And in every other city of ex-USSR, since almost in EACH city of the country would be etleast one person who volonteered as liquidator. And it was almost a million of them around the whole USSR.
A good friend of mine, one of the nicest and smartest people I have ever known, was in Minsk when this happened. He died young from a very rare form of thyroid cancer that was common in people exposed to the radiation from Chernobyl. He was a victim of this disaster but not recorded as such.
This is tragic. The true number of deaths from chernobyl will never be known, but it is certainly far higher than any of those embarrassing "official estimates"
Please dont google any of your questions while watching the show. Wait until after it's over or you'll be spoiled. Plus alot of your questions will be answered by the end. Im glad you guys are enjoying the show! It's a masterpiece truly.
I mean IMO it's demonstrably fine. Nr. 1 it's real life, saying spoilers is cringe. Nr. 2 if you didn't grow up in parts of the world where this was relevant you could be missing huge historical and cultural context that this show won't provide.
People know you can’t spoil history right?? These spoiling comments are hilarious. Finding out more about history is called learning….Also it is a dramatization so a lot more to learn about the situation.
@@aprilbird493 yeah main gist of events is truthful. Tho there is dramatization and characterization of effectiveness and speeds, magnitudes of illnesses and couple events are shifted around for sake of compelling narrative. Still very good decision too ground yourself with historical facts and scientific ones also. Moreso i think it encourages such discussion with is good too from show and quite compelling.
One of the reasons Pikalov went and not sent out someone else, is to make sure that the reading couldn't be ignored due to his status. If an enlisted man would have reported that measurement, they could have potentially stated he's full of it, and probably misread things... With Pikalov they did NOT have that courtesy, and were forced to face facts.
@@Neko-was totally reading this as a joke at first lol, but yes that's true and I think I heard that in real life that was his actually reasoning for doing it
The helicopter that crashed wasn't destroyed by the core (though the pilots were certainly affected by poisoning), it ran into a crane chain and that destroyed the rotors. Also, the badass military officer who said 'Then I'll do it myself,' was a WWII hero who survived his time at Chernobyl and lived into the 1990s.
@@HalkerVeil But it's wrongly represented in the show. That accident happened during the construction of the sarcophagus some years later. Also I've never heard about radiation, this "long" after (half life) , at some altitude (inverse square law) affecting pilots immediately.
@@HalkerVeil I guess I stand corrected. They did change the timing, but not to the construction of the sarcophagus, so it's not an egregious misrepresentation . Never said it didn't hit a cable. Given all the other facts the show got wrong, I didn't fact check when someone said it happened during the construction work. Now I did. The channel "That Chernobyl Guy" even have a video on this particular topic.
@@Lizard_Queen6 There's some dramatization indeed. Also some things are added for brevity, but overall the evolution of the accident and the accident itself are portrayed pretty much as is currently established in the scientific community.
If yall want more insight read the book Chernobyl Prayer by Swetlana Alexijewitsch. She went around and interviewed people about Chernobyl and the following years. Sad and shocking what a human catastrophe this was
@@Lizard_Queen6 stuff that is not accurate is rly not that important and is just there for story telling. but the facts what happened are all true even the helicopter scene is recreated from real footage lmao
It’s never addressed in the show, because it’s assumed it is known by the audience, but the perception of the USSR in “the west” was that it was an enormous juggernaut with immense technical sophistication, vast armies, incredible industrial might and wasn’t afraid to use them, when in actuality the USSR at this point was a rusted-out shell with a shrinking population that couldn’t feed itself. “Our power comes from the perception of our power” is important, because the USSR had basically nothing going for it except the way the USA and Western Europe feared it, so any embarrassment or sign of weakness could be fatal. A lot of people credit Chernobyl with the collapse of the USSR.
China seems to use the same wizard of oz approach. They have some strength in some sectors, but in everything else they project. Never mind the fact they are suffering from similar internal corruption and cultural failures the Soviets had prior to collapse ie agricultural failure, population issues, crumbling infrastructure (literally)...They military is inexperienced and their technology is still generations behind. I suspect a decade, maybe two, before the collapse.
For Pikalov to do it himself was a key factor. If it was some other member of the military there would be some level of denial and pushback. However given the seniority and rank of Pikalov that was the ultimate moment of truth
Im polish my mum remembers my grandfather waking her and her siblings in the middle of the night to give them pills when they got the news(iodine i persume)
I'm from The Netherlands (about 1500 miles from Ukraine), and our farmers had to destroy a lot of their crops (mostly spinach over here) and keep their cows inside for a long time. My aunt was pregnant at the time, and women were adviced to stay inside back then. Crazy stuff!
Tbf, its just over a thousand miles from chernobyl, nowhere near 1500. Wales is 1500 miles, they shut 10,000 farms and killed half a million sheep. Wherever it rained down wind it poisoned.
Don't worry about the criticism....I commend you for watching and learning and WANTING to know. If anything, ignore the mean comments and take the knowledge other commentors offer here. Do your own research after you watch. Do not feel bad/guilty for not knowing....just keep being curious.
A detail that cannot be stressed enough - Primarily westward winds meant that most of the fallout was carried *away* from Russia! Of all the Soviet countries possibly devastated, Russia was not one of them.
I remember my physics teacher telling me how their professors in uni made them test some radiation detection equipment on the ground during the early 2000's and they were still finding some small amounts . Mind you this was in Greece, so you can imagine the scale of the aftermaths. Also my parents remember that the dust clouds passed Greece at some point too .
No it didn’t just stop. I lived in Odessa at the time and even we didn’t get anything. The wind was blowing north that’s why Swedes discovered the radiation. The cloud was nowhere near Greece
You will find small amounts of radiation all over the world. Most of it is not from Chernobyl. Over 5000 test nukes have been detonated over the years.
@@pyatig Greek physicist here, Greece was affected but not to the extent that Northern, Western Europe or the neighboring countries were. Northern Greece and the Thessaly region definitely experienced increased radioactivity levels after the cloud had spread around the 4th or 5th of May, albeit it was much weaker by the time it arrived. There are maps online that show the spread of the cloud in the following days. The change in radioactivity is statistically significant, but not high enough to have had significant long-term health consequences thankfully.
It's ok to not know the details going into this! This show had people researching the details after watching. It's difficult to get people interested in history, but I already saw the story just take you guys away immediately ❤
Honestly I think it’s really good they’re going out of their way to learn these facts. Shows how much they’re interested in this. Besides, I knew a lot of this going in the show and it was still very interesting and I enjoyed it thoroughly
@@callumclarke9384 they uploaded Chernobyl on Patreon 1 day earlier. And I believe they watched episode 1 and took like a week long break, they might so the same thing with future episodes
16:34 That helicopter crash is real history and there is a footage too. The accident was covered up and it only revealed in mid 90s after the fall of USSR. 4 People died in that helicopter and some say bodies recovered immediately and properly buried, others says bodies never recovered and still lies in the power plant; that I don't know.
To piggyback on your comment - if anyone thinks the helicopter got too irradiated and crashed because of that, no - the helicopter blades hit the cranes cable... not that the people in it had long lives ahead of them anyway
If I had the knowledge that a nuke was about to go off in 2 days that would have killed 50 million people I would've been hysterical. They way she figured everything out and confidently and calmly went against authoritative forces to be effective is impressive itself. The guards wouldve probably shot me because I'm yelling that we're all going to die If I don't see their superiors.
3:39 Oh wow, Larys Strong, I did not remember him being in here at all. Nice catch Brig and that's a nice Deion Sanders jersey too! I'm a Cowboys fan as well. 26:19 It's definitely a heavy watch, but worth it. Most of the questions you guys have will be answered by the time you finish the series. There's probably stuff you'll still wanna look up, but you can always do that after the final episode.
Seeing you guys chatty and tense and leaning forward is great. I can tell you guys are super engaged about this show and, understandable, bc it's such a great limited series. 🎉
It's good to see young people watch historical programs. What you may not know is how 7 years prior to the Chernobyl disaster, the US avoided a similar catastrophe at Three Mile Island when parts of the core melted due in part to a faulty valve not working correctly. There are also documentaries on Chernobyl today still uninhabitable.
2:35 Hats-off to Estonia! Where I am from, the Minister of Industry of Commerce of the time Cahit Aral gave a message of "Don't worry!" while drinking a glass of tea in front of the cameras following the Chernobyl disaster, and downplaying the disaster's possible risk effects on human health caused by radioactivity released into the environment in the Black Sea Region, where Turkey's tea plantations are located. He also added "Anyone who says there is radiation in Turkey is godless.". They mixed high radioactive teas to low radioactive ones for years drop radioactivity per kilo and made people drink that. And they also couldn't export the radioactive hazelnuts so there was hazelnut abundance they couldn't sell, so they packed and distributed to schools and made the kids ate them for free.
I got you one better, during the Chernobyl catastrophe Irlanda got some formula (powder milk) contaminated by the radiation cloud and was trying to sell it to Brasil, which said NO…the Mexican embassador in Brasil alerted the Mexican government….but they didn’t listen, and bought the milk, which skyrocketed cancer in kids…most governments f** sucks
Chernobyl/Pripyat was a tourist site before the Russians invaded Ukraine. I went to Pripyat about 6 years ago and toured the area, it was the most sobering experience of my life. And I have been to the Dachau and Auschwitz sites and the killing fields in Cambodia and Chernobyl/Pripyat beat them all for emotional effect.
The washing of the truck: that’s basic decontamination. But the dust, ash, dirt all likely contains radioactive materials. Plutonium, uranium, cesium, etc.. Radiation itself doesn’t “wash off” of course, like how you can’t wash away light or radiowaves, but the material _producing_ the radiation can at least be removed. Time and distance are the best defenses against radiation; stay away or spend as little time as possible near it. But if you drag in radioactive dust, obviously it’s stays close to you, so a wash is step 1. Most of the dangers here come not from acute, immediate radiation poisoning, but from long-term exposure brought on by for instance inhaling dust or absorbing radioactive isotopes that stay in the body, giving off radiation over time. Hence why you want stable iodine; the thyroid absorbs iodine, and it’ll absorb radioactive iodine just as well as stable iodine, since it’s chemically the same element. But if you can saturate your thyroid with the stable isotope first, it won’t need to absorb more of it, and any radioactive iodine you ingest will pass through instead of staying in your body.
a great reaction, for people not familiar with this part of history the first episode hits with the "shock and awe" of terror but most don't really understand what is going on, this second episode is much more about the intellectual terror that dawns with understanding of just how terrifying the situation is, and how much worse it could get.
hi, this was one of the worst disasters of the 80's. I am from the Czech Republic and born in 1984. Even though we were far away, we each got a dose of that disgust. The fourth person in my family is dying of cancer and I think it's connected.
I remember the radiation fall out even reached high ground, moutains of Ireland and parts of England, Wales and Scotland. The sale of sheep from uplands was banned. Terrifying this could and did happen. The children from Chernobyl region would come to Ireland and stay with families in the years that followed after charities were set up here to help get the out of the radiation zones even a few weeks.
I really love to see your reaction to this series! Keep in mind; a lot of information we now know about radiation effects on the human body is due to this disaster being managed so poorly. I live in the Netherlands and was 4 yrs old at the time, and I grew up not being allowed to eat lettuce, spinace or fish from rivers more than once a month, for a few years. A lot of crops were deliberatly destroyed in my country due to radiation poisoning in that time. This is a 2000km distance by the way! I am glad the younger and non-european generations are learning about this disaster and how we narrowly escaped this. 😊❤
PART 1 Most people really don't understand the show that well: a good deal don't seem to grasp how radiation works (a lot of people keep thinking it is like gas or even a virus), but the bigger issue is that most nobody understands the Soviet system. The true conflict the show depicts so well is one of an unstoppable force (radiation) meeting an immovable object (the soviet system). The show does a good job explaining the radiation side at least, but the Soviet bureaucracy part isn't expressly explained, it is merely depicted and so people who can't extrapolate this information instead spout dumb comments. About the immovable object. The issue is that most systems after a certain point are carried forth by their own momentum, it is not down to the people who live in them or even those who are, ostensibly, in charge of them. In the USSR this point came with the death of Stalin who had created that behemoth and was it's master, but after he was gone everyone else were in a sense at the mercy of this structure and its rules, because what most people don't realize is that such things have a life of their own. One late 80s early 90s Russian rock song actually captured this idea quite well in the lyrics, where it is basically said that everyone are bound by one chain in this regime, both those who are first (in charge) and those who are last (the average people), however the first might be no less tired than the last to be part of this chain. Now imagine being stuck between these two things, the unstoppable force of nature, one that follows only it's own laws, and the immovable object, this system that likewise follows only it's own laws but out of the two only the system can be somehow reasoned with into action against the other, however if you are going to do this you must act in a way that will appease it's rules otherwise it will refuse to cooperate - that is the conflict of the show, of all the people stuck in this horrible situation and how they deal with it. Frankly, this is exactly what Sherbina's line is about when he said "This will go much easier if you talk to me about the things you do understand and not about the things you do not understand" - talk to me about the radiation, the unstoppable force, leave dealing with the immovable object, the Soviet system to me. Btw, unrelated but still, when Sherbina threatens to have Legasov thrown out of the helicopter, this is either a mistake on the part of the show runners or to the contrary a smart line, because these events take place under Gorbachev after he had begun the Perestroika, in that time nobody was going to be thrown out of helicopters or anything of the sort (only the KGB still acted with such cutthroat means), let alone someone with a notable profile like Legasov, not to mention that Sherbina has no authority over the soldiers. So either they show runners wanted to do a stereotypical "bad soviets" meme threat, OR Sherbina was bluffing, making it a smart line. Same for his threat to have the pilot shot. Dyatlov was in denial about the danger of the unstoppable force and didn't want to face the immovable object. Legasov was very conscious of the dangers of the unstoppable force but lacked the understanding how to handle the immovable object. Sherbina was ignorant of the danger of the unstoppable force, but once he was made aware of it's true danger he was the only one with the knowledge of how to take every solution proposed by Legasov and present it in a way that would finally make the immovable object take SOME actions to fix the situation. A bit more on denial. Dyatlov was in denial about it, for one thing because he truly believes it to be impossible, impossible in the same sense as if someone had told him the sky had suddenly turned pink kind of impossible. But he did have a moment when he faltered on this, and that moment is actually crucial to understanding the denial he goes into. Dyatlov sees the graphite on the ground, but it is far away. You see that he sees it, that he acknowledges it being there even, but you can totally guess what the mental process for his denial is: >That looks like graphite >No, that's impossible >It can't be graphite >For it to be graphite the reactor had to have exploded >RBMK reactors CAN'T explode, that's basically a hard fact >So it can't be graphite >And i'm far away, I can't be certain that it's graphite, it's just something else that looks like it from afar >And i'm under pressure so I'm just imagining impossible worst case scenarios >It CAN'T be graphite >It's NOT graphite >Gotta keep going, gotta deal with the real problems But people with no comprehension of the Soviet system will complain how it is better to be safe than sorry and report graphite, but that's when the fear of the Soviet system/bureaucracy kicks in: >If I report this they'll tell me that's impossible >They'll say I'm being hysterical, an alarmist >Nothing will change >Except my career will have a permanent stain on it >I can only report on what knowledge I have for a fact >3.6 roentgen, that's the measurement I was given by my underlings >I will report it >If it is wrong I can't be held accountable, that's what was reported to me and I'm just conveying it up the chain The rest of the disaster follows from this moment as every bureaucrat up the chain passes on the information and makes moves based on it, and when they are presented the reality of the situation they find themselves, just like Dyatlov, trapped between the radiation and the system, so you end up seeing this same line of thinking in other characters, how they all shift the blame by pointing out who was directly observing or reporting events. Once Sherbina goes there he demands for the helicopter to fly directly over the building so he can personally confirm everything with his own eyes because NOW HE WOULD BE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE, so he HAS to find out first hand with his own eyes to make the report, he is dismissing Legasov because he wants to finally step OUTSIDE of this chain of reliance on the reports of others. This moment has NOTHING to do with denial, so saying Sherbina is in denial is stupid, he is so insistent on doing this because he wants CERTAINTY instead of relying on the words of others.
PART 2 Think back to the first episode where the two other plant directors are shouting at the guy who returned from the roof to confirm to them that the core had exploded - they start shouting at him because now THEY are in denial, but also in a panic, because they ALREADY REPORTED SOMETHING ELSE up the chain, even took actions based on that information, and they can't handle the idea that they sent wrong information because that will have CONSEQUENCES FOR THEM. At that point they are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, but they know for a fact they will be chewed out if they deliver an update that the reactor exploded, but there's some sliver of hope that they can hang onto in denial, that "no, it couldn't have exploded", in which case they won't be chewed out. And all of this flies completely over the heads of most all reactors I've seen, who make dumb or naive comments, who think it should be simple. The reason you all think it is simple is because you are viewing all of this as the audience from a future where these events are already history, you have the hindsight and an outside perspective, you have NONE of the concerns of the people who had to deal with both the radiation and Soviet system IN THE MOMENT. Don't be so frustrated, outside observer empowered by historic hindsight, were you to ever find yourself in such a situation firsthand I doubt you'd fare much better. Stop calling these people clowns and making snarky comments about their choices and actions. Calling the former shoemaker Deputy Secretary an idiot is likewise stupid, he is entirely outside of the particular bureaucratic chain that is handling the situation in Chernobyl, he literally can't do anything but follow orders and rely on the information passed to him not from someone below him but from ABOVE. He may be a very smug asshole about it, but we haven't been given anything to show that he is stupid, and in reality he is likewise trapped with nothing that he could've actually done. Had he begun an evacuation he would've been immediately taken in, called an alarmist, dismissed, replaced and his orders rescinded. You'd think you would approve of a meritocratic system in which even someone who started out as a worker in a shoe factory could work their way up to become a Deputy Secretary. Of course it's not exactly as advertise in this system, but it has all the same trappings as most other systems trying to do this, ones built on reward and punishment - you'll learn more about how even rewards and incentives lead to problems in the show finale. Regarding Legasov's line that he is not ready to explain how the reactor exploded. That should be a chilling line, that even the most competent character in this field in the show so far has no idea how a reactor could explode, because this line actually justifies much of the behavior from other characters who likewise believe it to be impossible. This is a moment of terror. The show does, apparently, overblow the consequences of the second explosion as explained by Khomyuk during the briefing with Gorbachev, thunderf00t explains the realistic damage of that explosion on his channel. There is also a series of videos now on youtube pointing out all the historic inaccuracies and Legasov's lies that are the foundation for how he gets to be the hero in this telling of events. You should react to it as well, if you want to I'll find the channel.
My favorite part is how each character's development arc transitions from being most terrified of the party/state and unconcerned about radiation to fearing radiation the most. Radiation seems like an imaginary threat while government punishments are well-known.
Here in Austria (!) we were told not to eat domestic mushrooms and berries any longer - for at least 10 more year after the disaster. Austria is also far over 1000 km away from Chernobyl, and the radiation from the fallout is still evident in our soil. I remember we also got iodine pills in primary school and from our parents.
Ich war im Grundschulater als die Sandkästen auf den Spielplätzen gesperrt wurden und wir für eine Zeit lang die Fenster geschlossen halten mussten. Es gab kein Salat mehr in den Läden und es war von saurem Regen die Rede. Ich erinnere mich heute noch an die Angst der Erwachsenen und an den "verseuchten" Sand.... Und ich komme aus dem Süden Deutschlands.
@@tay.00.7 Ja, ich war damals auch in diesem Alter und kann mich noch gut daran erinnern, als Sandkästen zum absoluten Sperrgebiet erklärt wurden. Was den sauren Regen, über den ebenfalls ständig geklagt wurde, angeht, so war bzw. ist das wiederum ein von Tschernobyl unabhängiges Phänomen und hatte/hat mit der allgemeinen Luftverschmutzung, insbesondere durch säurebildende Abgase, zu tun.
I’m from Slovenia (not Slovakia, we’re bordering on Italy) and we also didn’t pick mushrooms for years after this. That year, no one was planting lettuce in their gardens.
I was about 12 when that happened and I didn't realize either how bad it was AND COULD HAVE BEEN if good people hadn't been there to push the right decisions forward despite the corruption, arrogance and stupidity.
before watching this I had seen a video of an urban explorer had snuck into the exclusion zone, and it was so interesting to see everything that was abandoned and in the hospital the clothes are still in the basement.
This show is a Masterpiece. I was actually alive in '86, i was a kid but still understood the situation was Bad. And i live in Chile, far away from all this. Years later i studied this in college and only then realized the magnitude of all that happend 😮
the uniforms of those firefighters are still piled in the basement of that hospital. you can see pics of it online. The lady scientist actually represents a bunch of different men and women who were all clutch. The three divers actually all survived, defying what was medically and scientifically expected.
My dad worked at a nuclear power plant in the UK at the time this happened and he said he remembers the alarms going off to alert the entire power plant that there was a radiation leak and were 1,815 miles away from Chernobyl
OMG you're doing Chernobyl??!?! I friggin loved this show so much, so absolutely incredibly shot and told. ugh what a story. So sad, so unbelievable but unfortunately such reality.
I remember all of this and how terrifying it was. There were reports of how far the cloud would move. It was our 9/11 except world wide. Many of my family suffered and we have no idea how far it damaged people.
Events like this should be taught in more curriculums. I was in several school systems (Australian/UK/IB) and it was never touched on. Or other disasters that I only learnt about recently, such as the incident in Bhopal, India. Highly recommend a series about that too - "The Railway Men: The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984". The first time I learnt about Chernobyl was my PE teacher mentioning it briefly - He'd been backpacking in Europe and was on a train somewhere in the Ukraine/Russia area at the time. He said if the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction, he would have been affected. I started researching after that and it's all fascinating and tragic. I would actually like to go to Pripyat one day, though likely not any time soon.
When a large volume of water is suddenly dumped on a superhot reservoir of magma (or in this case, the burning core of the damaged reactor), you get a superviolent steam explosion. This is what caused the great explosion at Krakatoa in 1883...seawater rushing into the opened magma chamber.
Fun fact: Putin immediately banned this show in Russia. LOL. He thought it made "Russia" look bad. And by Russia, he meant the KGB, which he spent most of his life in and now runs (under the name FSB these days).
@@heyyanana You're delusional, orc. Just Google "chernobyl banned in Russia." The show was wildly popular in Russia, so they banned it. *AFTER* that, in 2019, they started to try to make another, ridiculous version claiming the U.S. "infiltrated" the Chernobly plant and sabotaged it. LOL!
@@heyyanana they made one where Russia is looking better that in reality, they also somehow managed to involved the CIA with the accident. I don't think it was ever actually released though. This show has been banned in Russia.
@@lionhead123 but it's not banned and has never been, I can watch it now on a russian streaming service. and it was very popular in Russia during the release
I remember that there was like no heads-up from the leaders of Soviets Union to its own citizens. So many were working outside on fields when a radioactive cloud just flew over them. My mother was one of them and was pregnant with me at that time. And they later found out that they were outside working at that time when radioactive cloud just was on them. Luckily nothing bad happened to my mom or me, but there were not so lucky ones.
Something for you to look up when you're done (it's not in the show): The Elefants foot. It's basically real live medusa. When you look at it, you die.
Based on other reactions and translations the public announcement told the people to not worry pack only what you need and head to the busses and that it is only temporary
well, general Pikolov didn't drove that crappy gaz 66 truck, he drove NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical protected) prepeared APC (armored personel carrier). he did lead NBC division/forces so similar stuff (radiation, chemical leaks) was his line of work. but for one - getting similar apc is way harder and more costly than getting truck, also more dramatic if it looks more dangeruos.
5:11, that same firefighter cloth still in the same hospital where all those man were brought to get help, and the people in the bridge on the first episode. In real life is called the bridge of death because alot of people was watching the fire from the bridge and then entire radioactive ash came and contaminate all those people and kids. After 30 minutes all of those people start presenting symptoms. Obviously the firefighters where taken to Moscow with other people. In those times soldiers, police officers, firefighters who do there job in risk situations, and other types of jobs have advantage to get some good benefits and good money from the soviet Union.
Hello guys , you know still after almost forty years it is forbidden in some places here in Sweden to pick berries and mushrooms after the accident in Ukraine and remember very well when the alarm went of here in Stockholm .
If you want another real story that is really well done, you should watch Society of the Snow. It's about a group of mostly guys about your age that survive a plane crash in the Andes and pull together to do everything they can to survive and return home. The cinematography, special effects/makeup, and acting are really good. The story is very famous in South America.
It's crazy that despite not facing any major nuclear accidents or being on the receiving end of any bombs, the sound of a geiger-counter seems to inspire a deep-rooted, visceral fear in all the American reactors I've seen (plus my family and I). I wonder if it's the sound itself or if cold war hysteria never quite left the American psyche. Our parents and/or grandparents had to go about their lives while under the very real threat of nuclear attack. They had to do emergency drills about radiation. They watched the news as the proximity to disaster ebbed and flowed, inching nearer with each close call. That kind of fear about radiation and nuclear disaster doesn't just leave once the threat is over. It seeps into the ground, lingers in the air, and it rains down on the next generations.
At the moment Nuclear Fusion has only occured during Thermonuclear weapons tests, and a few extremely small scale laboratories, right now it takes more energy than they get out of it to preform nuclear fusion in a reactor, so it is not viable. The first Thermonuclear weapon was detonated in the 1950s and all US Nuclear weapons are Thermonuclear.
I'm from Poland and interesting thing, at that time our sensors here detected the radiation FAST but because we were a Soviet puppet state (not part of USSR tho) no information was relied to the west, only when it got to Sweden because of wind the whole world new. Action was taken here, they washed streets in some places, told people to not go out. Iodine was dustributed but I guess pills went out of stock so kids in schools were forcefully fed Lugola luquid. My parents were teens at that time and said it was disgusting. Unfortunately the Soviet overlords wanted to keep playing the delusion game and still forced people to march in parades for Labour's Day. I've heard stories of other people's parents in the East of Poland taking part in them and later feeling sick.
We definitely did not develop fusion power... lol 14:06 They wash off the irradiated particles. While radiation fires around, the range is fairly low. However it irradiates things, not just you and me, but things like dust, dirt, etc. - all the stuff that the wind can just pick up and travel for hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, where it then irradiates the things it gets in contact with. That's also what the bridge scene at the end of last episode was showing. 16:39 No, the rotor hit the cable of the crane. 23:00 It would turn the whole thing into a thermonuclear bomb, what you'd describe as a nuke specifically a hydrogen bomb). The mentioned 30 kiometer radius are 18.6 miles, and that's just for the explosion radius alone. 28:33 If they did not address it at all, it would have made pretty much all of Europe uninhabitable, as well as parts of Asia and the radiation would eventually also reach other continents, such as the Americas, since it obviously wouldn't stop on its own, possibly poisoning the entire globe to a varying degree. Gorbachev was the last leader of the USSR. In Russia he kinda became the scapegoat for the fall of the Soviet Union while in the West he's actually seen in a more positive light, feathering the crumbling Soviet state to not fall into sheer chaos and he was also kind of moderate and open for diplomatic relations with the West - which also is seen as something negative in Russia. The whole appearance of power thing is simply that the Soviet Union tried hard to compete with the USA on the world stage, despite being economically much weaker. So they had this "fake it til you make it" attitude where it became more important to appear strong, than actually being strong. That contributed highly to the corruption of the whole state apparatus and everyone lying about potential flaws and mishaps, ultimately leading to the Chernobyl disaster.
OK, this comment doesn't spoil anything, but the heli that goes down after practically flying right over the core - most people miss it - but it didn't go down because of the radiation - it goes down because it hits the cable of a crane that is right beside the core. However, even if that hadn't have happened, those goes in the heli would have been dead within days, most likely. This event actually DID happen and you can see the real footage on YT. Loving watching your reaction. So glad you are all so invested in this history - which apparently is being told almost entirely true from the actual, horrific event. *Like others have said, do yourselves a favor and resist the urge to look up stuff.* Just enjoy (even though it's brutal!) the show and *then go and look up the history of it. LOVE watching Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård acting together. They are both so perfect in their roles. ❤
I feel like the subtle acting in this show is going over these bros heads. Nobody even reacted to Legasov reading the report outside of the meeting room, easily one of the best scenes lmao.
In my opinion: PLEASE do not feel bad for not knowing about this disaster. I am 40 years old (born in 1985), i vaguely remember this on the news; in my entire time in school, K-12, there was less then a paragraph about this in my World History class in high school; and a little more in college (and the college class was a “special interest class” that a teacher wanted to do and it was a class of 20 students, the minimum required to keep open the class). Unless you actively look into this event, it’s info that is not regularly talked about, especially in America. Literally the only reason I personally knew a little bit more than you guys upon first watch, is because my father (a Cuban immigrant familiar with dictatorial regime) loved history and stressed importance of researching history because in a dictatorial regime is extremely controlled to say the least; he couldn’t speak english well, but understood it fine and consumed documentaries on history channel, discovery channel, and got me my first library card to be able to rent documentaries from the library. Somewhere in there were a few Chernobyl documentaries, but mostly from an outside prespective with limited information. Over time after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, more information started to come out about what happened and how it was handled, etc. Then comes the task of trying to decipher what information is legitimate or has been “modified” by the government, and even more research. SO PLEASE DON’T FEEL IGNORANT. It’s not your fault. History is written and released by who ever is the dominant power at the time, and not all information and not all prespectives are revealed/heard. Last thing I’ll say before i get off my soap box, as i have Rage Against the Machine “No Shelter Here” on my mind. Yes certain “entertainment” can help is distract ourselves from things going on in life, but there are other forms of entertainment such as this dramatization of the events surrounding the Chernobyl disaster that are extremely valuable. Why? Because it gets your attention with the drama and then you realize holy cow this really happened? Which then leads you to research on your own to find more information for yourself. Even if it’s just checking to see what was accurate and where did the show take some creative license. Obviously a tv show or a documentary alone is not sufficient history in itself. Sincerely from the bottom of my heart, I’m not trying to be condescending or anything. I’m happy to see a show reaction for this from a younger prespective (at least younger than me). I’m thoroughly enjoying your reactions especially as a group and how you talk to each other, i assume your friends. Please don’t be discouraged. Looking forward to more reactions. Have a beautiful day!
For us as West Berliners at the time (part of the Federal Republic of Germany, protected by the USA, Great Britain and France) it was very real. We had two small children and no one knew what was to come. To what extent does an evacuation have to take place, half of a city with 2 million inhabitants, located in the middle of the political opponent, the GDR.
I would highly recommend watching band of brothers at some point. Also great reaction, this is one of my favorite shows, and I love that you guys admit you don’t know everything about it and you’re willing to learn :)
Fun fact: The helicopter that crashed this episode is a fabrication. There was a helicopter crash at Chernobyl but it happened months later after it struck a crane.
Thing with the whole chernobyl disaster it s that, it happened and because of the stupidity and slow reaction from the guys there and top authority, a whole lot more lives could have been saved and it could have been managed very differently. They tried to cover it up because they knew the consequences, not only for them for damaging the people like that, but also for the country and the international vision of the URSS, it showed them as massively flawed, so by every means they had reason to cover it up and coated the truth. But it couldn't be holded that long. And yes, Cannon is right, it wasn't the main reason but this was one a heavy reason involved in the separation of the soviet union.
I wonder if they are going to show the elephant's foot. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the elephant's foot is a giant radiation mass that melted down through the basement and settled below. There are pictures online of it, but I don't think they ever removed it, it was best to leave it there as it was at least in a more controlled environment inside the sarcophagus, the sarcophagus is the superstructure dome they built to cover the entire reactor facility. An initial cover was made to cover the complex, but later, they built a better and bigger version with technology. It's the sole reason people can visit the town on tour today. Without it, the areas would still be highly radiated and would continue to be for hundreds of years. The containment sarcophagus was a feat of engineering and is worth looking up a document on it alone.
And now the dome is slowly deteriorating 😢 Russia still isn't handling the problem appropriately, especially now with the attack in Ukraine. It's a scary thing to think about ..
In my opinion: Please don’t feel ignorant for not knowing about Chernobyl. I’m 40 years old born in 1985. I live in America, I vaguely remember it on the news, from K-12 I only had lass than a paragraph about this in work history in high school, learned a bit more thanks to a special interest class in college. Literally the only reason I knew more about Chernobyl than you guys upon my first watch of the show was thanks to my father. My father was a Cuban immigrant and knew how dictatorial regime controls information to suit government needs. With him I saw history channel and discovery channel documentaries about this, and he got me my first library card so he could find more documentaries and so I could read more about these subject. My father couldn’t really read or write English, but he understood when people spoke to him (and for subtitles I would read it to him). While documentaries and dramatizations like this show should not be taken as a primary source for history, the great thing about shows like this is that it entertains with the drama and some where you go holy cow this really happened? And it becomes a starting point to research and educate yourself. Additionally with this subject and the way the Soviet Union controlled information, it wasn’t until well after the Cold WT and the fall of the Sóviet Union when over time more information came out and then comes the task of researching and deciphering what it legítimate and what has been “modified “ by the government. From the bottom of my heart, again please don’t feel ignorant about not knowing about this. History is written by dominant powers and to their own ends. I’m not trying to be condescending or anything. I’m happy I found your reaction to get a younger different perspective (at least younger than me). I’m enjoying your group interactions very much, I assume your friends. Keep doing what you’re doing! Looking forward to more of your reactions!
Understand: Modern China has 13 plants along their coastline. Less technically knowledgeable, less experienced, less considerate of their fellow citizens. This is the biggest threat to China, Japan, Korea, and the entire East Asian region.
It's not a happy story, but it like all other man-made disasters in history is one of the most important. History must be remembered or else we are doomed to repeat it.
Actually, you can go there. They run tours out of Kyiv. I was there in 2011, when tours were much more limited. No touching the ground, no touching the vegetation, and no open-toed shoes. Walked around the abandoned town of Pripyat. Beautiful sunny day, but still this eerie feeling hangs over the whole place. Guides limited to six months on, then six months off a long distance away.
It's weird because I know that. I know it's considered practically harmless in the moderate way they do the tours. But I still refuse to do it because radiation is the freakiest thing ever. It'd be otherworldly I think
@@callumclarke9384 Getting your picture taken by the "cupped hands" sculpture with the open reactor #4 in the background of the shot...that was otherworldly.
There's a statue of the Chernobyl liquidators in Chernobyl. The inscription reads "To those who saved the world."
And in every other city of ex-USSR, since almost in EACH city of the country would be etleast one person who volonteered as liquidator. And it was almost a million of them around the whole USSR.
Sound design for this series is insanely good. Imagine having to make an audience fear a “monster” that can’t be seen or heard: the air itself.
The soundtrack is actually constructed from the actual sounds of an RBMK reactor (the one in Ignalina)
A good friend of mine, one of the nicest and smartest people I have ever known, was in Minsk when this happened. He died young from a very rare form of thyroid cancer that was common in people exposed to the radiation from Chernobyl. He was a victim of this disaster but not recorded as such.
This is tragic. The true number of deaths from chernobyl will never be known, but it is certainly far higher than any of those embarrassing "official estimates"
Please dont google any of your questions while watching the show. Wait until after it's over or you'll be spoiled. Plus alot of your questions will be answered by the end. Im glad you guys are enjoying the show! It's a masterpiece truly.
100% this.
I mean IMO it's demonstrably fine. Nr. 1 it's real life, saying spoilers is cringe. Nr. 2 if you didn't grow up in parts of the world where this was relevant you could be missing huge historical and cultural context that this show won't provide.
People know you can’t spoil history right?? These spoiling comments are hilarious. Finding out more about history is called learning….Also it is a dramatization so a lot more to learn about the situation.
@@aprilbird493 yeah main gist of events is truthful. Tho there is dramatization and characterization of effectiveness and speeds, magnitudes of illnesses and couple events are shifted around for sake of compelling narrative. Still very good decision too ground yourself with historical facts and scientific ones also. Moreso i think it encourages such discussion with is good too from show and quite compelling.
@@aprilbird493ofc you can spoil it, it's a show written to reveal and shock you... Are you that dumb?
The lead shielding on the truck wasn't to protect general pikalov from the radiation. It was to protect the radiation from general pikalov.
Ha! Good one!
💯
One of the reasons Pikalov went and not sent out someone else, is to make sure that the reading couldn't be ignored due to his status. If an enlisted man would have reported that measurement, they could have potentially stated he's full of it, and probably misread things... With Pikalov they did NOT have that courtesy, and were forced to face facts.
@@Neko- He was known to never ask a soldier under his command to do something he himself was not willing to do. Talk about leading by example.
@@Neko-was totally reading this as a joke at first lol, but yes that's true and I think I heard that in real life that was his actually reasoning for doing it
The helicopter that crashed wasn't destroyed by the core (though the pilots were certainly affected by poisoning), it ran into a crane chain and that destroyed the rotors. Also, the badass military officer who said 'Then I'll do it myself,' was a WWII hero who survived his time at Chernobyl and lived into the 1990s.
That was represented here. If you watch it, you'll see it hit the cable.
@@HalkerVeil But it's wrongly represented in the show. That accident happened during the construction of the sarcophagus some years later.
Also I've never heard about radiation, this "long" after (half life) , at some altitude (inverse square law) affecting pilots immediately.
@@gottagowork It is not. Look at the footage in the show. It hits a cable.
@@HalkerVeil I guess I stand corrected. They did change the timing, but not to the construction of the sarcophagus, so it's not an egregious misrepresentation .
Never said it didn't hit a cable. Given all the other facts the show got wrong, I didn't fact check when someone said it happened during the construction work.
Now I did. The channel "That Chernobyl Guy" even have a video on this particular topic.
The most terrifying thing about this show is the fact that all of this really happened
Most of it, but not all
@@Lizard_Queen6 There's some dramatization indeed. Also some things are added for brevity, but overall the evolution of the accident and the accident itself are portrayed pretty much as is currently established in the scientific community.
@@Neko- pretty much
If yall want more insight read the book Chernobyl Prayer by Swetlana Alexijewitsch. She went around and interviewed people about Chernobyl and the following years. Sad and shocking what a human catastrophe this was
@@Lizard_Queen6 stuff that is not accurate is rly not that important and is just there for story telling. but the facts what happened are all true even the helicopter scene is recreated from real footage lmao
It’s never addressed in the show, because it’s assumed it is known by the audience, but the perception of the USSR in “the west” was that it was an enormous juggernaut with immense technical sophistication, vast armies, incredible industrial might and wasn’t afraid to use them, when in actuality the USSR at this point was a rusted-out shell with a shrinking population that couldn’t feed itself. “Our power comes from the perception of our power” is important, because the USSR had basically nothing going for it except the way the USA and Western Europe feared it, so any embarrassment or sign of weakness could be fatal. A lot of people credit Chernobyl with the collapse of the USSR.
it was still a big big power even if not at its peak tho
Chernobyl was indeed the start of the collapse, but not the main reason.
China seems to use the same wizard of oz approach. They have some strength in some sectors, but in everything else they project. Never mind the fact they are suffering from similar internal corruption and cultural failures the Soviets had prior to collapse ie agricultural failure, population issues, crumbling infrastructure (literally)...They military is inexperienced and their technology is still generations behind. I suspect a decade, maybe two, before the collapse.
Not much has changed over the years
@@panzerwolf494 For real
For Pikalov to do it himself was a key factor. If it was some other member of the military there would be some level of denial and pushback. However given the seniority and rank of Pikalov that was the ultimate moment of truth
Im polish my mum remembers my grandfather waking her and her siblings in the middle of the night to give them pills when they got the news(iodine i persume)
I'm from The Netherlands (about 1500 miles from Ukraine), and our farmers had to destroy a lot of their crops (mostly spinach over here) and keep their cows inside for a long time. My aunt was pregnant at the time, and women were adviced to stay inside back then. Crazy stuff!
yes in Germany too. It was a time of uncertainty and fear. Crops were destroyed and there was talk of acid rain.
Tbf, its just over a thousand miles from chernobyl, nowhere near 1500. Wales is 1500 miles, they shut 10,000 farms and killed half a million sheep. Wherever it rained down wind it poisoned.
7:53 Carter: "Its not a rock!"
Hank: "Its a mineral, Marie!"
What a great reference....LOOOOL
lmao😂😂😂
Don't worry about the criticism....I commend you for watching and learning and WANTING to know. If anything, ignore the mean comments and take the knowledge other commentors offer here. Do your own research after you watch. Do not feel bad/guilty for not knowing....just keep being curious.
A detail that cannot be stressed enough - Primarily westward winds meant that most of the fallout was carried *away* from Russia! Of all the Soviet countries possibly devastated, Russia was not one of them.
I remember my physics teacher telling me how their professors in uni made them test some radiation detection equipment on the ground during the early 2000's and they were still finding some small amounts . Mind you this was in Greece, so you can imagine the scale of the aftermaths. Also my parents remember that the dust clouds passed Greece at some point too .
No it didn’t just stop. I lived in Odessa at the time and even we didn’t get anything. The wind was blowing north that’s why Swedes discovered the radiation. The cloud was nowhere near Greece
You will find small amounts of radiation all over the world. Most of it is not from Chernobyl. Over 5000 test nukes have been detonated over the years.
@@pyatig Greek physicist here, Greece was affected but not to the extent that Northern, Western Europe or the neighboring countries were. Northern Greece and the Thessaly region definitely experienced increased radioactivity levels after the cloud had spread around the 4th or 5th of May, albeit it was much weaker by the time it arrived. There are maps online that show the spread of the cloud in the following days. The change in radioactivity is statistically significant, but not high enough to have had significant long-term health consequences thankfully.
It's ok to not know the details going into this! This show had people researching the details after watching. It's difficult to get people interested in history, but I already saw the story just take you guys away immediately ❤
Also even if you are interested in history, you can't know everything in details. And everybody is interested into different things.
@@Oxmosh Exactly!!
That was seemingly one of the goals of the show... They show a lot, but there is a silent invite to research things further if you're interested.
Guys stop spoiling the show with your fun facts. Pretty much all of your "fun facts" are revealed at the end of Episode 5. SO STOP
Honestly I think it’s really good they’re going out of their way to learn these facts. Shows how much they’re interested in this. Besides, I knew a lot of this going in the show and it was still very interesting and I enjoyed it thoroughly
@@MT-xq4km i think the op meant the comments not the boys.
@@Annedrinkstea oooh right yea that makes more sense! My bad
I thought these were pre-recorded/featured first on patreon.
I get it though but some facts are fun tho haha
@@callumclarke9384 they uploaded Chernobyl on Patreon 1 day earlier. And I believe they watched episode 1 and took like a week long break, they might so the same thing with future episodes
3:39 I actually never noticed, that's the Foot of The Queen himself!
16:34 That helicopter crash is real history and there is a footage too. The accident was covered up and it only revealed in mid 90s after the fall of USSR. 4 People died in that helicopter and some say bodies recovered immediately and properly buried, others says bodies never recovered and still lies in the power plant; that I don't know.
To piggyback on your comment - if anyone thinks the helicopter got too irradiated and crashed because of that, no - the helicopter blades hit the cranes cable... not that the people in it had long lives ahead of them anyway
@@isais207 Also, it happened a few months later, and the pilot was blinded by the sun.
If I had the knowledge that a nuke was about to go off in 2 days that would have killed 50 million people I would've been hysterical. They way she figured everything out and confidently and calmly went against authoritative forces to be effective is impressive itself. The guards wouldve probably shot me because I'm yelling that we're all going to die If I don't see their superiors.
3:39 Oh wow, Larys Strong, I did not remember him being in here at all. Nice catch Brig and that's a nice Deion Sanders jersey too! I'm a Cowboys fan as well.
26:19 It's definitely a heavy watch, but worth it. Most of the questions you guys have will be answered by the time you finish the series. There's probably stuff you'll still wanna look up, but you can always do that after the final episode.
Seeing you guys chatty and tense and leaning forward is great.
I can tell you guys are super engaged about this show and, understandable, bc it's such a great limited series. 🎉
the end of this ep with the radiation noise drowning everything out, and the flashlights ceasing, truly horror
It's good to see young people watch historical programs. What you may not know is how 7 years prior to the Chernobyl disaster, the US avoided a similar catastrophe at Three Mile Island when parts of the core melted due in part to a faulty valve not working correctly. There are also documentaries on Chernobyl today still uninhabitable.
2:35 Hats-off to Estonia! Where I am from, the Minister of Industry of Commerce of the time Cahit Aral gave a message of "Don't worry!" while drinking a glass of tea in front of the cameras following the Chernobyl disaster, and downplaying the disaster's possible risk effects on human health caused by radioactivity released into the environment in the Black Sea Region, where Turkey's tea plantations are located. He also added "Anyone who says there is radiation in Turkey is godless.". They mixed high radioactive teas to low radioactive ones for years drop radioactivity per kilo and made people drink that. And they also couldn't export the radioactive hazelnuts so there was hazelnut abundance they couldn't sell, so they packed and distributed to schools and made the kids ate them for free.
I got you one better, during the Chernobyl catastrophe Irlanda got some formula (powder milk) contaminated by the radiation cloud and was trying to sell it to Brasil, which said NO…the Mexican embassador in Brasil alerted the Mexican government….but they didn’t listen, and bought the milk, which skyrocketed cancer in kids…most governments f** sucks
Chernobyl/Pripyat was a tourist site before the Russians invaded Ukraine. I went to Pripyat about 6 years ago and toured the area, it was the most sobering experience of my life. And I have been to the Dachau and Auschwitz sites and the killing fields in Cambodia and Chernobyl/Pripyat beat them all for emotional effect.
The washing of the truck: that’s basic decontamination. But the dust, ash, dirt all likely contains radioactive materials. Plutonium, uranium, cesium, etc.. Radiation itself doesn’t “wash off” of course, like how you can’t wash away light or radiowaves, but the material _producing_ the radiation can at least be removed. Time and distance are the best defenses against radiation; stay away or spend as little time as possible near it. But if you drag in radioactive dust, obviously it’s stays close to you, so a wash is step 1. Most of the dangers here come not from acute, immediate radiation poisoning, but from long-term exposure brought on by for instance inhaling dust or absorbing radioactive isotopes that stay in the body, giving off radiation over time. Hence why you want stable iodine; the thyroid absorbs iodine, and it’ll absorb radioactive iodine just as well as stable iodine, since it’s chemically the same element. But if you can saturate your thyroid with the stable isotope first, it won’t need to absorb more of it, and any radioactive iodine you ingest will pass through instead of staying in your body.
a great reaction, for people not familiar with this part of history the first episode hits with the "shock and awe" of terror but most don't really understand what is going on, this second episode is much more about the intellectual terror that dawns with understanding of just how terrifying the situation is, and how much worse it could get.
hi, this was one of the worst disasters of the 80's. I am from the Czech Republic and born in 1984. Even though we were far away, we each got a dose of that disgust. The fourth person in my family is dying of cancer and I think it's connected.
i just wana get snug on the couch and watch chernobyl with the homies
I remember the radiation fall out even reached high ground, moutains of Ireland and parts of England, Wales and Scotland. The sale of sheep from uplands was banned. Terrifying this could and did happen. The children from Chernobyl region would come to Ireland and stay with families in the years that followed after charities were set up here to help get the out of the radiation zones even a few weeks.
Carter will be so sad to find out that the woman is just a representation of all the scientists who helped and not didn't actually exist
Well in that bunch of scientists were a lot of women, it was a huge crowd!
@@Alexandra_Indina I didn't say there were no women ...?
This is my new favorite thing I never refresh to see an update upload before until thisss I'm that excited lezzgo
Aš he said it never happened, that is why it was so hard to believe
I really love to see your reaction to this series! Keep in mind; a lot of information we now know about radiation effects on the human body is due to this disaster being managed so poorly. I live in the Netherlands and was 4 yrs old at the time, and I grew up not being allowed to eat lettuce, spinace or fish from rivers more than once a month, for a few years. A lot of crops were deliberatly destroyed in my country due to radiation poisoning in that time. This is a 2000km distance by the way! I am glad the younger and non-european generations are learning about this disaster and how we narrowly escaped this. 😊❤
PART 1
Most people really don't understand the show that well: a good deal don't seem to grasp how radiation works (a lot of people keep thinking it is like gas or even a virus), but the bigger issue is that most nobody understands the Soviet system. The true conflict the show depicts so well is one of an unstoppable force (radiation) meeting an immovable object (the soviet system). The show does a good job explaining the radiation side at least, but the Soviet bureaucracy part isn't expressly explained, it is merely depicted and so people who can't extrapolate this information instead spout dumb comments.
About the immovable object. The issue is that most systems after a certain point are carried forth by their own momentum, it is not down to the people who live in them or even those who are, ostensibly, in charge of them. In the USSR this point came with the death of Stalin who had created that behemoth and was it's master, but after he was gone everyone else were in a sense at the mercy of this structure and its rules, because what most people don't realize is that such things have a life of their own. One late 80s early 90s Russian rock song actually captured this idea quite well in the lyrics, where it is basically said that everyone are bound by one chain in this regime, both those who are first (in charge) and those who are last (the average people), however the first might be no less tired than the last to be part of this chain.
Now imagine being stuck between these two things, the unstoppable force of nature, one that follows only it's own laws, and the immovable object, this system that likewise follows only it's own laws but out of the two only the system can be somehow reasoned with into action against the other, however if you are going to do this you must act in a way that will appease it's rules otherwise it will refuse to cooperate - that is the conflict of the show, of all the people stuck in this horrible situation and how they deal with it. Frankly, this is exactly what Sherbina's line is about when he said "This will go much easier if you talk to me about the things you do understand and not about the things you do not understand" - talk to me about the radiation, the unstoppable force, leave dealing with the immovable object, the Soviet system to me.
Btw, unrelated but still, when Sherbina threatens to have Legasov thrown out of the helicopter, this is either a mistake on the part of the show runners or to the contrary a smart line, because these events take place under Gorbachev after he had begun the Perestroika, in that time nobody was going to be thrown out of helicopters or anything of the sort (only the KGB still acted with such cutthroat means), let alone someone with a notable profile like Legasov, not to mention that Sherbina has no authority over the soldiers. So either they show runners wanted to do a stereotypical "bad soviets" meme threat, OR Sherbina was bluffing, making it a smart line. Same for his threat to have the pilot shot.
Dyatlov was in denial about the danger of the unstoppable force and didn't want to face the immovable object. Legasov was very conscious of the dangers of the unstoppable force but lacked the understanding how to handle the immovable object. Sherbina was ignorant of the danger of the unstoppable force, but once he was made aware of it's true danger he was the only one with the knowledge of how to take every solution proposed by Legasov and present it in a way that would finally make the immovable object take SOME actions to fix the situation.
A bit more on denial. Dyatlov was in denial about it, for one thing because he truly believes it to be impossible, impossible in the same sense as if someone had told him the sky had suddenly turned pink kind of impossible. But he did have a moment when he faltered on this, and that moment is actually crucial to understanding the denial he goes into. Dyatlov sees the graphite on the ground, but it is far away. You see that he sees it, that he acknowledges it being there even, but you can totally guess what the mental process for his denial is:
>That looks like graphite
>No, that's impossible
>It can't be graphite
>For it to be graphite the reactor had to have exploded
>RBMK reactors CAN'T explode, that's basically a hard fact
>So it can't be graphite
>And i'm far away, I can't be certain that it's graphite, it's just something else that looks like it from afar
>And i'm under pressure so I'm just imagining impossible worst case scenarios
>It CAN'T be graphite
>It's NOT graphite
>Gotta keep going, gotta deal with the real problems
But people with no comprehension of the Soviet system will complain how it is better to be safe than sorry and report graphite, but that's when the fear of the Soviet system/bureaucracy kicks in:
>If I report this they'll tell me that's impossible
>They'll say I'm being hysterical, an alarmist
>Nothing will change
>Except my career will have a permanent stain on it
>I can only report on what knowledge I have for a fact
>3.6 roentgen, that's the measurement I was given by my underlings
>I will report it
>If it is wrong I can't be held accountable, that's what was reported to me and I'm just conveying it up the chain
The rest of the disaster follows from this moment as every bureaucrat up the chain passes on the information and makes moves based on it, and when they are presented the reality of the situation they find themselves, just like Dyatlov, trapped between the radiation and the system, so you end up seeing this same line of thinking in other characters, how they all shift the blame by pointing out who was directly observing or reporting events. Once Sherbina goes there he demands for the helicopter to fly directly over the building so he can personally confirm everything with his own eyes because NOW HE WOULD BE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE, so he HAS to find out first hand with his own eyes to make the report, he is dismissing Legasov because he wants to finally step OUTSIDE of this chain of reliance on the reports of others. This moment has NOTHING to do with denial, so saying Sherbina is in denial is stupid, he is so insistent on doing this because he wants CERTAINTY instead of relying on the words of others.
PART 2
Think back to the first episode where the two other plant directors are shouting at the guy who returned from the roof to confirm to them that the core had exploded - they start shouting at him because now THEY are in denial, but also in a panic, because they ALREADY REPORTED SOMETHING ELSE up the chain, even took actions based on that information, and they can't handle the idea that they sent wrong information because that will have CONSEQUENCES FOR THEM. At that point they are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, but they know for a fact they will be chewed out if they deliver an update that the reactor exploded, but there's some sliver of hope that they can hang onto in denial, that "no, it couldn't have exploded", in which case they won't be chewed out.
And all of this flies completely over the heads of most all reactors I've seen, who make dumb or naive comments, who think it should be simple. The reason you all think it is simple is because you are viewing all of this as the audience from a future where these events are already history, you have the hindsight and an outside perspective, you have NONE of the concerns of the people who had to deal with both the radiation and Soviet system IN THE MOMENT. Don't be so frustrated, outside observer empowered by historic hindsight, were you to ever find yourself in such a situation firsthand I doubt you'd fare much better. Stop calling these people clowns and making snarky comments about their choices and actions.
Calling the former shoemaker Deputy Secretary an idiot is likewise stupid, he is entirely outside of the particular bureaucratic chain that is handling the situation in Chernobyl, he literally can't do anything but follow orders and rely on the information passed to him not from someone below him but from ABOVE. He may be a very smug asshole about it, but we haven't been given anything to show that he is stupid, and in reality he is likewise trapped with nothing that he could've actually done. Had he begun an evacuation he would've been immediately taken in, called an alarmist, dismissed, replaced and his orders rescinded.
You'd think you would approve of a meritocratic system in which even someone who started out as a worker in a shoe factory could work their way up to become a Deputy Secretary. Of course it's not exactly as advertise in this system, but it has all the same trappings as most other systems trying to do this, ones built on reward and punishment - you'll learn more about how even rewards and incentives lead to problems in the show finale.
Regarding Legasov's line that he is not ready to explain how the reactor exploded. That should be a chilling line, that even the most competent character in this field in the show so far has no idea how a reactor could explode, because this line actually justifies much of the behavior from other characters who likewise believe it to be impossible. This is a moment of terror.
The show does, apparently, overblow the consequences of the second explosion as explained by Khomyuk during the briefing with Gorbachev, thunderf00t explains the realistic damage of that explosion on his channel. There is also a series of videos now on youtube pointing out all the historic inaccuracies and Legasov's lies that are the foundation for how he gets to be the hero in this telling of events. You should react to it as well, if you want to I'll find the channel.
My favorite part is how each character's development arc transitions from being most terrified of the party/state and unconcerned about radiation to fearing radiation the most. Radiation seems like an imaginary threat while government punishments are well-known.
Here in Austria (!) we were told not to eat domestic mushrooms and berries any longer - for at least 10 more year after the disaster.
Austria is also far over 1000 km away from Chernobyl, and the radiation from the fallout is still evident in our soil.
I remember we also got iodine pills in primary school and from our parents.
Ich war im Grundschulater als die Sandkästen auf den Spielplätzen gesperrt wurden und wir für eine Zeit lang die Fenster geschlossen halten mussten. Es gab kein Salat mehr in den Läden und es war von saurem Regen die Rede. Ich erinnere mich heute noch an die Angst der Erwachsenen und an den "verseuchten" Sand....
Und ich komme aus dem Süden Deutschlands.
@@tay.00.7 Ja, ich war damals auch in diesem Alter und kann mich noch gut daran erinnern, als Sandkästen zum absoluten Sperrgebiet erklärt wurden.
Was den sauren Regen, über den ebenfalls ständig geklagt wurde, angeht, so war bzw. ist das wiederum ein von Tschernobyl unabhängiges Phänomen und hatte/hat mit der allgemeinen Luftverschmutzung, insbesondere durch säurebildende Abgase, zu tun.
I’m from Slovenia (not Slovakia, we’re bordering on Italy) and we also didn’t pick mushrooms for years after this. That year, no one was planting lettuce in their gardens.
As a side note to this episode only - actual helicopter crash from this episode can be found on TH-cam.
I was about 12 when that happened and I didn't realize either how bad it was AND COULD HAVE BEEN if good people hadn't been there to push the right decisions forward despite the corruption, arrogance and stupidity.
Thanks for the video. I enjoyed it.
The helicopter crashed because the blade hit the cable on the crane. This was several months after the explosion. The show's timeline is deceptive.
before watching this I had seen a video of an urban explorer had snuck into the exclusion zone, and it was so interesting to see everything that was abandoned and in the hospital the clothes are still in the basement.
wow, they don't know who Mikhail Gorbachev is.
This show is a Masterpiece. I was actually alive in '86, i was a kid but still understood the situation was Bad. And i live in Chile, far away from all this. Years later i studied this in college and only then realized the magnitude of all that happend 😮
the uniforms of those firefighters are still piled in the basement of that hospital. you can see pics of it online. The lady scientist actually represents a bunch of different men and women who were all clutch. The three divers actually all survived, defying what was medically and scientifically expected.
5:40 strange lick flex.
You wont find out why, and how it happened until the last episode. BE SURE you watch all the Ending Credits
My dad worked at a nuclear power plant in the UK at the time this happened and he said he remembers the alarms going off to alert the entire power plant that there was a radiation leak and were 1,815 miles away from Chernobyl
OMG you're doing Chernobyl??!?! I friggin loved this show so much, so absolutely incredibly shot and told. ugh what a story. So sad, so unbelievable but unfortunately such reality.
We are all ignorant to history in some form or another. But the fact he is willing to learn and finds an interest is what matters.
I remember all of this and how terrifying it was. There were reports of how far the cloud would move. It was our 9/11 except world wide.
Many of my family suffered and we have no idea how far it damaged people.
Great reaction. Subscribed.
Events like this should be taught in more curriculums. I was in several school systems (Australian/UK/IB) and it was never touched on. Or other disasters that I only learnt about recently, such as the incident in Bhopal, India. Highly recommend a series about that too - "The Railway Men: The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984".
The first time I learnt about Chernobyl was my PE teacher mentioning it briefly - He'd been backpacking in Europe and was on a train somewhere in the Ukraine/Russia area at the time. He said if the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction, he would have been affected. I started researching after that and it's all fascinating and tragic. I would actually like to go to Pripyat one day, though likely not any time soon.
When a large volume of water is suddenly dumped on a superhot reservoir of magma (or in this case, the burning core of the damaged reactor), you get a superviolent steam explosion. This is what caused the great explosion at Krakatoa in 1883...seawater rushing into the opened magma chamber.
Fun fact: Putin immediately banned this show in Russia. LOL. He thought it made "Russia" look bad. And by Russia, he meant the KGB, which he spent most of his life in and now runs (under the name FSB these days).
Where did you get this fake information? In Russia a similar project began to be filmed in 2014, even before the release of the HBO series
@@heyyanana You're delusional, orc. Just Google "chernobyl banned in Russia." The show was wildly popular in Russia, so they banned it. *AFTER* that, in 2019, they started to try to make another, ridiculous version claiming the U.S. "infiltrated" the Chernobly plant and sabotaged it. LOL!
@@heyyanana they made one where Russia is looking better that in reality, they also somehow managed to involved the CIA with the accident. I don't think it was ever actually released though. This show has been banned in Russia.
Wdym? The show isn't banned in Russia? Why are you spreading misinformation?
@@lionhead123 but it's not banned and has never been, I can watch it now on a russian streaming service. and it was very popular in Russia during the release
I remember that there was like no heads-up from the leaders of Soviets Union to its own citizens. So many were working outside on fields when a radioactive cloud just flew over them.
My mother was one of them and was pregnant with me at that time. And they later found out that they were outside working at that time when radioactive cloud just was on them. Luckily nothing bad happened to my mom or me, but there were not so lucky ones.
We had restrictions on sheep movements (lamb) in the UK (Wales) for 26 years after Chernobyl!
Something for you to look up when you're done (it's not in the show): The Elefants foot. It's basically real live medusa. When you look at it, you die.
This is one of the best reacts to a show so far. You guys are sucked into it. Awesome.
This was a real event where many people suffered and died in the most horrible way possible, but sure, "don't spoil the fun!"
Based on other reactions and translations the public announcement told the people to not worry pack only what you need and head to the busses and that it is only temporary
well, general Pikolov didn't drove that crappy gaz 66 truck, he drove NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical protected) prepeared APC (armored personel carrier). he did lead NBC division/forces so similar stuff (radiation, chemical leaks) was his line of work. but for one - getting similar apc is way harder and more costly than getting truck, also more dramatic if it looks more dangeruos.
5:11, that same firefighter cloth still in the same hospital where all those man were brought to get help, and the people in the bridge on the first episode. In real life is called the bridge of death because alot of people was watching the fire from the bridge and then entire radioactive ash came and contaminate all those people and kids. After 30 minutes all of those people start presenting symptoms. Obviously the firefighters where taken to Moscow with other people. In those times soldiers, police officers, firefighters who do there job in risk situations, and other types of jobs have advantage to get some good benefits and good money from the soviet Union.
Hello guys , you know still after almost forty years it is forbidden in some places here in Sweden to pick berries and mushrooms after the accident in Ukraine and remember very well when the alarm went of here in Stockholm .
the reactor melting down at chernobyl actually created a new element.
If you want another real story that is really well done, you should watch Society of the Snow. It's about a group of mostly guys about your age that survive a plane crash in the Andes and pull together to do everything they can to survive and return home. The cinematography, special effects/makeup, and acting are really good. The story is very famous in South America.
Those clothes are still in the basement of that hospital. Still highly radioactive.
4:43 70% of Soviet doctors were women.
The general knew if he didn’t go no one would believe the reading unless it came from the highest level.
It's crazy that despite not facing any major nuclear accidents or being on the receiving end of any bombs, the sound of a geiger-counter seems to inspire a deep-rooted, visceral fear in all the American reactors I've seen (plus my family and I). I wonder if it's the sound itself or if cold war hysteria never quite left the American psyche. Our parents and/or grandparents had to go about their lives while under the very real threat of nuclear attack. They had to do emergency drills about radiation. They watched the news as the proximity to disaster ebbed and flowed, inching nearer with each close call. That kind of fear about radiation and nuclear disaster doesn't just leave once the threat is over. It seeps into the ground, lingers in the air, and it rains down on the next generations.
I remember when I watch this series i couldn't breathe properly it makes you feel suffocated
Honestly Jared Harris is a badass actor. He should have won an oscar for his role in „The Terror“ highly recommended show
after you finish the show you should watch photos and videos of the real events
it's horrifying
the city is a real ghost town until this day
i get the feeling that what khomyuk says, when she explain what would be happen if the lava hits the tanks, sounds like the tsar bomb
Can de guy in the middle let the other ones talk? 🤷🏽♂️just for a minute 🤣
3:35 It's been a minute since I watched this didn't know the "Feet Fiend" was in this show
At the moment Nuclear Fusion has only occured during Thermonuclear weapons tests, and a few extremely small scale laboratories, right now it takes more energy than they get out of it to preform nuclear fusion in a reactor, so it is not viable. The first Thermonuclear weapon was detonated in the 1950s and all US Nuclear weapons are Thermonuclear.
When all five guys watching a movie keep talking over each other, the movie got to be good.
You guys are so cool loving your reactions keep it up love and peace ❤
That helicopter falling is real news footage.
I'm from Poland and interesting thing, at that time our sensors here detected the radiation FAST but because we were a Soviet puppet state (not part of USSR tho) no information was relied to the west, only when it got to Sweden because of wind the whole world new. Action was taken here, they washed streets in some places, told people to not go out. Iodine was dustributed but I guess pills went out of stock so kids in schools were forcefully fed Lugola luquid. My parents were teens at that time and said it was disgusting. Unfortunately the Soviet overlords wanted to keep playing the delusion game and still forced people to march in parades for Labour's Day. I've heard stories of other people's parents in the East of Poland taking part in them and later feeling sick.
In real life, the female physicist wasn't one person it was a team of physicists.
We definitely did not develop fusion power... lol
14:06 They wash off the irradiated particles. While radiation fires around, the range is fairly low. However it irradiates things, not just you and me, but things like dust, dirt, etc. - all the stuff that the wind can just pick up and travel for hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, where it then irradiates the things it gets in contact with. That's also what the bridge scene at the end of last episode was showing.
16:39 No, the rotor hit the cable of the crane.
23:00 It would turn the whole thing into a thermonuclear bomb, what you'd describe as a nuke specifically a hydrogen bomb). The mentioned 30 kiometer radius are 18.6 miles, and that's just for the explosion radius alone.
28:33 If they did not address it at all, it would have made pretty much all of Europe uninhabitable, as well as parts of Asia and the radiation would eventually also reach other continents, such as the Americas, since it obviously wouldn't stop on its own, possibly poisoning the entire globe to a varying degree.
Gorbachev was the last leader of the USSR. In Russia he kinda became the scapegoat for the fall of the Soviet Union while in the West he's actually seen in a more positive light, feathering the crumbling Soviet state to not fall into sheer chaos and he was also kind of moderate and open for diplomatic relations with the West - which also is seen as something negative in Russia.
The whole appearance of power thing is simply that the Soviet Union tried hard to compete with the USA on the world stage, despite being economically much weaker. So they had this "fake it til you make it" attitude where it became more important to appear strong, than actually being strong. That contributed highly to the corruption of the whole state apparatus and everyone lying about potential flaws and mishaps, ultimately leading to the Chernobyl disaster.
OK, this comment doesn't spoil anything, but the heli that goes down after practically flying right over the core - most people miss it - but it didn't go down because of the radiation - it goes down because it hits the cable of a crane that is right beside the core. However, even if that hadn't have happened, those goes in the heli would have been dead within days, most likely. This event actually DID happen and you can see the real footage on YT. Loving watching your reaction. So glad you are all so invested in this history - which apparently is being told almost entirely true from the actual, horrific event. *Like others have said, do yourselves a favor and resist the urge to look up stuff.* Just enjoy (even though it's brutal!) the show and *then go and look up the history of it. LOVE watching Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård acting together. They are both so perfect in their roles. ❤
I feel like the subtle acting in this show is going over these bros heads. Nobody even reacted to Legasov reading the report outside of the meeting room, easily one of the best scenes lmao.
Quite minor compared to every other part of this episode...what do you expect them to say about him reading a report
DARK, you should definitely watch it!
Next react to DARK please
Yes please do
In my opinion: PLEASE do not feel bad for not knowing about this disaster. I am 40 years old (born in 1985), i vaguely remember this on the news; in my entire time in school, K-12, there was less then a paragraph about this in my World History class in high school; and a little more in college (and the college class was a “special interest class” that a teacher wanted to do and it was a class of 20 students, the minimum required to keep open the class). Unless you actively look into this event, it’s info that is not regularly talked about, especially in America. Literally the only reason I personally knew a little bit more than you guys upon first watch, is because my father (a Cuban immigrant familiar with dictatorial regime) loved history and stressed importance of researching history because in a dictatorial regime is extremely controlled to say the least; he couldn’t speak english well, but understood it fine and consumed documentaries on history channel, discovery channel, and got me my first library card to be able to rent documentaries from the library. Somewhere in there were a few Chernobyl documentaries, but mostly from an outside prespective with limited information. Over time after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, more information started to come out about what happened and how it was handled, etc. Then comes the task of trying to decipher what information is legitimate or has been “modified” by the government, and even more research.
SO PLEASE DON’T FEEL IGNORANT. It’s not your fault. History is written and released by who ever is the dominant power at the time, and not all information and not all prespectives are revealed/heard.
Last thing I’ll say before i get off my soap box, as i have Rage Against the Machine “No Shelter Here” on my mind. Yes certain “entertainment” can help is distract ourselves from things going on in life, but there are other forms of entertainment such as this dramatization of the events surrounding the Chernobyl disaster that are extremely valuable. Why? Because it gets your attention with the drama and then you realize holy cow this really happened? Which then leads you to research on your own to find more information for yourself. Even if it’s just checking to see what was accurate and where did the show take some creative license. Obviously a tv show or a documentary alone is not sufficient history in itself.
Sincerely from the bottom of my heart, I’m not trying to be condescending or anything. I’m happy to see a show reaction for this from a younger prespective (at least younger than me). I’m thoroughly enjoying your reactions especially as a group and how you talk to each other, i assume your friends. Please don’t be discouraged. Looking forward to more reactions. Have a beautiful day!
For us as West Berliners at the time (part of the Federal Republic of Germany, protected by the USA, Great Britain and France) it was very real. We had two small children and no one knew what was to come. To what extent does an evacuation have to take place, half of a city with 2 million inhabitants, located in the middle of the political opponent, the GDR.
I would highly recommend watching band of brothers at some point. Also great reaction, this is one of my favorite shows, and I love that you guys admit you don’t know everything about it and you’re willing to learn :)
Fun fact: The helicopter that crashed this episode is a fabrication. There was a helicopter crash at Chernobyl but it happened months later after it struck a crane.
Thing with the whole chernobyl disaster it s that, it happened and because of the stupidity and slow reaction from the guys there and top authority, a whole lot more lives could have been saved and it could have been managed very differently. They tried to cover it up because they knew the consequences, not only for them for damaging the people like that, but also for the country and the international vision of the URSS, it showed them as massively flawed, so by every means they had reason to cover it up and coated the truth. But it couldn't be holded that long. And yes, Cannon is right, it wasn't the main reason but this was one a heavy reason involved in the separation of the soviet union.
tbh it wasnt even that slow nor that many people died, it could have been much much worse
I wonder if they are going to show the elephant's foot. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the elephant's foot is a giant radiation mass that melted down through the basement and settled below. There are pictures online of it, but I don't think they ever removed it, it was best to leave it there as it was at least in a more controlled environment inside the sarcophagus, the sarcophagus is the superstructure dome they built to cover the entire reactor facility. An initial cover was made to cover the complex, but later, they built a better and bigger version with technology. It's the sole reason people can visit the town on tour today. Without it, the areas would still be highly radiated and would continue to be for hundreds of years. The containment sarcophagus was a feat of engineering and is worth looking up a document on it alone.
No. They don't show it.
And now the dome is slowly deteriorating 😢 Russia still isn't handling the problem appropriately, especially now with the attack in Ukraine. It's a scary thing to think about ..
In my opinion: Please don’t feel ignorant for not knowing about Chernobyl. I’m 40 years old born in 1985. I live in America, I vaguely remember it on the news, from K-12 I only had lass than a paragraph about this in work history in high school, learned a bit more thanks to a special interest class in college.
Literally the only reason I knew more about Chernobyl than you guys upon my first watch of the show was thanks to my father. My father was a Cuban immigrant and knew how dictatorial regime controls information to suit government needs. With him I saw history channel and discovery channel documentaries about this, and he got me my first library card so he could find more documentaries and so I could read more about these subject. My father couldn’t really read or write English, but he understood when people spoke to him (and for subtitles I would read it to him).
While documentaries and dramatizations like this show should not be taken as a primary source for history, the great thing about shows like this is that it entertains with the drama and some where you go holy cow this really happened? And it becomes a starting point to research and educate yourself.
Additionally with this subject and the way the Soviet Union controlled information, it wasn’t until well after the Cold WT and the fall of the Sóviet Union when over time more information came out and then comes the task of researching and deciphering what it legítimate and what has been “modified “ by the government.
From the bottom of my heart, again please don’t feel ignorant about not knowing about this. History is written by dominant powers and to their own ends. I’m not trying to be condescending or anything. I’m happy I found your reaction to get a younger different perspective (at least younger than me). I’m enjoying your group interactions very much, I assume your friends. Keep doing what you’re doing! Looking forward to more of your reactions!
I knew I loved Brigg for a reason 🤩
Understand: Modern China has 13 plants along their coastline. Less technically knowledgeable, less experienced, less considerate of their fellow citizens.
This is the biggest threat to China, Japan, Korea, and the entire East Asian region.
It's not a happy story, but it like all other man-made disasters in history is one of the most important. History must be remembered or else we are doomed to repeat it.
We've had nuclear fusion for a while. The problem is getting a meaningful and prolonged gain in order to generate electricity from it.
Actually, you can go there. They run tours out of Kyiv.
I was there in 2011, when tours were much more limited. No touching the ground, no touching the vegetation, and no open-toed shoes. Walked around the abandoned town of Pripyat. Beautiful sunny day, but still this eerie feeling hangs over the whole place. Guides limited to six months on, then six months off a long distance away.
I’m not sure you can go now, also considering that russian troops digged through there and died from contamination
It's weird because I know that. I know it's considered practically harmless in the moderate way they do the tours.
But I still refuse to do it because radiation is the freakiest thing ever. It'd be otherworldly I think
@@callumclarke9384 Getting your picture taken by the "cupped hands" sculpture with the open reactor #4 in the background of the shot...that was otherworldly.
Yeah you can't go there now. In case you forgot, there's a war going on
@@tawogtrailers Noticed 😢 I have friends there, and in Russia. Very uncomfortable.