn't even know what Chernobyl is or was terrifies me. That because they never feared the cold war they have no understanding of radiation is also is terrifying. Chernobyl was a case study of why collectivism can not handle a crisis. It was both the worst idictment of the soviet communist system, and perhaps the greatest testament to the brave soviet people who gave their lives to save others. As for radiation...basic rule if you can feel anything so much as a tingle....your already dead....it's just a matter of time.
I'm pretty sure the firefighter call at the start is actual audio.
They did use some real footage in this for simple things like news reports.
In that time, for them it was IMPOSSIBLE to even think about a core exploding. Even the scientist didn't understood what happened until they saw it with their eyes and still couldn't comprehend how could the core explode.
Oh yeah, this one makes me cry.
If you want an uplifting HBO mini-series try From the Earth to the Moon.
Natural radiation levels are 0,008-0,014 Reintgen/hour. In city with a lot of granite it could be up to 0,03-0,05 Reintgen/hour
There's a quote from 1984 that comes to my mind regularly when these kinds of corrupt power structures are portrayed in media or seen in real life: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him. These with which any party intellectual would overthrow him in a debate. The subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand much less answer." Toxic political movements survive on convincing people that lies are the truth. Corrupt authoritarian power structures survive on convincing people that the price of living by truth is too high and it's better to live as if the lies are the truth. The officials at the heart of the structure (the "party" or USSR gov) are the ones rewarded for propagating the lie and forcing people to live within the lie which explains why we see the party-climbers running the power plant absolutely refusing to acknowledge the truth. They were specially selected for that kind of mentality. In 1984, when Winston is first captured by the Thought Police, he follows this quote with, "And yet, he was in the right. They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true. Hold onto that. The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard. Water is wet. Unsupported objects fall toward the earth's center." By the end of the torture, he is so reprogrammed that he believes that 2+2=5 while still knowing it equals 4 (ie "double think). He goes back into society, willing to live the lie fully because the cost of even thinking the truth, much less voicing it, is too terrible to contemplate. In the scenario of Chernobyl, it's so telling that they (officials and citizens alike) are still so afraid to believe that 2+2=4 that they'd doom themselves to an imminent, painful death rather than tell the Kremlin that 5 is wrong.
This series is incredibly dark, but very informative about the disaster. Good luck 👍
Due in no small part to the meddling of the Russian state, there is a lot of dis- and mis-information about this event, and it is worth mentioning that this miniseries does dramatize some things. ... some things. In terms of the science, it is bone-chillingly spot-on... not just in what happened or how and why they dealt with it, but also how radiation affects the body. It's unlikely we'll ever know the exact behind-the-scenes discussions with the Russian state members, but their methods of dealing with the situation are also very probably accurate.
The real problem is the number of deaths this event caused. Some are known for certain, others are not. The problem here is that radiation is not a bullet; one shot, one kill. Radiation is more like... well, like smoking cigarettes; it's a of a roll of the dice. The more exposure, the more rolls, the more likely you are to get unlucky, but after enough time it gets difficult-to-impossible to know for sure if the cancer you got is from this one event or if it's part of the normal background cancer rates. Sure, you can do the math and get an estimate, but that's all it is; an estimate. You can't KNOW for certain if this one cancer patient is from Chernobyl, or from cigarettes, or if they just got a bad roll of the dice. I believe this miniseries does place itself on the high end for reported deaths, which, well... it's a dramatization. That's what they do.
Once you're done watching this, I strongly encourage you to look around for some other media, and of course to think critically of the sources of that media, and what sources THEY cite as well. This is an amazing miniseries and, again, the creators did not slouch in their research, but it is vital that we strive for the truth, because - ............... well, you'll see.
Ahhhh CAli B, local and national Soviet party officials find a way to violate every level of human rights with blatant disregard for the humanity of those around them in the name of mindless propaganda.-------- Every measure of civil liberties and human rights is violated in this series. -------- PLus the effects makeup work in this series will send a chill down your spine as you have never felt before. Including Game of Thrones. ------- Brace Yourself.
Looking forward to your reaction to this series. 😅
As an eastern Europe (Ukraine) guy, it's both funny and sad for me, when young people of USA/Western Europe/Canada/etc see, how '"communism" actually look in real life.
In fact, this movie even shows it a bit better, than it was in real life
This is so true. I've seen one guy say "Your life costs nothing in a capitalist state". I told my mom who grew up in SU and she was like "Oh boy, he'd be so surprised if he knew anything about real world"
@@ekaf1735 she spoke straight facts
a bit of context....the chernobyl nuclear power plant existed during the soviet time under communist regime at the height of the cold war. when both USA and USSR were racing to come off as superiour nations. The soviet regime consisted of the party ( communist party ) members of this political party was like a chain command...the under person reporting to the top....it was super effed up. No one was suppose to appear weak or have any mistakes in fear of how it would look to the western enemies...so this major screw up was trying to get swept under the mat asap to avoid big news breaks etc....thats why all of them were in denial...because even the small guys like the scientists and plant directors were found that they made a mistake they would have been imprisoned and exhiled..thats why they were minimizing it all and make it look like its not their fault....
It's not that they're reckless or stupid, really. It's just that they all have a theoretical background that gives them a reasonably good understanding of the machine that they are working with, and their understanding (which is comprehensive but sadly flawed) tells them that there is no possible way for the core to explode. That is in the center of each of their minds. This thing some people are saying happened, cannot physically happen. There is no way in the physical universe it could, as far as they know. The people who are saying that it HAS happened, sounds to them like the people sound to us that say "aliens built the Egyptian pyramids and the Earth is flat". It can't be anything but delusion.
Additionally, there's another calculation going on under that layer of "it can't possibly have exploded". That calculation goes as follows: if I entertain this notion that the core has exploded and that this is a massive crisis, and am right, I am completely fucked. If I'm wrong, and this is a minor problem, I'm also completely fucked. So if I make a big deal out of this and call it a crisis, no matter what the case may be, I'm fucked. If I treat this as a minor issue and it turns out it's a huge crisis, I'm fucked, for obvious reasons. But if I say that it's a minor issue and it IS a minor issue, then I'm fine. So the ONLY THING I CAN DO that has even the REMOTEST chance of me ending up NOT entirely fucked, is to treat this as a minor issue. Treating it as a crisis is absolutely, completely and utterly a losing move for me.
Watching this is just heart breaking.
I was 15 years old when the accident at Chernobyl happened. It was all over the news. It was pretty scary then, coming from the prospective of a kid who did not know anything about nuclear energy and the dangers of it. Finding out more about it years later and the reality of what happened was even scarier as an adult than when I was a kid. I know that nuclear power has benefits, but I would never want to work in a nuclear power plant or live near one. I watched this series when it was first released and it was a real gut punch.
1:21 "Oh!"
nice 🙂
This is a dramatization of what actually happened. I was just 7 years old and can still remember when Tom Brokaw spoke about this on the evening news.
This series is so fascinating in how horrified you become, and the worst part is that it is real life!
I lived through this event. The radioactive cloud went over our continent. I’ve seen plants in the wild being mutated due to the radiation.
10:06 "y'all the scientists."
your anxiety is great. 😆
I so very much enjoyed your review of Band of Brothers which may be the BEST mini-series ever. This is probably the 2nd best. I'm thrilled you get it that it's NOT the Reactor exactly (although the design of the RBMK reactors was crap)...but the people and the way it was handled that is the true evil. I graduated eons ago with a degree in Nuclear Engineering. I've worked in multiple of OUR Nuclear Power plants. This mini-series gets the events of the Chernobyl accident mostly correct (only a few things were "simplified" to make the presentation digestible). I anxiously await your redone installment. Peace
2:23 that is the graphite, that was on the tips of the rods, which are used to cool the core I guess... the show implies that Dyatlov knows perfectly well what's going on…
That ineptitude and callousness is just one of the many reasons the soviet union was an evil empire.
Nuclear reactors are fueled by an element called Uranium 235, which is an unstable atom that has an asymmetric number of neutrons and electrons. Because it is unstable and asymmetric, it only exists in nature for a millisecond because it tends to gravitate to a stable state by shedding neutrons and electrons until it has a symmetric number (the Uranium in nuclear plants has to be artificially manufactured and kept in stasis using technology or else it would all spontaneously disappear). The act of breaking down by shedding neutrons and electrons (called "fission") generates enormous amounts of light and heat (in the famous proportion E=MC2), and a nuclear plant captures that heat and uses it to generate power. That's how a nuclear plant works in a nutshell. The danger is that if the Uranium is not contained, the neutrons/electrons flying off of the Uranium act like bullets, penetrating and wrecking everything that they touch, including the cells of any humans nearby. That's why the engineers are vomiting and their skin turns red, because they are being silently penetrated by millions of particles penetrating their bodies like bullets, causing damage to their bodies with every second of exposure. In addition to the millions of particles flying around and penetrating everything, the secondary danger is that Uranium and its by-products are also incredibly poisonous to humans even in tiny doses, so even if you are not in the immediate range of the flying electrons and neutrons, the residue that they leave everywhere will slowly poison you.
So… remember within the last year we had a train carrying extremely dangerous chemicals derail? And the train company offered $5,000 per FAMILY before any health studies had been done? And that the condition of taking that $5,000 was that they couldn’t sue the company ever, in the future, for any health results!!??
This sort of thing hasn’t ended.
In the end, there's little difference in abuse of power, whether the power comes from money, political power, ideology or religion.
This happened, nearly 40 years ago. And that place still can’t be visited without wearing protective equipment. Very sad, that money took precedence over public safety. We didn’t hear about it here in the U.S. until days after the explosion had occurred.
It always surprises me how so many reviewers on YT have never heard of Chernobyl...everyone in Europe did.
Please give Star Trek a chance. 🖖😌
Lower Decks? 😉
Boeing says HI!
If reactors are built right things like what happened here cannot happen, Reactors in the US all have a heavy reinforced containment wall built around them. Nuclear power is really the only clean replacement for coal and oil-fired power plants, you just have to not be cheap when building them. Reactors cannot explode like an atomic bomb you need weapon-grade plutonium for that. what happened in Chernobyl was a really big dirty bomb, a steam explosion that blew scattered radioactive stuff into the air.
Here in Ireland, people were afraid when Chernobyl happened - radiation was detected in Irish sheep, and for a long time afterwards. Not much - but it hadn't been detected before.
The Republic's government of the day was so ill-prepared for any kind of nearby nuclear disaster - and Chernobyl IS relatively nearby, with wind currents sending radiation this way too - that they didn't know what to do. In the end, they sent one iodine (anti-radiation) tablet to every household in the country. One! We shoved ours in one of the kitchen drawers. One tablet. When every single person would need to take more than one a day to try and suppress radiation sickness.
To this day, many children with radiation sickness, physical deformity, and mental disabilities continue to be born in the region, many languishing in grim orphanages etc around Belarus - but, apart from the pandemic years, a number of Irish charities continue to bring 'children of Chernobyl' to the Republic for free holidays every summer; they stay with host families, who welcome them in and give them odinary, healthy food, fresh air, fun activities - all felt to extend those children's lives by years.
It's a bit depressing to hear someome say they've never heard of Chernobyl, apart from this TV show, as good as it is.
Great series. A true life horror story. As a kid, I heard of this incident and was really interested it in. I will stop there, since anything else I mention about the interest, might be spoilerish.
Revelation 8:4 talks about a star called "Wormwood " falling from heaven and making water bitter. Chernobyl means Wormwood. Some believe that the disaster was the Third Trumpet of the Bible.
Cherbobyl is one of my special interests. There was so much that went wrong from the fact that the crew that was working wasn't equipped to run the test in the first place(tlots of newbies)to the culture of the time to the way the reactor was built. The deeper you dive thr worse it gets. There were over 10000 people from the beginning to the end that were affected by the tragedy.
“Why is he in charge?…”…exactly…exactly 😢
He was in charge because he was a member in good standing of the communist party. Yes, he was a trained engineer but as a loyal party member he could not believe an accident of this magnitude was possible.
What you will learn is that these leaders while certainly not taking it seriously honestly didn’t know the core could ever explode. Nothing like this had ever happened in the world before. They absolutely should have done more but with it being a Soviet state and not understanding how the core could explode I can see why they kept saying it’s nonsense. Definitely not but I get it.
"Never heard of Chernobyl"?! Really?! Come on. It was the most infamous disaster in living memory.
What a great mini series !
Probably one of HBOs best shows in the last 10 years.. experttly made.
Drfinitely a commentary on capitalism etc but also this really happened and they really did ignore it all until it was nearly too late.
Lots of people born in that area have been said to still have a lot of effects from the chemicals etc, ..
The only thing that can be said in Dyatlov's defense is that, until Chernobyl, the core of a nuclear power plant had never exploded and nobody thought it was possible that they could explode in normal operation, so what was happening was impossible in his mind despite seeing it with his own eyes. It doesn't excuse his inaction and lack of leadership, but it explains why he was in denial for so long despite the evidence
i would like to watch your full length reaction.
I have not seen Chernobyl, but I know a lot about the accident. Radiation was even discovered in Sweden. The government said you couldn't eat any berries and mushrooms on the east coast, because it rained on them.
They took precaution. ☢️⚠️
I would like to visit Chernobyl one day (for tourists)
You are aware that this actually happened in history how much it affected the world we may never know . But this shit is real life
The guy in charge is calm because he knows they're already dead.
and the only thing he can do is try to limit the number of other people who will die.
The man who was in charge messed up before with the nuclear reactor of a submarine. After that they just transferred him to Chernobyl.
-Man throws up after being close to the former core.
Blend: Is that radiation or something?
I had to laugh a bit.
No. He had just had Sushi hun..
The management got where they were by believing everything they were told and doing everything they were told to. It might work if nothing ever went wrong but things do.
the mentality of the Soviet Union back that was so weird. Whatever The State or your direct supervisor told you was correct, cos "why would they lie? how could they be wrong?" you didnt question..you just did what you were told.
They were denial because it was believed that RBMK reactors cannot explode. They can melt but cannot explode. In theory they were right but nobody was aware about crucial design flaw but still in normal circumstances (not in situation they created by their incompetency and breaking all safety regulations) they could (in theory) safely avoid this situation. But what had happened here was chain of events that could not be reverted and impossible (from their perspective)) had happened
Thanks for the video!! See you later!! Stay safe.😊