The nurse asking the older doctor about iodine pills foreshadows that the old-school medical establishment doesn’t know anything about treating radiation related problems. Iodine helps prevent radioactive iodine from accumulating in your thyroid. It won’t protect you from everything but it’s something.
When Dyatlov says "You didn't see graphite" it's ironic because HE himself saw the graphite on the ground, when he was walking down the hall and looked out the window. He saw it, but he was so convinced that it was physically impossible for an explosion to occur he couldn't take in the reality of what he was looking at.
I actually asked my Ukrainian friend, from Lviv, why the official Soviet death toll is still just 31. He said "If in Soviet Union a meteor size of Texas had fallen on Moscow official propaganda would have easily said that only 92 people died and 20 wounded"
@@kidfox3971 The meteor that hit Earth 1 million years ago and killed all the dinosaurs was 10 km in diameter. and Texas is as wide as the moon. it's called the world of doomsday bro. you death
Fun fact: The composer for this show is Hildur Guðnadóttir, the same composer for Joker and worked as a cellist for Sicario. She actually recorded sounds from an actual nuclear plant to make the score.
The iodine pills issue is important...you noticed it when she asked about iodine pills and the man asked why they would stock them. The reason they would is because one of the main products of a nuclear power accident is almost always radioactive iodine, and the human thyroid takes that radiation in very quickly...but it is very very easy to counteract that issue entirely by having everyone take stable iodine in pill form so that their thyroids are all so full of the safe iodine that they cannot take in any of the radioactive iodine. The fact that the Soviets did not stockpile stable iodine pills is a major cause of the deaths from Chernobyl, shows how lax the safety protocols around Chernobyl were, and stands in stark contrast to the way iodine is distributed to people that live near nuclear power reactors pretty much everywhere else in the world.
Local hospitals did stockpile various radiation protection drugs. Nobody expected this level of radiation and no drug in the world would help first responders.
@@Grigorii-j7z There were thousands and thousands of cases of thyroid cancer in the wake of the Chernobyl explosion. If the USSR stockpiled any stable iodine anywhere it could do any good, then they did a terrible job of distributing it to the people who needed it.
Hard to stock the amounts needed for a big disaster. When there was fighting in ukraine near chernobyl last year, people panicking emptied iodine pills here, evenjust food supplement ones, which would not be large enough doses to matter. Just goes to show that we are rarely prepared enough for a big catastrophe.
@Gerald H The KGB has their hands in everything, but I'm afraid the real reasons are far more mundane and thus in a way more disturbing: cost. The USSR was 15 years - minimum - behind the USA economically at this point, which was a big gap given how fast things were advancing. And they knew it. But they were constantly terrified of that being realized. As such, they stretched their resources to breaking point to do everything possible to maintain the appearance of keeping up. To do this, they cut corners, skipped out on critical investments, and so on to make sure they had the necessary funds for other things. To put it bluntly, stockpiling the full range of medications for the common people just wasn't high enough on their priorities list to get significant attention.
@geraldh3932their motto is why worry about something that isn't there. Rbmk reactors cannot and don't explode, so why would we even prep for such a possibility. They obviously knew the stakes in terms of working in a nuclear reactor. But being the Soviet union, everything will be fine.
I was about 10 years old as Chernobyl happend and the Fallout cloud was blown over western Europe where i lived. Playgrounds were closed and steamcleaned, sand exchanged. Sport events canceled, Soccerfields closed. There were no more milk or derry products aviable in the shops, neither fresh vegetables for weeks. My family had to live from tinned food for some time. It was spooky. People were affraid but noone know anything in particular. My Parents forbid me to go out for play and for weeks i had to stay inside especially when the forcast told of rain. In School we were forced to take Iodine. At night i could see crying Farmers in the News who had to kill their Livestock cause they were outside as the radiactive cloud flew over them. It was extremly scarry back then.
I'm so sorry, couldn't imagine the trauma from this horrific event. I'm young, but extremely grateful to know about this story. Just couldn't imagine living in it. All because of a group of Men and their blind faith in a corrupt system. It's not fair.
As a chemist, no matter how many times I rewatch this episode I always get chills down my back, to know what actually happens with that much radiation, the aftermath on the people and nature, is fockin scary.
@@babalonkie kinda hits me as i comment this.. googled it, the x-ray i got was 0.1 mSv of Radiation. or what we are exposed to in about 10 days of normal living. but then in seconds, and i could taste it.. i can't imagine what they must have experienced.
A good friend of mine when I was in graduate school had been a physician in Minsk when this happened. After I had moved away I learned he had died young of a rare thyroid cancer that was relatively common among people exposed to the radiation from Chernobyl. I am certain he was one of the many undocumented victims of this fiasco.
@@davenz000 Dude, Minsk is only 350 km away from Chernobyl. A few days after the accident, the fallout from Chernobyl set off radiation alarms in Sweden, 1500 kilometers away. I can assure you, OP's friend was close enough to be exposed to radiation from Chernobyl. And being around the ARS victims wouldn't have done anything, it's theoretically possible for a human body to become dangerously irradiated, but it's never actually happened before. The highest known dose of radiation ever recieved by one person was Hisashi Ouichi, who took a dose of 17 sieverts in the Tokaimura criticality incident of 1999, and despite three months of constant medical care up until his death, none of his doctors, nurses or family members were contaminated. And trust me, they were checking. For context, it's believed the Chernobyl victims from that first night received doses of about 6 Sv. Yeah, in the 80's it was believed people with ARS were dangerously radioactive, but now we know better.
The moment they look directly at an exposed core is pure chills. Some equivalent of the term "dunzo" would have to be going through their heads at that instant.
Right? I tried to wait to watch this one until they had one or two more released, but I only made it 3 days, and watched it anyway. I hope they don't wait too long D=
Remember while watching this that the Soviets and Russians in general have a very different perspective than we do. We're talking about a country that has been invaded repeatedly throughout its history and so thinks that if it shows any weakness it will be invaded again. So appearances are everything in Russia, especially during the Cold War. Anything that goes wrong needs to be covered up so that the outside world doesn't know about it. The official line is that the Soviet State is the best in the world so obviously anyone revealing a flaw is a liar and detriment to society, possibly even a traitor. In the early days people like that were taken to a basement and shot, by the 1980s you usually just lost your job and home and would be reassigned somewhere horrible if you weren't sent to prison. And so the official party line is that the Soviet nuclear program is the best and safest in the world. The general public around the plant don't know how dangerous a nuclear accident can be because an accident couldn't possibly happen because the Soviet nuclear program is the best in the world. You don't see peices of the exploded reactor because Soviet reactors can't explode because the Soviet program is the best in the world... Everyone you'll see in the show knows all of this, which is why you'll see them outright deny reality even when it's screaming in their face.
There's an interview with the real Dyatlov not long before he died, where he touches on that very point. He sarcastically says something along the lines of there never being any mechanical failures in the Soviet Union, just the failures of people. Dyatlov is done pretty dirty in this series to make him a "villain," since every hero movie needs a bad guy. While definitely a hard and demanding man, by most actual accounts he wasn't the lunatic portrayed here. Even his repeated denial in the show that the core couldn't have exploded is actually attributed to Akimov by many who were there. In the Soviet Union there are no mechanical failures, so they needed a scapegoat, and Dyatlov was their pick. True, that test should've been aborted, and he should've been the one to do it so he definitely has a fair amount of responsibility, but those RBMK reactors were ticking time bombs, with 2 similar lesser disasters having already happened before the 1986 Chernobyl explosion. But, since they were classified, no one, including Dyatlov, was aware of the danger, and they really thought that AZ-5 scram button was a get out of jail free card, instead of the detonation trigger it was in those specific circumstances.
Fun fact: the guy who had control over all operations of the reactor and the company that built the plant itself had no prior experience with nuclear power plants whatsoever
"I have a feeling this show won't have any sunshine or rainbows" LMFAO! You got that right, bro! / I have to say: this was a fantastic reaction, and I must say: slightly different than the norm! You guys are quite rightly infuriated, but you also are strong enough to take what you're watching. Some get very emotional. And that's great too! And you may, also! But in this episode, you are two obviously intelligent, articulate people processing this horrifying story, getting properly pissed off and I'm here for it! I'm grateful you're back in action! The edit was excellent. What can I say? You guys are great reactors! PS: Did I mention "Severance" yet? lol. You guys have to do that show! (I'll bet you've seen it already!!!! :P)
There’s some Hollywood indulgence for sure, but it conveys the absolute terror of “invisible” radiation in an impactful and realistic way that stays with you long after viewing, like being irradiated with awareness.
Most of the actors in this are British, and most use their native accents, so you've got a myriad of accents all jumbled together. The Soviet Union was a very diverse country with a large number of languages and accents, so in many ways its reflective of the reality, rather than having everyone doing a Russian accent with variable ability. The Death of Stalin film has this too and it definitely adds a depth to it that would not necessarily be there.
In addition, I would say that when actors try to fake slavic accents, or any type of accent really, it just reduces the credibility and drama of the movie their acting in. It just makes it almost comical. And it would have been very inappropriate in that context. That the actors just use their own accent just makes look like the characters are talking their native language and it just makes everything flow better.
@@philipped.r.6385That is what I've been saying countless times about this show. It just works better than a mishmash of attempts at Slavic accents with varying degrees of success.
No one is using a Russian accent; they are actors from all over Europe. Skaarsgard is Swedish, a lot are obviously British. They thought that having a bunch of actors put on fake Russian accents would feel silly and distracting (which it would!), and it's not uncommon at all for movies and series that take place in other countries to do them in English. (other countries have done this as well in their own language). For instance, there are lots of versions of "The Three Musketeers", almost every one of them is in English, not French! It's only VERY, VERY recently that the average American doesn't mind reading subtitles. This is a completely recent development. Until very recently, most Americans would be allergic to watching a foreign film, or watching a movie with lots of subtitles. Almost as much as they are pathetically allergic to black & white photography, or a movie made during another time period that isn't the absolutely dopey one we've been living in for the last 40 years. 😂 No American actors were used because they don't sound very European, and it would be distracting for a British/American audience (which is what this was aimed at).
@@KIRA-EL Yes. Exactly. You just proved my point. It's only RECENTLY. lol. If you grew up watching FOREIGN FILMS, like me, (which is way cooler), subtitles are not an issue either. But that wasn't the norm. It's only VERY recently where people just keep subtitles on, even when the movie is in English.
omg i never thought i would see this wow . There is a podcast for each episode by Craig which tells you whys and wherefores . They are so good and can be watched after each episode together with this series as there are no spoilers.
I must admit that it shocks me a little how little knowledge is available today among young people about this event. An event that could have easily made Europe uninhabitable for more than 10,000 years. I remember this time quite well even if I was 2000 km away. It's a bit sad that nowadays a streaming series is needed to close this gap in education. I don't blame the young people, I mean, if no one explains it to them, how would they know?
There are constantly new problems in the world, everyday. New people enter this world everyday, why would you expect everyone to keep up with all the shit going on right now, and ALSO keep up with all the tragic shit that happened in the past. I'd say focus on the present, dont dwell on the past. It's completely understandable. Most people know about chernobyl and that shit happened, but there is no reason for everybody to be an expert on the topic.
The poor education about the subject is in Russia, too. During the invasion of Unkraine, Russian soldiers were ordered to dig a trench in the woods...the highly radioactive woods...of Chernobyl. They had to be hospitalized.
Interesting statement given your assumptions about the consequences demonstrate just how poor education on the subject is. Even if nobody did anything, Chernobyl was physically, scientifically incapable of rendering all of Europe uninhabitable or even anything remotely close. This is a frankly ludicrous notion.
еще бы исериал нормальный был бы, без кучи клюквенной пропаганды. А так в принцепе согласен, но плохо то что те кто мало хнает о катострофе будет воспринимать знания из этой напрочь выдуманной и лживой поделки, в которой есть только одно, сама катастрофа. Все остальное сказка на сказке и сказкой погоняет, а местами обливает грязью людей которые пострадали или пытались предотвратить дальнейшую катастрофу.
@@simonrockstream Ваше мышление далеко от истины. Нельзя жить настоящим не смотря в прошлое. Прошлое учит людей не совершать ошибки в настоящем и будущем. В США и Европе забыли о своем нацистском прошлом и повторяют те же ошибки, что и в 1939-1945 годах, и к чему это привело? Все верно, к повторению событий тех лет.
A lot of kudos towards the late Paul Ritter. From his hilariously goofy performance in "Friday Night Dinner" to this performance that makes you want to strangle him.
From what I’ve learned from nuclear physicists reacting to this; it really wasn’t the core exploding. It was a massive steam explosion that just so happened to occur within the core
Semantics. Was it exactly like a conventional nuclear bomb? No. But how different was it really? The explosion didn't "just so happen to occur within the core". It was directly caused by a prompt criticality, like in a nuclear weapon. It's just a difference of how much energy was released.
@@Short_Round1999 But I don't mean to scaremonger. I just objected to saying it "wasn't the core exploding". A nuclear power plant is not a nuclear bomb and can never be, even in cases of prompt criticality like this. The fuel is too spread out and diluted to explode as energetically as a nuclear weapon, where highly enriched fuel is suddenly compressed so hard that it all fissions in a matter of microseconds, before it has time to get blown apart. In Chernobyl, the rising pressure blew the reactor open before most of the fuel could fission. Then air entered the reactor and lit everything on fire, causing the secondary explosion.
Firefly, Farscape, Stargate SG-1 (but you have to watch the theatrical release movie Stargate first, since the show refers back to it), Babylon-5; Battlestar Galactica. I apologize they're all scifi.
13:13 (all blaming each other) -- In a weird way, it reminds me of The Apprentice where throwing others under the bus was advantageous, whereas taking accountability was a fatal mistake.
I think it's VERY IMPORTANT to understand that they did not know the full physics of it. It's like one day you were randomly told that gravity did not exist or that the sun isnt real. You would have a hard time believing or accepting it.
It traveled very far , my dad remembers he was not allowed to play outside when he was a kid , we live in Germany. To this day it's not save to eat mushrooms we find in our woods.
19:34 - This was a completely unprecedented event which they didn't ever believe was possible, later in the show there is more information that will explain why they are so certain it couldn't happen - but on top of that The Soviet Union, was basically an ideological cult, they were incapable of flaw or failure and you simply had to tow the party line or suffer terrible consequences, they may simply be true believers by necessity, self delusion for the sake of survival.
this is a great show depicting real event and real people, their heroism and cravenness, as well as ingrained problems of a tottering bureaucratic state. however main narrative of the show is problematic, because it is false and propagandist. in fact, what happened at chernobyl and aftermath (now known and even accessible in west through books like midnight at chernobyl) was quite different from their depiction is show (in fact almost 180 degrees different). i don't want to spoil. so i will stick to just one of many changes motivated by propaganda (as opposed to dramatic license). in reality legasov sent his "tapes" to editor of pravda, one of the main propagandist outlets of that state, and like legasov himself a person linked to the ruling faction at the time. it was quite unlike what is depicted in show with secret drop, under the cover of taking out garbage. while legasov being depicted as a person living alone(when he was a family man) is forgivable dramatic license (to make plot tight), their changing recipient from an elite person, to an implied secret dissident , and changing legasov himself from a highly ranked privileged person (up to date of his death), to one prosecuted by that state, are not due to dramatic license, nor forgivable. these propagandist distortions multiply, and always with same tendency, for a demonizing purpose. that is why show is problematic. and should be called out. what is the cost such lies?
Many people belive this is what ultimately led to the fall of the Soviet Union. The cost in manpower and amount of soldiers they threw at containing this was just too much.
Dyatlov was lying through his teeth about the glow being the Cherenkov effect. That happens when the core is underwater. Concerning the denial: you had to pretend the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise where nothing ever went wrong. Perception was more important than reality. If you surfaced a problem, it was all your fault. They set about to build a tractor factory. Work fell behind, but no wanted to take the hit, so the paperwork moved ahead on schedule. Finally the fire marshall showed up to inspect and found a cement slab. Concerning radiation: people were told that radiation was good, it treated cancer, it was a sign of technological progress, and if the Americans nuke us, Civil Defense has it covered. There was no protective gear, no medical supplies, no SOPs because in the Soviet Union, nothing ever went wrong.
I hope you watched the entire series before posting to UA-cam, because you're going to have people commenting things to come in future episodes, wanting to show how much they know about the disaster (because they already watched the show, not because they have anything new to add).
If you guys would watch Dark...that would make me happy. And you probably too, because its just one of the best shows ever produced. 3 seasons of greatness.
I won't spoil any of the future episodes, but you'll learn some about why everyone seemed to refuse to believe the core exploded. I'm in the US and I remember when this happened. At the time, we didn't know how bad "bad" could get.
I don't want to give anything away but suffice to say everyone involved had enough reason to believe the core could not explode. Their insistence after the fact is doubtlessly also to cover themselves from blame, but up until the point it happened everyone was 100% sure it was impossible.
one thing to keep in mind while watching the episodes is that the general population was ignorant the to function/dangers/ or really anything to do with reactors or radiation. There was a standard of doing what you're told without question or a need for understanding.
This is an amazing series! Looking forward to the rest. If you continue on with doing shows after you finish this one I'd like to throw The Expanse out as a suggestion if you haven't seen it. Great sci-fi show that's perfect for reactors who like to theorize about what's coming next.
10:04 A friend of mine once said, “This was probably the closest that living men got to looking straight into Hell itself, the closest to real-life Cosmic Horror it ever got.”
Fun fact: Anatoly Dyatlov didin't deny the fact that reactor exploded instead he helped his injured comrades and gave orders to minimize the disaster, he never ordered Toptunov or Akimov to pump the water in to the core, but instead he told them to go home multiple times to save themself, but they didin't lisen and helped others and pumped the water to the core since they denied the fact that reactor exploded which led to their sad faith, dyatlow looked for khodemchuk alone and whit others to, of course he isn't completly innocent.There is a book written about the accident but i forgot the name but i csn find it again, its best the best book ever written about the accident.
Back then all information around nuclear materials, power or installations were regarded as state secret in Russia. Aside that, nuclear power was still quite new and not much about what could happen if an accident occur was known. Chernobyl was the first on such a huge scale but as Fukushima told us sadly not the last.
The disaster is fully in episode #5 Episodes #3 and #4 brutally show the cost of the disaster. Nobody removed the firefighter's cloths,they're still in the hospital basement today
The actual symptoms of radiation poisoning took a little longer than shown. And startlingly a few people right in the heart of it are still alive. They have dramatized things well, although the last episode is the least accurate in terms of specific events. But you will get a pretty good grasp of how a nuclear reactor works, what went wrong, and what radiation poisoning does.
So as someone who has done a fair bit of research on Chernobyl and nuclear physics, immediately after the explosion at Chernobyl, the most irradiated areas of the building were emitting ~ 5.6 R/s or ~ 20,160 R/h, which will result in a generally swift ( but incredibly agonizing ) death within a matter of hours. Ionizing radiation breaks the atomic bonds that make up our bodies, causing cell death, mutation, or cancer on the molecular level. And physical damage can manifest in countless ways; nausea, dizziness, vomiting, hair loss, anorexia, diarrhea, fever, swelling, cataracts, fatigue and weakness, decreased white blood cell counts, temporary and permanent sterility, radiological burns, ulcers, spontaneous bleeding and hemorrhaging, radiological lesions (skin necrosis), tremors, seizures, organ failure, and death. Death from ionizing radiation exposure is immeasurably agonizing, regardless of it you die within months or hours. The pain victims suffer is immeasurable.
What they dont tell you in the series is that the two men who shared a smoke at the end of the episode survived. True they were in hospital and knocking on Death's door for months but both made it out. I think they've both since passed but from natural causes than cancer.
Sad thing is, Dyatlov might not have been wrong about having seen worse. That just didn't mean much, because he'd almost died of radiation poisoning once before. The reason their faces turn red is that intense radiation poisoning is basically a 3D sunburn.
As depressing as this series is, its also yet another fantastic testament to the bravery of the Ukrainian and wider workers of the USSR. Despite the disgusting attitude of the apparatchiks the workers and soldiers were genuinely amazing communists - the problem was not communism in theory but its execution, being forced on a peoples that were not ready for such a modern revolution by a criminal and authoritarian thuggish regime. Peace to all in Russia and of course, the Ukraine. You always did and still deserve better than this xx
So when it comes to Dyatlov's dismissal of the idea the core exploded, it's important to remember that at the time, it was entirely reasonable to assume that was impossible. Because reactor cores really are incapable of just blowing up. Contrary to popular belief, they're not similar to bomb cores in the ways that matter most. So it *should* have been impossible for the reactor core to explode. So with that assumption firmly in place, they go to the explanation that a tank exploded and damaged the various machinery surrounding the core and damaged the facility. In that case, getting water into the core, hydrogen out, and making sure the rods are lowered is the correct course of action.
Listening to your intro oh my god, PLEASE do SEVERANCE. Mind blowing series. Only 9 episodes. If you're thinking of doing more TV series, that one is RIGHT up your alley. You guys would KILL on Severance. As I'm sure you're going to kill on Chernobyl! Let's see! Press play, Tic Toc! 😄
Great reaction guys, looking forward to the rest of the series... If you're looking for a future TV series I would recommend "band of brother's" 10 episodes in total, Tom hanks /steven spielberg masterpiece.
Craig Mazin's writing is definitely a great writer for this show, but as a fellow Swede I feel like I have to also point out the fantastic directory skills of Johan Renck. Who has, with the help of all the other amazing people working on this show, drawn the massive amounts of attention this show has garnered since its premiere.
This a really good series...one of the best ever made...but the producers did get some things wrong. Some things were changed intentionally for the purposes of storytelling, and the makers of the series put in a series of notes at the end of the last episode of the series explaining some of them. They also have a podcast that they put out along with the show in which they talk about other things they altered from the history and why. However, I do recommend you check out the History vs Hollywood article on Chernobyl when you are done watching the whole series, so you can find out about the other things that the producers got wrong that they do not admit to. Definitely wait until you are done with the series so you do not spoil anything for yourself.✌
@@EricSarahReact I am fascinated by every reaction channel that I see reacting to this. The Soviet Union is very far outside the scope of experience of most people these days, so seeing folks exposed to it for the first time is really interesting. I hope the series is not too hard on you guys as you watch it...but know that you are in good company if you have strong emotional reactions, most people do, and you are not alone.
@@EricSarahReact Apologies for posting at you again...you were asking near the end whether everyone is Russian...and that is a more complicated question than you may have thought. Everyone depicted in the show is Soviet, but not all are Russian. Chernobyl is located in Ukraine, so many of the local people were Ukrainian Soviets...but in the Soviet Union, there was a strong tendency for ethnic Russians to get the most promising leadership posts all around the USSR. The nuclear industry was similarly biased towards Russian Soviets, so at Chernobyl the top spots were held by Russians at both the plant and in the leadership of the town, and the majority of the engineers would also be Russian, but the regular workers at the plant and in the area would mostly have been Ukrainian.
This very first episode helps illustrate one of the underlying issues of the entire case: True to its very nature, the USSR just didn't give a damn about facts or transparency. In the first few days, all the local officials and the central government in Moscow tried to pretend nothing serious had happened. The design, as it was, was already faulty but manageable if no one ever did show-boating tests with it, tempting fate, despite the potential for built-in safety measures to potentially fail at a less controlled performance test. Dyatlov, hungry for a brown-nosing promotion at higher-ups, risked it in the blind belief that he'd avoid any issues. It was just the tip of the iceberg of lies. The powerplant was built too close to the newly constructed city. Corners were cut to get it up and running before a certain date or anniversary. Everyone knew the reactor could be destabilize under very specific, but possible-to-achieve conditions. The roof of the reactor building had only the most basic of shielding, and surprise, surprise, the detonation inside the reactor room tore apart much of the roof and walls of the entire building. This is what Valery Legasov is getting at during that grim prologue. "What is the price of lies ?" If you live in a totalitarian state or authoritarian state - the USSR (and today's Russia as well, sadly) being a textbook example - a state where corruption is omnipresent and off the rails, where lying about "everything working perfectly" is the only acceptable way of getting promoted, even over (literal) dead bodies, where accountability and transparency is non-existent and you're lucky if the government bothers to reveal anything truthful to citizens, sooner or later, all the "Potemkin villages", all the fake, "glorious" propaganda facades fall to pieces, exposing the completely rotten, completely inhumane system hidden behind them. A system run on lies, repression, nepotism, on a childish pretense that if we keep lying to ourselves and others endlessly, it will never backfire on us. Sadly, when things backfired in 1986 and everything was laid bare, without any sugarcoating, it backfired so spectacularly that no amount of lies, denialism, threats, insults or anything else could deny the simple truth that, the people on all levels of the state who were meant to do their work responsibly, thought little about responsibility, and hundreds of people payed for it with their lives. Hundreds of thousands more payed for it with their damaged health, especially if they were in the most exposed areas of northern Ukraine, or even in any European country where the fallout had been carried over via winds. Some people think that the Chernobyl catastrophe being one of the final nails in the coffin of the propaganda-overhyped "invincible soviet empire" is not a mere figure of speech, but a fully verifiable statement. I am among those people, many people. When Chernobyl happened, the USSR had just entered a period where they claimed they would provide citizens with more transparent news and information, that the government will deal with issues in a more transparent manner. Months into the catastrophe, once people finally received news about the seriousness of the situation through whistleblowers, hearsay and the government gradually but finally caving in, even that fool's hope had evaporated and people lost trust in the soviet regime for good (even those that outwardly pretended otherwise, out of fear). The USSR fell apart in 1991 and given Russia's most recent actions, it's return is now even more unlikely. But some of the final nails in the USSR's coffin were driven in already five years before that, in 1986. And the USSR had only itself to blame.
What "outer" world and young people didn't realize during this show are the soviet regime and the aftereffect of the disaster itself. So little is taught in schools nowadays 😕 For example...How the F today's people don't know about iodine pills in case of radiation??? Anyway, two major things about regime: 1. This was time of Cold War and soviets did anything to cover their mistakes (they weren't alone). 2. Soviet regime school system and propaganda were so strong that almost nobody at that time knew about important things like radiation. And even if they knew, they rather kept mouth shut because they'd loose their lives getting shot. About the aftermath - the radiation cloud was spreading around the whole globe and it eventually circumnavigated our planet twice!!! In some European countries, radiation from Chernobyl was registered in animals and mushrooms decades after the disaster. That's just for the start to get a bigger picture in what state world was living at that time.
The nurse asking the older doctor about iodine pills foreshadows that the old-school medical establishment doesn’t know anything about treating radiation related problems. Iodine helps prevent radioactive iodine from accumulating in your thyroid. It won’t protect you from everything but it’s something.
Was she a nurse? I thought she was a doctor too.
@@iwikal Yes, she is a doctor.
Communist at there finest 17:02
@Gerald H Depends on how long you need the small amount of protection it offers. One pill won't last indefinitely.
@Gerald H True, But many people were there for longer, And there's no point in not taking a precaution, However minor it's help, If it's available..
When Dyatlov says "You didn't see graphite" it's ironic because HE himself saw the graphite on the ground, when he was walking down the hall and looked out the window. He saw it, but he was so convinced that it was physically impossible for an explosion to occur he couldn't take in the reality of what he was looking at.
I lived just 70 miles away from Chernobyl. People had no idea what's going on. We been told about what happened only 36 hours after the disaster
Calm down everything is under control
Beautiful countryside and a pleasant drive from Kiev. The first Security checkpoint brings you back to reality.
I actually asked my Ukrainian friend, from Lviv, why the official Soviet death toll is still just 31. He said "If in Soviet Union a meteor size of Texas had fallen on Moscow official propaganda would have easily said that only 92 people died and 20 wounded"
@@kidfox3971 💯
@@kidfox3971 The meteor that hit Earth 1 million years ago and killed all the dinosaurs was 10 km in diameter. and Texas is as wide as the moon. it's called the world of doomsday bro. you death
Fun fact: The composer for this show is Hildur Guðnadóttir, the same composer for Joker and worked as a cellist for Sicario. She actually recorded sounds from an actual nuclear plant to make the score.
RBMK reactor, actually.
The iodine pills issue is important...you noticed it when she asked about iodine pills and the man asked why they would stock them. The reason they would is because one of the main products of a nuclear power accident is almost always radioactive iodine, and the human thyroid takes that radiation in very quickly...but it is very very easy to counteract that issue entirely by having everyone take stable iodine in pill form so that their thyroids are all so full of the safe iodine that they cannot take in any of the radioactive iodine. The fact that the Soviets did not stockpile stable iodine pills is a major cause of the deaths from Chernobyl, shows how lax the safety protocols around Chernobyl were, and stands in stark contrast to the way iodine is distributed to people that live near nuclear power reactors pretty much everywhere else in the world.
Local hospitals did stockpile various radiation protection drugs. Nobody expected this level of radiation and no drug in the world would help first responders.
@@Grigorii-j7z There were thousands and thousands of cases of thyroid cancer in the wake of the Chernobyl explosion. If the USSR stockpiled any stable iodine anywhere it could do any good, then they did a terrible job of distributing it to the people who needed it.
Hard to stock the amounts needed for a big disaster. When there was fighting in ukraine near chernobyl last year, people panicking emptied iodine pills here, evenjust food supplement ones, which would not be large enough doses to matter. Just goes to show that we are rarely prepared enough for a big catastrophe.
@Gerald H The KGB has their hands in everything, but I'm afraid the real reasons are far more mundane and thus in a way more disturbing: cost.
The USSR was 15 years - minimum - behind the USA economically at this point, which was a big gap given how fast things were advancing. And they knew it. But they were constantly terrified of that being realized.
As such, they stretched their resources to breaking point to do everything possible to maintain the appearance of keeping up. To do this, they cut corners, skipped out on critical investments, and so on to make sure they had the necessary funds for other things.
To put it bluntly, stockpiling the full range of medications for the common people just wasn't high enough on their priorities list to get significant attention.
@geraldh3932their motto is why worry about something that isn't there. Rbmk reactors cannot and don't explode, so why would we even prep for such a possibility. They obviously knew the stakes in terms of working in a nuclear reactor. But being the Soviet union, everything will be fine.
I was about 10 years old as Chernobyl happend and the Fallout cloud was blown over western Europe where i lived. Playgrounds were closed and steamcleaned, sand exchanged. Sport events canceled, Soccerfields closed. There were no more milk or derry products aviable in the shops, neither fresh vegetables for weeks. My family had to live from tinned food for some time. It was spooky. People were affraid but noone know anything in particular. My Parents forbid me to go out for play and for weeks i had to stay inside especially when the forcast told of rain. In School we were forced to take Iodine. At night i could see crying Farmers in the News who had to kill their Livestock cause they were outside as the radiactive cloud flew over them. It was extremly scarry back then.
I'm so sorry, couldn't imagine the trauma from this horrific event. I'm young, but extremely grateful to know about this story. Just couldn't imagine living in it. All because of a group of Men and their blind faith in a corrupt system. It's not fair.
💔
And to think, Russia still hasn’t paid the world a single worthless rouble for the damages it caused through that particular incredible fuckup alone…
As a chemist, no matter how many times I rewatch this episode I always get chills down my back, to know what actually happens with that much radiation, the aftermath on the people and nature, is fockin scary.
My jaw dropped in horror when the plant operators looked into the burning core
Especially when you know why they are tasting metal...
@@babalonkie ive had it during a scan, its really weird.
like licking a metal pole without actually licking it XD
@@babalonkie kinda hits me as i comment this..
googled it, the x-ray i got was 0.1 mSv of Radiation. or what we are exposed to in about 10 days of normal living.
but then in seconds, and i could taste it..
i can't imagine what they must have experienced.
@@babalonkiewhy exactly does that happen my friend? I'm not well versed in chemistry
the phone call at 6:22 is the actual TRUE call - no voice actors were involved
A good friend of mine when I was in graduate school had been a physician in Minsk when this happened. After I had moved away I learned he had died young of a rare thyroid cancer that was relatively common among people exposed to the radiation from Chernobyl. I am certain he was one of the many undocumented victims of this fiasco.
Can the family place him nearer to Chernobyl than Minsk? Or in contact with those severely irradiated?
@@davenz000 what good would that do now?
@@davenz000 Dude, Minsk is only 350 km away from Chernobyl. A few days after the accident, the fallout from Chernobyl set off radiation alarms in Sweden, 1500 kilometers away. I can assure you, OP's friend was close enough to be exposed to radiation from Chernobyl.
And being around the ARS victims wouldn't have done anything, it's theoretically possible for a human body to become dangerously irradiated, but it's never actually happened before. The highest known dose of radiation ever recieved by one person was Hisashi Ouichi, who took a dose of 17 sieverts in the Tokaimura criticality incident of 1999, and despite three months of constant medical care up until his death, none of his doctors, nurses or family members were contaminated. And trust me, they were checking. For context, it's believed the Chernobyl victims from that first night received doses of about 6 Sv. Yeah, in the 80's it was believed people with ARS were dangerously radioactive, but now we know better.
The moment they look directly at an exposed core is pure chills. Some equivalent of the term "dunzo" would have to be going through their heads at that instant.
ooooh, so happy to see this!!! It will be great rewatching together with you, guys
Yeah!! Enjoy the video :)
You picked the best mini-series ever. Please just release these all this week. 😀 Its so enjoyable watching people react to this for the first time.
Right? I tried to wait to watch this one until they had one or two more released, but I only made it 3 days, and watched it anyway. I hope they don't wait too long D=
“Do you taste metal?” That’s bad.
Remember while watching this that the Soviets and Russians in general have a very different perspective than we do. We're talking about a country that has been invaded repeatedly throughout its history and so thinks that if it shows any weakness it will be invaded again.
So appearances are everything in Russia, especially during the Cold War. Anything that goes wrong needs to be covered up so that the outside world doesn't know about it. The official line is that the Soviet State is the best in the world so obviously anyone revealing a flaw is a liar and detriment to society, possibly even a traitor. In the early days people like that were taken to a basement and shot, by the 1980s you usually just lost your job and home and would be reassigned somewhere horrible if you weren't sent to prison.
And so the official party line is that the Soviet nuclear program is the best and safest in the world. The general public around the plant don't know how dangerous a nuclear accident can be because an accident couldn't possibly happen because the Soviet nuclear program is the best in the world. You don't see peices of the exploded reactor because Soviet reactors can't explode because the Soviet program is the best in the world...
Everyone you'll see in the show knows all of this, which is why you'll see them outright deny reality even when it's screaming in their face.
There's an interview with the real Dyatlov not long before he died, where he touches on that very point. He sarcastically says something along the lines of there never being any mechanical failures in the Soviet Union, just the failures of people. Dyatlov is done pretty dirty in this series to make him a "villain," since every hero movie needs a bad guy. While definitely a hard and demanding man, by most actual accounts he wasn't the lunatic portrayed here. Even his repeated denial in the show that the core couldn't have exploded is actually attributed to Akimov by many who were there. In the Soviet Union there are no mechanical failures, so they needed a scapegoat, and Dyatlov was their pick. True, that test should've been aborted, and he should've been the one to do it so he definitely has a fair amount of responsibility, but those RBMK reactors were ticking time bombs, with 2 similar lesser disasters having already happened before the 1986 Chernobyl explosion. But, since they were classified, no one, including Dyatlov, was aware of the danger, and they really thought that AZ-5 scram button was a get out of jail free card, instead of the detonation trigger it was in those specific circumstances.
@Joshua Jackson HBO tends to do that. They'll portray real life events but they'll always change someone to seem worse than they are.
Fun fact: the guy who had control over all operations of the reactor and the company that built the plant itself had no prior experience with nuclear power plants whatsoever
This series is one of the most terrifying pieces of media I've ever witnessed. The radiation situation is almost an eldritch horror. You're in for it.
"I have a feeling this show won't have any sunshine or rainbows" LMFAO! You got that right, bro! / I have to say: this was a fantastic reaction, and I must say: slightly different than the norm! You guys are quite rightly infuriated, but you also are strong enough to take what you're watching. Some get very emotional. And that's great too! And you may, also! But in this episode, you are two obviously intelligent, articulate people processing this horrifying story, getting properly pissed off and I'm here for it! I'm grateful you're back in action! The edit was excellent. What can I say? You guys are great reactors! PS: Did I mention "Severance" yet? lol. You guys have to do that show! (I'll bet you've seen it already!!!! :P)
There’s some Hollywood indulgence for sure, but it conveys the absolute terror of “invisible” radiation in an impactful and realistic way that stays with you long after viewing, like being irradiated with awareness.
Most of the actors in this are British, and most use their native accents, so you've got a myriad of accents all jumbled together.
The Soviet Union was a very diverse country with a large number of languages and accents, so in many ways its reflective of the reality, rather than having everyone doing a Russian accent with variable ability.
The Death of Stalin film has this too and it definitely adds a depth to it that would not necessarily be there.
In addition, I would say that when actors try to fake slavic accents, or any type of accent really, it just reduces the credibility and drama of the movie their acting in. It just makes it almost comical. And it would have been very inappropriate in that context. That the actors just use their own accent just makes look like the characters are talking their native language and it just makes everything flow better.
@@philipped.r.6385That is what I've been saying countless times about this show. It just works better than a mishmash of attempts at Slavic accents with varying degrees of success.
"It's as high as it goes" a death sentence if there ever was one.
No one is using a Russian accent; they are actors from all over Europe. Skaarsgard is Swedish, a lot are obviously British. They thought that having a bunch of actors put on fake Russian accents would feel silly and distracting (which it would!), and it's not uncommon at all for movies and series that take place in other countries to do them in English. (other countries have done this as well in their own language). For instance, there are lots of versions of "The Three Musketeers", almost every one of them is in English, not French! It's only VERY, VERY recently that the average American doesn't mind reading subtitles. This is a completely recent development. Until very recently, most Americans would be allergic to watching a foreign film, or watching a movie with lots of subtitles. Almost as much as they are pathetically allergic to black & white photography, or a movie made during another time period that isn't the absolutely dopey one we've been living in for the last 40 years. 😂 No American actors were used because they don't sound very European, and it would be distracting for a British/American audience (which is what this was aimed at).
If you've grown up watching anime subtitles are not an issue.
@@KIRA-EL Yes. Exactly. You just proved my point. It's only RECENTLY. lol. If you grew up watching FOREIGN FILMS, like me, (which is way cooler), subtitles are not an issue either. But that wasn't the norm. It's only VERY recently where people just keep subtitles on, even when the movie is in English.
Much of the score actually includes the sounds from real nuclear reactors. It increases the overall sense of dread. Brilliant.
omg i never thought i would see this wow . There is a podcast for each episode by Craig which tells you whys and wherefores . They are so good and can be watched after each episode together with this series as there are no spoilers.
9:15 "well, he can be wrong." 🤨
sarah is getting angry
You picked a good one. Everyone should see this.
Fantastic mini series. This show really shines a light on true events that could have been much worse if not for the brave people who were there.
And could’ve been a lot better if the Soviets preferred accepting facts over lying to save face!
You guys have no idea what's coming next, specially 3rd and 4th episode. Waiting for your further reaction videos👍
4th episode was just to play with your emotions in cheap way, I'd say it's the most boring episode
don't spoil anything. And yes, what you wrote is a spoiler. Talk about what they've seen, not what's in the future.
@@Glisern you clearly don't know what spoiler is...
7:14 a timely example of the physical effects 🤮
All of the sounds (where there'd normally be music) were actually samples of sounds of actual nuclear reactors.
This show is SO good.
Happy to see to you reacting to it.
I must admit that it shocks me a little how little knowledge is available today among young people about this event. An event that could have easily made Europe uninhabitable for more than 10,000 years. I remember this time quite well even if I was 2000 km away. It's a bit sad that nowadays a streaming series is needed to close this gap in education. I don't blame the young people, I mean, if no one explains it to them, how would they know?
There are constantly new problems in the world, everyday. New people enter this world everyday, why would you expect everyone to keep up with all the shit going on right now, and ALSO keep up with all the tragic shit that happened in the past. I'd say focus on the present, dont dwell on the past. It's completely understandable.
Most people know about chernobyl and that shit happened, but there is no reason for everybody to be an expert on the topic.
The poor education about the subject is in Russia, too. During the invasion of Unkraine, Russian soldiers were ordered to dig a trench in the woods...the highly radioactive woods...of Chernobyl. They had to be hospitalized.
Interesting statement given your assumptions about the consequences demonstrate just how poor education on the subject is. Even if nobody did anything, Chernobyl was physically, scientifically incapable of rendering all of Europe uninhabitable or even anything remotely close. This is a frankly ludicrous notion.
еще бы исериал нормальный был бы, без кучи клюквенной пропаганды. А так в принцепе согласен, но плохо то что те кто мало хнает о катострофе будет воспринимать знания из этой напрочь выдуманной и лживой поделки, в которой есть только одно, сама катастрофа. Все остальное сказка на сказке и сказкой погоняет, а местами обливает грязью людей которые пострадали или пытались предотвратить дальнейшую катастрофу.
@@simonrockstream Ваше мышление далеко от истины. Нельзя жить настоящим не смотря в прошлое. Прошлое учит людей не совершать ошибки в настоящем и будущем. В США и Европе забыли о своем нацистском прошлом и повторяют те же ошибки, что и в 1939-1945 годах, и к чему это привело? Все верно, к повторению событий тех лет.
A lot of kudos towards the late Paul Ritter. From his hilariously goofy performance in "Friday Night Dinner" to this performance that makes you want to strangle him.
From what I’ve learned from nuclear physicists reacting to this; it really wasn’t the core exploding. It was a massive steam explosion that just so happened to occur within the core
Semantics. Was it exactly like a conventional nuclear bomb? No. But how different was it really? The explosion didn't "just so happen to occur within the core". It was directly caused by a prompt criticality, like in a nuclear weapon. It's just a difference of how much energy was released.
@@iwikal Thank you for clarifying
@@Short_Round1999 But I don't mean to scaremonger. I just objected to saying it "wasn't the core exploding". A nuclear power plant is not a nuclear bomb and can never be, even in cases of prompt criticality like this. The fuel is too spread out and diluted to explode as energetically as a nuclear weapon, where highly enriched fuel is suddenly compressed so hard that it all fissions in a matter of microseconds, before it has time to get blown apart. In Chernobyl, the rising pressure blew the reactor open before most of the fuel could fission. Then air entered the reactor and lit everything on fire, causing the secondary explosion.
@@iwikal Yes. Of course, I am open to this kind of commentary. I can only share what I know, so learning new details is always appreciated
5:26 boom 😮
The eye rolling did not disappoint guys
We’re super excited to begin our first TV show reaction on the channel!
Leave your recommendations for future TV show reactions down below ⬇️
Firefly, The Good Place, WandaVision.
Firefly, Farscape, Stargate SG-1 (but you have to watch the theatrical release movie Stargate first, since the show refers back to it), Babylon-5; Battlestar Galactica.
I apologize they're all scifi.
Amazing show, I’m happy you guys are watching it.
Glad you could join in!!
It only gets worse from here... and I can't wait to see you guys experience the rest!😅
11:11 "Oh my god"-sarah
hands to face -eric (need an emoji for that)
13:13 (all blaming each other) -- In a weird way, it reminds me of The Apprentice where throwing others under the bus was advantageous, whereas taking accountability was a fatal mistake.
12:44 "secluded"
cozy 🤗
8:20 “But it’s probably worse!” Oh, you have *no* idea 😨
Great show. Honestly this might be the best "Horror" show/movie of the last decade, its terrifying.
I think it's VERY IMPORTANT to understand that they did not know the full physics of it. It's like one day you were randomly told that gravity did not exist or that the sun isnt real. You would have a hard time believing or accepting it.
Cannot wait to watch this reaction when I get time later.
It traveled very far , my dad remembers he was not allowed to play outside when he was a kid , we live in Germany. To this day it's not save to eat mushrooms we find in our woods.
19:34 - This was a completely unprecedented event which they didn't ever believe was possible, later in the show there is more information that will explain why they are so certain it couldn't happen - but on top of that The Soviet Union, was basically an ideological cult, they were incapable of flaw or failure and you simply had to tow the party line or suffer terrible consequences, they may simply be true believers by necessity, self delusion for the sake of survival.
this is a great show depicting real event and real people, their heroism and cravenness, as well as ingrained problems of a tottering bureaucratic state.
however main narrative of the show is problematic, because it is false and propagandist. in fact, what happened at chernobyl and aftermath (now known and even accessible in west through books like midnight at chernobyl) was quite different from their depiction is show (in fact almost 180 degrees different).
i don't want to spoil. so i will stick to just one of many changes motivated by propaganda (as opposed to dramatic license).
in reality legasov sent his "tapes" to editor of pravda, one of the main propagandist outlets of that state, and like legasov himself a person linked to the ruling faction at the time. it was quite unlike what is depicted in show with secret drop, under the cover of taking out garbage. while legasov being depicted as a person living alone(when he was a family man) is forgivable dramatic license (to make plot tight), their changing recipient from an elite person, to an implied secret dissident , and changing legasov himself from a highly ranked privileged person (up to date of his death), to one prosecuted by that state, are not due to dramatic license, nor forgivable.
these propagandist distortions multiply, and always with same tendency, for a demonizing purpose. that is why show is problematic. and should be called out.
what is the cost such lies?
Well this just made me join the patreon, excited to see the rest of the series!
They have British accents well... because everyone is (except Boris which you'll actually meet in the next episode, who's Swedish)
Many people belive this is what ultimately led to the fall of the Soviet Union. The cost in manpower and amount of soldiers they threw at containing this was just too much.
The people that responded to this and did the clean were absolute heros. They did nothing less than save half the world
Thank you so much for reacting to this series. It is so good. Ive watched it at least three or.four times.
Dyatlov was lying through his teeth about the glow being the Cherenkov effect. That happens when the core is underwater. Concerning the denial: you had to pretend the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise where nothing ever went wrong. Perception was more important than reality. If you surfaced a problem, it was all your fault. They set about to build a tractor factory. Work fell behind, but no wanted to take the hit, so the paperwork moved ahead on schedule. Finally the fire marshall showed up to inspect and found a cement slab. Concerning radiation: people were told that radiation was good, it treated cancer, it was a sign of technological progress, and if the Americans nuke us, Civil Defense has it covered. There was no protective gear, no medical supplies, no SOPs because in the Soviet Union, nothing ever went wrong.
I hope you watched the entire series before posting to UA-cam, because you're going to have people commenting things to come in future episodes, wanting to show how much they know about the disaster (because they already watched the show, not because they have anything new to add).
This is a very sad series about the most shocking and terrible nuclear disaster in history.
So excited to watch this with you guys.
The music in the background is sounds from actual reactors.
If you guys would watch Dark...that would make me happy. And you probably too, because its just one of the best shows ever produced. 3 seasons of greatness.
10:37 they don't know anything about the situation. ☹️
I won't spoil any of the future episodes, but you'll learn some about why everyone seemed to refuse to believe the core exploded.
I'm in the US and I remember when this happened. At the time, we didn't know how bad "bad" could get.
Sooooo happy that you guys are doing this :D One of my fav shows of all time. Just an excellent five-part gut punch lol
I don't want to give anything away but suffice to say everyone involved had enough reason to believe the core could not explode. Their insistence after the fact is doubtlessly also to cover themselves from blame, but up until the point it happened everyone was 100% sure it was impossible.
one thing to keep in mind while watching the episodes is that the general population was ignorant the to function/dangers/ or really anything to do with reactors or radiation. There was a standard of doing what you're told without question or a need for understanding.
This is an amazing series! Looking forward to the rest. If you continue on with doing shows after you finish this one I'd like to throw The Expanse out as a suggestion if you haven't seen it. Great sci-fi show that's perfect for reactors who like to theorize about what's coming next.
10:04 A friend of mine once said, “This was probably the closest that living men got to looking straight into Hell itself, the closest to real-life Cosmic Horror it ever got.”
Jared Harris should have won EVERY award possible for this miniseries.
Fun fact: Anatoly Dyatlov didin't deny the fact that reactor exploded instead he helped his injured comrades and gave orders to minimize the disaster, he never ordered Toptunov or Akimov to pump the water in to the core, but instead he told them to go home multiple times to save themself, but they didin't lisen and helped others and pumped the water to the core since they denied the fact that reactor exploded which led to their sad faith, dyatlow looked for khodemchuk alone and whit others to, of course he isn't completly innocent.There is a book written about the accident but i forgot the name but i csn find it again, its best the best book ever written about the accident.
Back then all information around nuclear materials, power or installations were regarded as state secret in Russia. Aside that, nuclear power was still quite new and not much about what could happen if an accident occur was known. Chernobyl was the first on such a huge scale but as Fukushima told us sadly not the last.
Can't wait for the rest of this series! It's on of the best mini series ever made (in my humble opinion, anyway haha).
the radioactivity spread westward as far as France and Italy
The disaster is fully in episode #5
Episodes #3 and #4 brutally show the cost of the disaster.
Nobody removed the firefighter's cloths,they're still in the hospital basement today
I was born 70 miles from Chernobyl. Its a very interesting topic and a very good mini-series.
19:40 the just hallucinations
19:44...These people are neither clueless nor evil. This is the Soviet Union and what they are is terrified of accountability
The damage they have done will last thousands of years. This is a whole new level of worst case scenario.
The actual symptoms of radiation poisoning took a little longer than shown. And startlingly a few people right in the heart of it are still alive. They have dramatized things well, although the last episode is the least accurate in terms of specific events. But you will get a pretty good grasp of how a nuclear reactor works, what went wrong, and what radiation poisoning does.
Another incredible series with Jared a Harris is The Terror you guys would love it!!
Heck yes, looking forward to your reactions on this show. :)
So as someone who has done a fair bit of research on Chernobyl and nuclear physics, immediately after the explosion at Chernobyl, the most irradiated areas of the building were emitting ~ 5.6 R/s or ~ 20,160 R/h, which will result in a generally swift ( but incredibly agonizing ) death within a matter of hours. Ionizing radiation breaks the atomic bonds that make up our bodies, causing cell death, mutation, or cancer on the molecular level. And physical damage can manifest in countless ways; nausea, dizziness, vomiting, hair loss, anorexia, diarrhea, fever, swelling, cataracts, fatigue and weakness, decreased white blood cell counts, temporary and permanent sterility, radiological burns, ulcers, spontaneous bleeding and hemorrhaging, radiological lesions (skin necrosis), tremors, seizures, organ failure, and death. Death from ionizing radiation exposure is immeasurably agonizing, regardless of it you die within months or hours. The pain victims suffer is immeasurable.
What they dont tell you in the series is that the two men who shared a smoke at the end of the episode survived. True they were in hospital and knocking on Death's door for months but both made it out. I think they've both since passed but from natural causes than cancer.
Sad thing is, Dyatlov might not have been wrong about having seen worse. That just didn't mean much, because he'd almost died of radiation poisoning once before.
The reason their faces turn red is that intense radiation poisoning is basically a 3D sunburn.
As depressing as this series is, its also yet another fantastic testament to the bravery of the Ukrainian and wider workers of the USSR. Despite the disgusting attitude of the apparatchiks the workers and soldiers were genuinely amazing communists - the problem was not communism in theory but its execution, being forced on a peoples that were not ready for such a modern revolution by a criminal and authoritarian thuggish regime. Peace to all in Russia and of course, the Ukraine. You always did and still deserve better than this xx
So when it comes to Dyatlov's dismissal of the idea the core exploded, it's important to remember that at the time, it was entirely reasonable to assume that was impossible. Because reactor cores really are incapable of just blowing up. Contrary to popular belief, they're not similar to bomb cores in the ways that matter most. So it *should* have been impossible for the reactor core to explode.
So with that assumption firmly in place, they go to the explanation that a tank exploded and damaged the various machinery surrounding the core and damaged the facility. In that case, getting water into the core, hydrogen out, and making sure the rods are lowered is the correct course of action.
Limited time to live........ that statement hit hard
Listening to your intro oh my god, PLEASE do SEVERANCE. Mind blowing series. Only 9 episodes. If you're thinking of doing more TV series, that one is RIGHT up your alley. You guys would KILL on Severance. As I'm sure you're going to kill on Chernobyl! Let's see! Press play, Tic Toc! 😄
Be sure to have tissues nearby for Episodes 3&4.
Uh oh 😰
Great reaction guys, looking forward to the rest of the series... If you're looking for a future TV series I would recommend "band of brother's" 10 episodes in total, Tom hanks /steven spielberg masterpiece.
beef and lamb in UK still has raised radiation levels thru grazing on contaminated grass
Craig Mazin's writing is definitely a great writer for this show, but as a fellow Swede I feel like I have to also point out the fantastic directory skills of Johan Renck. Who has, with the help of all the other amazing people working on this show, drawn the massive amounts of attention this show has garnered since its premiere.
I can't watch this show for the first time again, so I'm watching people reacting to it who are watching for the first time.
This a really good series...one of the best ever made...but the producers did get some things wrong. Some things were changed intentionally for the purposes of storytelling, and the makers of the series put in a series of notes at the end of the last episode of the series explaining some of them. They also have a podcast that they put out along with the show in which they talk about other things they altered from the history and why. However, I do recommend you check out the History vs Hollywood article on Chernobyl when you are done watching the whole series, so you can find out about the other things that the producers got wrong that they do not admit to. Definitely wait until you are done with the series so you do not spoil anything for yourself.✌
Thanks for the heads up! We hope you enjoy the video 😁
@@EricSarahReact I am fascinated by every reaction channel that I see reacting to this. The Soviet Union is very far outside the scope of experience of most people these days, so seeing folks exposed to it for the first time is really interesting. I hope the series is not too hard on you guys as you watch it...but know that you are in good company if you have strong emotional reactions, most people do, and you are not alone.
@@EricSarahReact Apologies for posting at you again...you were asking near the end whether everyone is Russian...and that is a more complicated question than you may have thought. Everyone depicted in the show is Soviet, but not all are Russian. Chernobyl is located in Ukraine, so many of the local people were Ukrainian Soviets...but in the Soviet Union, there was a strong tendency for ethnic Russians to get the most promising leadership posts all around the USSR. The nuclear industry was similarly biased towards Russian Soviets, so at Chernobyl the top spots were held by Russians at both the plant and in the leadership of the town, and the majority of the engineers would also be Russian, but the regular workers at the plant and in the area would mostly have been Ukrainian.
This very first episode helps illustrate one of the underlying issues of the entire case: True to its very nature, the USSR just didn't give a damn about facts or transparency. In the first few days, all the local officials and the central government in Moscow tried to pretend nothing serious had happened. The design, as it was, was already faulty but manageable if no one ever did show-boating tests with it, tempting fate, despite the potential for built-in safety measures to potentially fail at a less controlled performance test. Dyatlov, hungry for a brown-nosing promotion at higher-ups, risked it in the blind belief that he'd avoid any issues. It was just the tip of the iceberg of lies. The powerplant was built too close to the newly constructed city. Corners were cut to get it up and running before a certain date or anniversary. Everyone knew the reactor could be destabilize under very specific, but possible-to-achieve conditions. The roof of the reactor building had only the most basic of shielding, and surprise, surprise, the detonation inside the reactor room tore apart much of the roof and walls of the entire building.
This is what Valery Legasov is getting at during that grim prologue. "What is the price of lies ?" If you live in a totalitarian state or authoritarian state - the USSR (and today's Russia as well, sadly) being a textbook example - a state where corruption is omnipresent and off the rails, where lying about "everything working perfectly" is the only acceptable way of getting promoted, even over (literal) dead bodies, where accountability and transparency is non-existent and you're lucky if the government bothers to reveal anything truthful to citizens, sooner or later, all the "Potemkin villages", all the fake, "glorious" propaganda facades fall to pieces, exposing the completely rotten, completely inhumane system hidden behind them. A system run on lies, repression, nepotism, on a childish pretense that if we keep lying to ourselves and others endlessly, it will never backfire on us. Sadly, when things backfired in 1986 and everything was laid bare, without any sugarcoating, it backfired so spectacularly that no amount of lies, denialism, threats, insults or anything else could deny the simple truth that, the people on all levels of the state who were meant to do their work responsibly, thought little about responsibility, and hundreds of people payed for it with their lives. Hundreds of thousands more payed for it with their damaged health, especially if they were in the most exposed areas of northern Ukraine, or even in any European country where the fallout had been carried over via winds.
Some people think that the Chernobyl catastrophe being one of the final nails in the coffin of the propaganda-overhyped "invincible soviet empire" is not a mere figure of speech, but a fully verifiable statement. I am among those people, many people. When Chernobyl happened, the USSR had just entered a period where they claimed they would provide citizens with more transparent news and information, that the government will deal with issues in a more transparent manner. Months into the catastrophe, once people finally received news about the seriousness of the situation through whistleblowers, hearsay and the government gradually but finally caving in, even that fool's hope had evaporated and people lost trust in the soviet regime for good (even those that outwardly pretended otherwise, out of fear). The USSR fell apart in 1991 and given Russia's most recent actions, it's return is now even more unlikely. But some of the final nails in the USSR's coffin were driven in already five years before that, in 1986. And the USSR had only itself to blame.
Preventing the spread of misinformation, damage control and self preservation at its finest. Absolutely infuriating
What "outer" world and young people didn't realize during this show are the soviet regime and the aftereffect of the disaster itself. So little is taught in schools nowadays 😕
For example...How the F today's people don't know about iodine pills in case of radiation???
Anyway, two major things about regime:
1. This was time of Cold War and soviets did anything to cover their mistakes (they weren't alone).
2. Soviet regime school system and propaganda were so strong that almost nobody at that time knew about important things like radiation. And even if they knew, they rather kept mouth shut because they'd loose their lives getting shot.
About the aftermath - the radiation cloud was spreading around the whole globe and it eventually circumnavigated our planet twice!!!
In some European countries, radiation from Chernobyl was registered in animals and mushrooms decades after the disaster.
That's just for the start to get a bigger picture in what state world was living at that time.
Paul Ritter who played deputy chief engineer Dyatlov sadly died of brain cancer. Paul is sorely missed and played this character brilliantly.
All the people on the bridge died from the fallout. That is a true fact.
One of the best mini series EVER!
amazing show
A great series for when you want to receive a constant sequence of gut-punches.
In my country, Iodine pills are free at (normally) all medical shops.