All of the episodes are available on Patreon right now in full length/watchalong format! With The Last of Us and Chernobyl, I am an instant fan of what Craig Mazin works on. This series is just something else 😢 Patreon (full length & polls): www.patreon.com/ Subscribe to the channel: th-cam.com/users/verowakreacts Follow me on Twitter for stuff and selfies: twitter.com/verowak
You also have to remember, this was the old soviet Union where people didn't question their superiors for fear of repercussions against them or their families.
There is a five episode podcast (search for Chernobyl podcast) with Craig Mazin, with even more information about the accident, and the series. Check it out!
If you want a peek behind the curtain Mazin did a companion podcast episode by episode where he talks production and where he diverged from history. It's kind of shocking that before this he was known as a comedy writer.
I was 9 years old in Moldavian SSR, which bordered Ukrainian SSR, when the 15-second TV announcement came on about a minor incident on Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station. Later, my father, an army reservist, got a phone call drafting him to clean up Chernobyl. When he got to the staging site, where they were putting on the shoddy Soviet masks and other useless protective equipment, his commander looked at him and said, "you have a wife and child, right? Go home." Probably saved his life.
I wish they did more short historical series with high production value like this. Can be a tough series to watch but it's some of the best TV out there. Thanks for reacting to this.
Not a strict historical series, but I can highly recommend "the Little Drummer Girl" - a mini-series adaptation of Le Carrés spy novel, directed by Park Chan-Wook!
I think the old men in Japan are heroes. During the Fukushima disaster after the tsunami, the old men volunteered to be the ones to go in and check it out, volunteered to expose themselves to radiation, because they said it wouldn't matter if they got sick and passed in 10 years, they lived a good life, but they would not sacrifice the young people who had their whole lives in front of them.
Radioactive objects tend to emit radiation similar to how heat works using the Inverse Square Law. You may or may not recognize the name but you are almost assuredly familiar with its concept. The closer you are the "warmer" you get, very similar to fire because both radiate using the same principles. From a great enough distance you are safe from it...but if you were to hold a fire in your hand it would cause tremendous damage. One of the scary things about radiation is its effects are not immediate like fire and generally speaking humans cannot feel its effects quick enough to react.
Many of the people who were directly exposed right after the disaster aren't mentioned and are never shown or talked about, except one. One of the prospective people being asked to go into the water in a later episode mentions that his friend was a gate guard and she was now dying due to radiation exposure. Yekaterina Ivanenko was a gate guard near the Reactor #4 building, receiving a severe exposure when the building wall blew out; but she stayed at her post all night and so received more exposure from all of the debris raining down, like the firefighters did. She died exactly 1 month to the day after the disaster at the same hospital in Moscow where the other most severely exposed were sent.
When the series came out, several folks suggested that this first episode was a great piece of cosmic horror, and I completely agree: the unknown and the seemingly unnatural overwhelming all aspects of everyday life.
4:26 "I don't remember when the cold war ended." The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, party triggered by this disaster. It had kinda been crumbling for a while already, so it might be more accurate to say that this was one of the first major signs of the collapse rather than a cause.
"Leave matters of the state... to the state." - Socialism in a nutshell. This series ought to be required viewing in every high school history curriculum.
@@Mr.Ekshin I agree. I was taught of the disaster at school, but not nearly at the level of detail the series introduces, even though it's not fully accurate.
Given how liberal HBO were with the dramatisation (ie. demonisation of Dyatlov, making out Ignatenko's wife to be a moron etc), the irony of HBO harping about the cost of lies when the show is pretty far from factual is pretty rich. eg. Ignatenko's wife wasn't warned about the danger of radiation from her husband, only that she shouldn't spend too much time with him. She worked tirelessly to keep up the spirits of the firefighters as they got worse, and by the end, she was wiping chunks of her husbands disintegrating organs out of his mouth as he struggled to keep breathing. HBO did not approach her to confirm the details of her story and really did her a pretty grotesque injustice. Dyatlov's treatment was even worse, taking a serious but competent man who made mistakes that triggered a fault he had no way of knowing about, and recasting him as a vicious, stupid bully who deliberately drove the reactor over a cliff. His account (available on YT, filmed while he was dying in prison) is a compelling and completely understated, compared to the drama of the show, retelling of the events that night.
10:30 The following morning at the Forsmark energy plant in Sweden, 1250km down the road, radiation alarms went off. The locals watching from the bridge were not at a safe distance.
I was 17 at the time, living near Frankfurt in Germany. Children were told not to play outside, field produce like lettuce, grown in Germany, was contaminated. Unfortunately, by the time the USSR admitted that there had been an accident, the fallout had already spread across Europe. And if you are wondering how long the radiation lasted... you can still find traces of it in mushrooms growing here in Germany today, 38 years later.
In all likelihood, no one watched from the bridge as portrayed in the show. My understanding is that it got the name from the frequency of traffic accidents, and then people extrapolated.
"Leave matters of the state, to the state". - Socialism 101 Rather than the ridiculous utopian vision of socialism portrayed by modern leftists, this is what you actually get when you let the government control everything. You get layers upon layers of bureaucracy, and few if anybody daring to question it. And things get worse and worse until its all crumbling ... and yet the propaganda will repeat the lies that things are going well.
I've seen this several times, and every time the image of the column of light beaming from the reactor gives me chills. That light is gamma rays ionizing the air molecules. which means the radiation level is so high . . I remember footage shot from a helicopter circling the power plant at the time, and being able to see that horrible purple glow down in the ruins of the core. If you can see that glow it is very, very, bad. And those workers who look into the core. It's like the Medusa, if you see that you're dead. It is the thing you were never meant to see. You cannot survive. If I remember, the radiation level there was so high it was off the chart used to describe radiation effects on humans. This was a terrific series.
This event impacted my early career. I graduated with a degree in Nuclear Engineering less than 3 years before this happened. I always enjoy your reviews...and look forward to the next already. [Since you've seen ALL of this already, I'll limit my comments to the episode in the video]. The significance of the "graphite" on the ground is the graphite is LITERALLY part of the core. It should be noted this was NOT a nuclear explosion (more details in the final episode), but was also something FAR beyond the operational limits of the design of RBMK reactors (fyi, only the Soviet Union had this design). Yes...the iodine pills ARE significant...as one of the various types of radioactive materials that was distributed by the explosion is radioactive iodine. Taking iodine pills makes it harder for your thyroid to absorb the radioactive iodine. The effects of radiation are a function of "how close" you are to the source of the radiation (the firefighter who picked up literally a piece of the core...was in direct contact with the source...bad...VERY BAD), how long you are exposed (the shorter the time, the less dose), and the TYPE of radiation (alpha, gamma, etc.,.) one is exposed to. Some types of radiation can be stopped (shielded) by a few sheets of paper...others require very thick lead barriers (I'll let you guess what type of radiation is in the "graphite"). Ok...long enough comment. Science lesson for today is over. Have a great rest of your week.
Yay science lesson!! Thank you, I always enjoy learning! Were you actively paying attention to what was going on during this time, since you graduated 3 years before.
@@VerowakReacts Oh yes. In fact the first company I worked for made a "robot" that could be used to clean up low level waste. For a while they were in negotiations to send a unit to Chernobyl. I actually spent the majority of my time in the industry doing control room design for what is called human factors or ergonomics. Designing to reduce the chances of operator error.
I live about 10 km from a nuclear plant in Canada. EVERY household within about 25 km is issued iodine pills. The evacuation sirens and telephone alerts are tested twice per year. I still think that nuclear power is safe and (relatively) environmentally friendly, but better safe than sorry.
There are no harmful emissions, but nuclear waste remains a problem. Also, American reactors are designed different so there cannot be a runaway reaction. They're also equipped with containment vessels in case radioactive coolant needs to be dumped. Though fictional, The China Syndrome is a great movie about nuclear power.
@@bloodymarvelous4790 Do you really understand what nuclear waste is (sometimes it can be just a piece of paper that passed beyond a certain threshold), how it's treated (sealed in geologically stable deep depositories) or that, as technology advances, a lot of spent fuel can be recycled? I haven't seen The China Syndrome, but a review quoted on Wikipedia says: "a terrific thriller that incidentally raises the most unsettling questions about how safe nuclear power plants really are." I needn't read any more. Nuclear energy is, together with wind and solar, the safest energy source. Fun fact: the waste from coal power plants is stored in the air that we breathe. Also, coal power plants are more radio-active than nuclear power plants due to the little radiation contained in coal. So much for "nuclear waste remains a problem".
Every time hear the old guy say „It‘s our moment to shine“ I think: No, it‘s you moment to *glow*! The first episode definitely is the most frustrating how often the higher-ups refuse to believe the eye witnesses. The first time I watched this episode I had to take a break and watch something more cheerful. But later on I finished the series in the same day.
Verowak at around @00:32 “I hope you’re ready…” I hope you were ready young lady.😉 This is a phenomenal show that is basically one part quasi documentary & one part horror movie. It really shows how the Soviet mindset among the people but especially the leaders contributed mightily to the disaster. This disaster was preventable & was due to Soviet design principles clashing with human error which created a disastrous mix. The show displays the human side & how they contributed to the disaster which was also due to the design of that particular disaster. As much as we are reliant on energy & technology especislly now since computers, devices & their infrastructure are indispensable to modern life which require massive amounts energy this is a reminder of how delicate balancing technology & energy can be. Nuclear energy is an important source that we harness but the consequences of it & the potential hazards of it are horrifying. Chernobyl is a symbol of man’s arrogance & as brilliant as humanity is, we are a kite in a hurricane when it comes to nuclear power & its byproducts like radiation. This series really hammers home the incredible but scary power of atomic energy & how when it gets awry can be as nightmarish as it gets. At any rate the show was brilliantly executed. Everything from the writing to the acting to the music, etc was all top notch. It immerses you into it & makes you feel like you are there. It doesn’t have jump scares or shocking bloody murders as the subject matter i.e. a nuclear disaster & its consequences are horrific enough. It’s 100% pure Nightmare Fuel🫣😵💫😵🥴 Haven’t watched your reaction yet but delving into it now. I can only assume that you enjoyed it like most people did as it was really well dome.
This show is a great snapshot of the intellectual cancer that was the Soviet social order. Another personal anecdote lol: My parents were licensed to work with nuclear material at the time so they had a geiger counter that we would use in our yard in Oklahoma and check the radiation levels. That was the year we no longer could make snow ice cream. This show was so good in the worst way. People should have to watch it to see the dangers of having the wrong leadership.
Not just the Soviet system, I've seen exactly the same thing happening in various companies I've worked for, managers threatening people's jobs to get them to do something, then throwing them under the bus when things go wrong.
@@joehoy9242 Every organization, every system, is susceptible to rot and corruption. What makes the Soviet system an egregious outlier is that the system itself had it built in as a feature. Organizations like businesses and governments require agility and competence to be successful at their objectives. The Soviet system was the complete opposite. Bureaucratic and riddled with incompetencies fueled by the social order. The wrong people in the wrong positions. The US has been suffering from a growing incompetent bureaucratic situation for at least the last thirty to fifty years. Both in private and public sectors. Certain damaging philosophical policies have trickled down from academia and up from the streets. In business, the human resource department has mutated over the last decades and has played a major role in altering how agile and competent companies can be. The wrong people kept in the wrong positions. Soviet literally just means committee. Committees are anything but agile and are the definition of bureaucracy. Especially when the wrong philosophies, the wrong people, populate them. These things festering in our culture for the last multiple decades has changed our greater culture too. (And not for the better in my opinion.) Corruption, protected incompetency, is never optimal in any system. Companies and other organizations that can't overcome this rot fail. Just look at the Soviet Union.
@@VerowakReacts But let that sink in, Verowak. This disaster was recorded in Oklahoma! The low level radiation field basically increased worldwide. I assume you weren't born yet, but in '86, we (in Canadian schools) viewed the Challenger explosion live, and not long after, heard news of Chernobyl
So happy you are doing this one. I was lucky to visite the abandonded city of Pripyat a long time ago .. The series really capture the ominous atmosphere
I think it's helpful on this series to realize that it's a dramatization. When I first watched it I assumed it to be much more factual. Many of the events are tweaked to tell the story within the framework of the episodes. It's interesting to look up and see what differs from the real events.
As one of your newer subscribers, I'm excited to see your watching of one of my favorite recent mini-series of the last few years. This was such a harrowing story that left me both inspired and concerned. Subbed a couple days ago, enjoying your content so far!
Stable iodine helps prevent the thyroid from the uptake of radioactive iodine-131. It only takes 1 pill within 24 hours to help with that, as long as it isn't a massive exposure. I-131 has a half life of about 8 days, meaning half of it decays in 8 days. The two other major releases of radioactive isotopes of elements at Chernobyl were cesium-137 (by far the largest amount released) and strontium-90. There is nothing like stable iodine for them and they have half-lives of just over and just under 30 years respectively.
@@VerowakReacts My pleasure. Just minor science trivia. I love this series. I was trained as a nuclear engineer by the U.S. Navy. They get some things a bit wrong, exaggerate some too, but for the most part this is an excellent dramatization of a terrible disaster that could have been so much worse, if not for those who risked their lives to mitigate it.
@@GeraldH-ln4dv Try this on TH-cam ` Chernobyl Anatoly Dyatlov’s real interview (English) ` Here is the real Anatoly Dyatlov’s story about the Chernobyl explosion was told by himself (he was deputy chief-engineer of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant). The interview was taken in 1994, a year before his death.
@@VerowakReacts Chernobyl is the second visit for HBO there was a 1 episode done in & around 2006 and filmed in Chernobyl`s 3rd reactor and interviews one of the engineers of the plant....
Dyatlov really was like that according to his surviving colleagues. Not all the time, but enough. He threatened people's jobs. He was lying through his teeth about the glow being the Cherenkov effect. That happens when the core is UNDER WATER. Fomin, at a minimum, would have know that. Concerning the denial: You had to pretend that the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise where nothing ever went wrong. If you raised an issue, it was all your fault. Perception trumped reality. They set out to build a tractor factory. Work fell behind schedule, but everyone was afraid to take the hit, so the paperwork moved along on schedule. Finally, the fire marshall came to inspect and found a cement slab. Concerning the lack of concern: the people were told that radiation was good, it cured cancer, it was a sign of technological progress, and if the Americans nuke us, civil defense has it covered. Everyone in this episode who has a name is a real person, and they stick very close to history. In the current invasion of Ukraine, Russian soldiers got sick digging trenches in the Red Forest.
But said knowledge wasn't widespread in the former Soviet Union. Heck even now I've seen show reactors who refer to exposure to nuclear radiation as an infection. So here in the west the sciences are taught properly either.
Even when taught properly, here in the west most taught information was absorbed only to pass a test in a week or two with a multiple choice summary needed quarterly. We only actually learned what we were interested in. I doubt many were interested in radiation until we were older and concerned about the ramifications.
Also, it was a commonly held belief amongst the people that vodka had anti-radiation properties. Something about cleansing the thyroid, where the radiation was supposed to accumulate first. It was an old wives tale, and the government made an effort to set everyone right on the matter but they still used it. We’ll see people handing around bottles to the clean up workers later on in the show. They aren’t drinking to get drunk or numb the trauma, they believe it will save them from radiation.
Thank you. Gets old always seeing posts on reactions to this show where people claim that they didn't know anything about radiation at the time. They seem to forget that this happened over 40 years after the bombs were dropped on Japan. The effects of radiation were well known by the time this happened. The general public may have been somewhat ignorant about it, but that wasn't because the information was unknown or unavailable. Even now with unprecedented access to information most of the people reacting to and commenting on the show know virtually nothing about radiation. It's not because the information isn't available. It's simply that most people aren't going to take the time to learn about something that usually has no impact on their daily life unless they just happen to have an interest in the topic.
I was 6 weeks old fresh baby when this happend, born in Czechoslovakia, one of the Soviet satellites in Central Europe. While I was getting my sleep outside on the sun, my parents got a call from their friend living close to Austrian borders, who was able to catch the radio signal from the Austrian radio (free world) telling people to stay inside because of the radiation in the air and disaster in Chernobyl. So they hid me inside afterwards... "Our" communist politicians did not even bother to warn their own people for a few weeks, so the scene that happened in the bunker about sealing the city a stopping information spreading is very much realistic.
It’s very telling of the Soviets way of thinking that they’d put good equipment in a safe so it doesn’t get broken. Whereas in the west, operators would be trained heavily on how to use sensitive equipment so they’d be effective at their jobs even if an expert wasn’t on hand. They made so many budgetary cuts to training, personnel, and equipment that they rendered themselves useless.
Dyatalov knew there was no core when he walked outside and looked down at the courtyard and saw graphite on the ground. He was in full cover my ass mode after that
In those situations, there's also often a reaction of "If it were true, then I'm so screwed that I don't want to think about it." And the systemic culture of covering your ass by pushing all blame to the people under you, and always telling the people above you what that everything you do is going great certainly promotes that.
I can highly recommend the official podcast that was produced as a companion piece for the series. Craig Mazin is interviewed at length by Peter Sagal of NPR. An episode for each episode, plus some bonus material, it helps supplement the TV series and also provide insights and background into the filming.
5:23 That would be one of the pump rooms adjacent to the reactor. There would've been a massive concrete wall separating the two rooms so the fact that the pump room is basically completely wrecked really illustrates how powerful the explosion was. Also, one grim fact about the pump room is that one of the pump operators, Valery Khodemchuk is still entombed in the pump room to this day.
Although this is a dramatization and I'm sure the obstinancy of the officials is exaggerated, it's important to consider that they refuse to accept the gravity of the situation because they know that if there has indeed been an accident of this magnitude, their careers if not their lives are already over. There is no greater sin in a totalitarian system than failure, so agents of such a system simply refuse to admit any sort of failure, merely out of self-preservation. To say nothing of a failure so massive that some say it hastened the fall of the Soviet government.
If you took your car to a mechanic, and he phones you up to explain the engine melted into liquid, fell out of the car and then flowed away down a drain - how long would you take before you believed him? Nuclear reactors can't explode. Till this one did. This is what'is known as a black swan event.
A lot of the decision makers were in denial. The effects of radiation were well understood. What you want to avoid is a reactor having a meltdown because it continues to eject radioactive material into its surroundings. And reactor no.4 was past that. The mere fact the was graphite in the debris meant the cooling rods were gone. RMBK reactors were designed to be self containing in an event of disaster but this one exploded. That the reactors at the plant were supposed to be self containing meant that a containment structure wasn’t part of the plant design. This was the worst nuclear accident to date. The radiation was detected as far north as Sweden, where it was reported as unusually high. The Chernobyl plant was operational until 2000 before it was finally shut down - 14 years after the incident. There is an exclusion zone that was established around the plant. And while there were eventually tours into the exclusion zone, it was reported that a good number of Russian soldiers got ill because they had occupied that area during the battle for Kyiv in 2022.
Every year in the Exclusion Zone, which includes the famous Red Forest, during the summer which is fire season hazard in the forest, the radiation spikes enough to be detectable. This is because some of the released radionuclides, mostly strontium-90 and cesium-137, are released back into the environment when plants, animals and fungi are turned to ash in the forest fires.
Watch Star Trek VI. That is a VERY good sci-fi portrayal of this as well as the end of the cold war. (Some lines are actually direct quotes (Like "don't wait for the translation! Answer me now!") Sadly, just like people deny ignorance to save face, governments do that as well. To not "embarrass themselves", they are quite willing to sacrifice lives
The expert that hung himself is Jared Harris, son of Richard Harris who i believe was the original Dumbledore in Harry Potter. The guy you hate was english actor Paul Ritter, who btw also appeared in Harry potter + the half blood prince (Eldred Worple, or something) . He sadly passed away two years after Chernobyl first aired.
5:28 - “so i guess it didn’t do a chain reaction because…” strictly speaking, it did-a properly functioning nuclear reactor contains and controls an ongoing chain reaction; that’s how it generates surplus power. the reason it wasn’t a runaway chain reaction as in an atomic bomb is that it’s really hard to get an explosive chain reaction going and then keep it from blowing its fuel apart long enough to produce a nuclear blast! you pretty much can’t do it by accident, least of all in a commercial reactor. the manhattan project did a LOT of engineering to figure out how to use conventional explosives to rapidly compress (blast!) fissionable material into a small enough space that it could undergo substantial matter-to-energy conversion. even in the best case, only 25% of the bomb core chain reacts before it’s ripped apart. but delicate, symmetrical explosive shaping aside, the biggest reason a nuclear reactor can’t become a nuclear bomb is that reactor fuel is WAY less enriched than bomb material. naturally occurring uranium contains less than 1% of the fissionable U-235 isotope. the rest is U-238; radioactive, but not fissionable. reactor fuel is refined to quadruple the concentration of U-235 to somewhere between 3-5%. bomb material is more like 90% U-235. producing enriched uranium in sufficient quantities is, in fact, the hardest part of engineering a nuclear weapon.
There was no one on the mythical “bridge of death” at the time of the accident. It was late at night. Immediately after the accident, a radiation survey of the nuclear power plant and the city of Pripyat was organized. There was no radiation on the bridge at night yet. During the day, the bridge was generally closed to the public. So no one was there and no one died from it.
Thank you so much for reacting to this series. Watching it with you, I feel like I understand more than I did the first time I watched it. I'm really interested in your reactions to the next episodes, maybe you'll notice something I didn't.
Here in Sweden, my mom got me out of the sand pit and stayed inside when she heard the news about this. This series are amazing, but each episode make you feel worse. Just so eerie. Great reaction! 👍
The fact that they didn't have contingency plans for a nuclear disaster is horrifying. But it isn't surprising given the hubris and corruption in the Soviet Union. The blame game in the first few episodes is maddening to watch. It's difficult to understand how the Soviet Union survived as long as it did. They put the first satellite into space in 1957, but didn't make toilet paper until 1969! Many rural villages in Ukraine and Russia still have no indoor plumbling, but they have the most nuclear weapons in the world! There's a great book about Chernobyl written by Serhii Plokhy, a Harvard professor and expert on Ukraine. In it, he explained how the plant was built with inferior materials, unskilled labor and against unrealistic deadlines. After reading it, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner and more than just once.
"If I tell my boss not everything is perfectly going fine in my department, I will get punished." "If my boss makes a mistake, he will unload the blame on me, and to save myself I have to unload it on someone under me."
Keep in mind that this show is "based on" real events, but not a documentary. Several elements were made up or either downplayed or exaggerated to make "good television".
In high school I visited a Chernobyl exhibition with my class. There were a lot of photos of the accident in the exhibition. There were also contemporary witnesses present (liquidators) who extinguished the fire in Chernobyl and talked about what happened back then and what they had to do. The average dose of radiation received by a liquidator was between 10 Sv and 50 Sv, which is potentially fatal. 6-10 Sv is already 100% fatal within 14 days, with 10-20 Sv it is 7 days, 20-50 Sv only 3 days, 50-80 Sv Immediate disorientation and coma within seconds or minutes. Death occurs in a few hours due to complete failure of the nervous system, at a dose of 80+ Sv fast neutron radiation with immediate death.Approximately 50,000-60,000 liquidators were exposed to a dose of 10-50 Sv. there was also shown Video material from liquidators exposed to extreme high radiation just a few seconds it took and they were laying on the ground puking and dying it was really scary to see that.
One thing to beat in mind is that, at the time, there's a leak of education nuclear matters in general and a lot of compartmentalization about information on top of that. So everyone is constantly hitting their heads on barriers of what they understand and what is possible. First responders have no training on nuclear risks. The population don't have fear of the incident. It's so terrifying what happens when you control information and education. Buckle up Verowak! So glad you're watching this and I'm also sorry.
When something is the first of its kind, it's impossible to know how people will react. Most of the times the people who create it are somewhat aware of what could happen, but the majority of the population have no idea. It's really terrifying
4:30, the Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because of this disaster, their protracted war in Afghanistan and trying to keep pace with the US in military spending, the USSR fell.
Ty for reacting to this series Verowak. Amazing series and even if some things are made up to make it a better series. I suggest watching the podcast that was made by the creator and a podcaster after each episodes. They give a lot of backstory to it and show how some things where a "front" politicians etc put on, but that they actually where not as incompitent as they come across in the series. Looking forward to you dropping the next 4 episode I know I will be watching and giving emotianal support from the future to past you :)
Yeahhh that’s horrifying… it looks like a miniature Sun is in the building. Poor guys faces were instantly turning red. I feel awful for all those people who were in and near the area :(
This is one of the hardest series to watch because it’s so tragic and frustrating and really scary, but it’s also one of the best series I’ve seen. Radiation is like an invisible force of death that can go through anything it touches. And the more your body absorbs, not just the amount but especially the duration of it, the more screwed you are basically. If you were anywhere within a few miles of Chernobyl at the time of the disaster you were almost guaranteed to die a few years later, and the closer you were to the reactor building you’d die even quicker. Next to the reactor core itself, a couple days to a week at most. So you absolutely got that right when you mentioned that depending on your proximity to the core, the quicker but also more horrifically you’ll die. I wasn’t prepared for this series when I first saw it, but I’m glad I did in the end. It got me fascinated with the science of radiation and let me know just how dangerous high levels of it is so I can avoid it. No thanks I’m good lol
6:12 you’re exactly right :( those poor firefighter had no idea what they were getting themselves into… and when I saw the scene for the first time of that one firefighter picking up the piece of graphite, I gasped and cried. If you look closely at the graphite he’s holding, you can see a slight blue glow. There’s so much radiation coming off it, you can see it. Just like the blue glow you can see shining up into the sky from the reactor like a beam. Same deal
Awesome series. Great reaction. I was in Europe when it happened. You picked a good one. Besides I worked at a couple of different nuke plants before I finally retired. Good job
Jared Harris is in Mad Men, he's also Anderson Dawes from The Expanse, I see you have book 1 there. If you haven't watched the show yet, please react to it!!!
@@VerowakReacts Ah, nice! I think I read somewhere that he agreed to this role in Chernobyl and started filming this series, which is why his Expanse character sort of disappears in season 3 of the show.
This show is so Traumatic and painful, watched it when it came out and still remember a lot of scenes from it. Also,hope you watch True Detective S1 after it 🙏🏻
One big thing is the 2pm meeting time was needed because it took time to bring all the important people to moscow from all over the ussr, its a long time but takes time to travel
Admittedly havent watched the series yet...only seen pictures of the elephants foot and the tomb and the empty city....as i recall nothing was reported of the accident.... only when the radioactive cloud was detected in Germany France England and even Alaska did they eventually admit anything had occurred.
My cousin was with the Australian Army IRR (Incident Response Regiment) who did Chemical, biological, and nuclear (CBRN defense). Really scary stuff he wasn''t shy about how it can hurt but as a pilot we live and breath checklists. If something isn't right you challenge it. It's annoying AF but but checks keep everyone on the same page and alive. When I flew for Cathay we'd have a radiation clause in the contract. Fyling over the arctic during summer means bad radiation.
It must be so interesting being a pilot, and it's good that your cousin was open about the dangers of everything. I didn't know there was bad radiation over the arctic during the summer 🤔
@@VerowakReacts When we'd fly the Toronto or New York route in summer it's daylight the whole time and the radiation exposure is due to the glare off the ice sheet. Weird experience the first time getting to the hotel and noticing that I was sunburned. Radiation creeps me out, after watching this series I side eyed my microwave! Great reaction as always.
After you finish the series, if you're interested in what exactly happened to cause the explosion, Scott Manley has a really good science video about it called "Why Chernobyl Exploded - The Real Physics Behind The Reactor". High recommend! He's great at explaining nuclear technology.
They weren't supposed to run the test that set off the runaway reaction, they weren't qualified. Dyatlov ordered the night crew to proceed with the test when they were not qualified. The reactor had a serious construction defect. If the control rods had been inserted before the explosion, it might have been avoided - maybe. To give you an idea about how bad this was, if it had not been contained the radiation would have possibly wiped out half to two-thirds of Europe.
Many people do not understand the motivations of the people portrayed in this series. In collectivist government systems - including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (aka USSR or Soviet Union) - individual rights are subordinate to those of the larger group. Each group's rights are subordinate to the next larger group and ultimately to the national government. In other words, the State is always the primary concern and any individual can be destroyed to protect the interests of the State. This type of system allows for any atrocity to be committed for the "greater good." We saw this with the Holocaust committed by the National Socialists in Germany, the Holodomor committed by the Soviet Union against the Ukrainians, the Great Leap Forward committed by the Chinese Communist Party against its own people, etc. It is this system that controls Ukraine during the events depicted in this show. Since each person in this system knows that he or she has no rights, few people are willing to go against the "party line" even in the face of obvious contradictory evidence. Speaking counter to the official narrative was a fast way into a prison cell, torture chamber, exile to a work camp or a bullet to your head. So, if the State published it is impossible for these reactors to explode - well, everyone with evidence to the contrary is mistaken. And since the reactor did not explode (because the State said so), we don't want them spreading misinformation. And the State, with the exclusive right to use force and own weapons, can make sure its interests are protected.
First lets get the some stuff out of the way. This is an amazing series, really well written and the acting is amazing. Hats off to you for recognizing Stellan Skarsgard from 3 lines. He will be one of the highlight of this show. The other guy you have recognized is Jared Harris, another amazing actor. This is a really frustrating show because it portrays rather accurately how socialism worked in the Soviet Union. If you made too much noise that criticized the system if you were lucky, you were made aware of the error of your ways, if not you were straight up jailed for it. If your "crimes" were deemed serious enough you just outright disappeared. Normal state of business in the SU. The story is very bleak and the pressure keep piling up but dont worry, all of your questions will be answered. ( pretty much all that you've asked so far ). It's similar to Band of Brothers, very draining emotionally because it did happen and it could've been avoided and the effects mitigated but everyone was way too busy covering their asses and shift the blame on others that a lot of effort was in vain. The magnitude of the catastrophy is staggering. You will see a lot of individual heroism mostly from everyday's people standing up and doing what needs to be done. When they said they did nothing wrong but they did he meant that as far as they know they did everything right but something must've been off becasue the bloody thing exploded lol. It will be explained later dont worry. BTW the word you were looking for was "radiated" I believe. :) Also, I always appreciate a good Star Wars quite when I hear one. ( Padme, Revenge of the Sith )
At that time, on the USSR, it wasn't about being right or wrong it was about having someone else to pass the blame onto because $hit trickles down hill and you didn't want to be standing at the bottom. Not just with this but with everything.
At the very least, it shattered the illusion that the Soviet Union was competent at running itself. It exposed the widespread rot throughout the entire state in a dramatic way that just wasn't possible to keep glossing over.
If you like this series I highly suggest the "Band Of Brothers" series next and "The Pacific" both are great retellings of WWII on both fronts and are made just as well as this series., Welcome to History my friend!!!
Radiation sickness, the skin damage doesn't usually appear instantly, but the nausea is. The burns would appear in a couple hours. The damage, though, is instant.
The burns can appear much quicker if the exposure is high enough. Beta radiation burns, the most common, take a little longer like sunburns. But severe gamma burns, the rarer type can be nearly instantaneous, like putting your hand in a fire. With both, in acute exposures, moist and dry desquamation begin, eventually being visible. That's sort of like a severe blistering and then blackening down to the deep layers of skin and even the muscles, as shown reasonably well in the series affecting Vasiliy Ignatenko.
I think the injuries are indeed showing too fast in the show. Most of the damage comes from the body not being able to replace old cells as they are dying off, which typically starts to manifest over days or weeks rather than minutes. But the kinds of injuries that the people have seem quite plausible. I think this is okay, because the tension in the show would work out very differently if all the events are happening first and the severe injuries that the people suffer only become visible later.
All of the episodes are available on Patreon right now in full length/watchalong format! With The Last of Us and Chernobyl, I am an instant fan of what Craig Mazin works on. This series is just something else 😢
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It was a product of negligent engineering and negligent operations. Modern nuclear reactors are not capable of failing in the way Chernobyl did.
You also have to remember, this was the old soviet Union where people didn't question their superiors for fear of repercussions against them or their families.
There is a five episode podcast (search for Chernobyl podcast) with Craig Mazin, with even more information about the accident, and the series. Check it out!
If you want a peek behind the curtain Mazin did a companion podcast episode by episode where he talks production and where he diverged from history. It's kind of shocking that before this he was known as a comedy writer.
@@revans18 I remember reading that he was a comedy writer beforehand. I definitely would not have guessed lol
I was 9 years old in Moldavian SSR, which bordered Ukrainian SSR, when the 15-second TV announcement came on about a minor incident on Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station.
Later, my father, an army reservist, got a phone call drafting him to clean up Chernobyl. When he got to the staging site, where they were putting on the shoddy Soviet masks and other useless protective equipment, his commander looked at him and said, "you have a wife and child, right? Go home."
Probably saved his life.
Oh wow, that definitely sounds like it saved his life. Your father must be so happy to have that commander
You owe a bottle of the finest vodka to that commander, on a second though make it a full case.
Useless. because the good one aredy use .For the first wave of soldiers to clear the dangerous area
not probably .. Im sure he saved his life😯
I wish they did more short historical series with high production value like this. Can be a tough series to watch but it's some of the best TV out there. Thanks for reacting to this.
I would love more short series like this with amazing production quality!
@@VerowakReacts Have you seen The Railway Men-The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984. It's a great short series with amazing production.
Not a strict historical series, but I can highly recommend "the Little Drummer Girl" - a mini-series adaptation of Le Carrés spy novel, directed by Park Chan-Wook!
There's an official podcast made by the director!!!
One of the most ominous quotes in the whole series "Do you taste metal?"
Just commented about that myself
Yes
That is how radiation killing your taste buds feels like
it taste like copper
it taste like death
I think the old men in Japan are heroes. During the Fukushima disaster after the tsunami, the old men volunteered to be the ones to go in and check it out, volunteered to expose themselves to radiation, because they said it wouldn't matter if they got sick and passed in 10 years, they lived a good life, but they would not sacrifice the young people who had their whole lives in front of them.
They are true heroes to the fullest of the definition. It would probably never happen anywhere else in the world, sadly.
Radioactive objects tend to emit radiation similar to how heat works using the Inverse Square Law. You may or may not recognize the name but you are almost assuredly familiar with its concept. The closer you are the "warmer" you get, very similar to fire because both radiate using the same principles. From a great enough distance you are safe from it...but if you were to hold a fire in your hand it would cause tremendous damage. One of the scary things about radiation is its effects are not immediate like fire and generally speaking humans cannot feel its effects quick enough to react.
Silent but deadly then. When you notice anything, it's already too late 😨
Many of the people who were directly exposed right after the disaster aren't mentioned and are never shown or talked about, except one. One of the prospective people being asked to go into the water in a later episode mentions that his friend was a gate guard and she was now dying due to radiation exposure. Yekaterina Ivanenko was a gate guard near the Reactor #4 building, receiving a severe exposure when the building wall blew out; but she stayed at her post all night and so received more exposure from all of the debris raining down, like the firefighters did. She died exactly 1 month to the day after the disaster at the same hospital in Moscow where the other most severely exposed were sent.
That's so heartbreaking :(
When the series came out, several folks suggested that this first episode was a great piece of cosmic horror, and I completely agree: the unknown and the seemingly unnatural overwhelming all aspects of everyday life.
Just the first scene in this episode drew me in immediately
4:26 "I don't remember when the cold war ended." The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, party triggered by this disaster. It had kinda been crumbling for a while already, so it might be more accurate to say that this was one of the first major signs of the collapse rather than a cause.
"Leave matters of the state... to the state." - Socialism in a nutshell.
This series ought to be required viewing in every high school history curriculum.
@@Mr.Ekshin I agree. I was taught of the disaster at school, but not nearly at the level of detail the series introduces, even though it's not fully accurate.
'Is he being watched?' Of course! In Soviet Russia, TV watches you!
I strongly recommend watching a short epilogue after episode 5. There will be some real footage that will explain a lot
Yep. "What is the cost of lies?" is a perfect synopsis for the entire Chernobyl saga.
and says so much about the Soviet Union.
@@jonasfermefors Says a lot about the world today. There is so much lying going on, and so many people wanting to believe it.
@@bloodymarvelous4790 Fair - but I wouldn't say that we've reached quite the low that was the Soviet Union. Yet.
Given how liberal HBO were with the dramatisation (ie. demonisation of Dyatlov, making out Ignatenko's wife to be a moron etc), the irony of HBO harping about the cost of lies when the show is pretty far from factual is pretty rich.
eg. Ignatenko's wife wasn't warned about the danger of radiation from her husband, only that she shouldn't spend too much time with him. She worked tirelessly to keep up the spirits of the firefighters as they got worse, and by the end, she was wiping chunks of her husbands disintegrating organs out of his mouth as he struggled to keep breathing. HBO did not approach her to confirm the details of her story and really did her a pretty grotesque injustice.
Dyatlov's treatment was even worse, taking a serious but competent man who made mistakes that triggered a fault he had no way of knowing about, and recasting him as a vicious, stupid bully who deliberately drove the reactor over a cliff. His account (available on YT, filmed while he was dying in prison) is a compelling and completely understated, compared to the drama of the show, retelling of the events that night.
Funny considering how much the show lies.
10:30 The following morning at the Forsmark energy plant in Sweden, 1250km down the road, radiation alarms went off. The locals watching from the bridge were not at a safe distance.
That is just mind-blowing how much was affected
I was 17 at the time, living near Frankfurt in Germany. Children were told not to play outside, field produce like lettuce, grown in Germany, was contaminated. Unfortunately, by the time the USSR admitted that there had been an accident, the fallout had already spread across Europe. And if you are wondering how long the radiation lasted... you can still find traces of it in mushrooms growing here in Germany today, 38 years later.
I'm from Germany. We children weren't allowed to go outside when the radioactive rain came from Chernobyl.
In all likelihood, no one watched from the bridge as portrayed in the show. My understanding is that it got the name from the frequency of traffic accidents, and then people extrapolated.
The focus of this show is the way that "alternate facts" eventually made it impossible for the Soviet Union to function.
One of the very same things threatening our own country and how it's supposed to function.
"Leave matters of the state, to the state". - Socialism 101
Rather than the ridiculous utopian vision of socialism portrayed by modern leftists, this is what you actually get when you let the government control everything. You get layers upon layers of bureaucracy, and few if anybody daring to question it. And things get worse and worse until its all crumbling ... and yet the propaganda will repeat the lies that things are going well.
@@dggydddy59 Yup. Yuri Bezmonov tried to warn us.
The best mini-series I've seen in a long, long time. Maybe ever.
"What is the cost of lies." First line. Amazing. Should be required viewing for a modern world. Rough on the heart though. Amazing storytelling.
A rare mini-series with every episode being more angering, more frustrating than the previous one. An amazing - sad, sick, angering - series.
I've seen this several times, and every time the image of the column of light beaming from the reactor gives me chills. That light is gamma rays ionizing the air molecules. which means the radiation level is so high . . I remember footage shot from a helicopter circling the power plant at the time, and being able to see that horrible purple glow down in the ruins of the core. If you can see that glow it is very, very, bad. And those workers who look into the core. It's like the Medusa, if you see that you're dead. It is the thing you were never meant to see. You cannot survive. If I remember, the radiation level there was so high it was off the chart used to describe radiation effects on humans. This was a terrific series.
This event impacted my early career. I graduated with a degree in Nuclear Engineering less than 3 years before this happened. I always enjoy your reviews...and look forward to the next already. [Since you've seen ALL of this already, I'll limit my comments to the episode in the video]. The significance of the "graphite" on the ground is the graphite is LITERALLY part of the core. It should be noted this was NOT a nuclear explosion (more details in the final episode), but was also something FAR beyond the operational limits of the design of RBMK reactors (fyi, only the Soviet Union had this design). Yes...the iodine pills ARE significant...as one of the various types of radioactive materials that was distributed by the explosion is radioactive iodine. Taking iodine pills makes it harder for your thyroid to absorb the radioactive iodine. The effects of radiation are a function of "how close" you are to the source of the radiation (the firefighter who picked up literally a piece of the core...was in direct contact with the source...bad...VERY BAD), how long you are exposed (the shorter the time, the less dose), and the TYPE of radiation (alpha, gamma, etc.,.) one is exposed to. Some types of radiation can be stopped (shielded) by a few sheets of paper...others require very thick lead barriers (I'll let you guess what type of radiation is in the "graphite"). Ok...long enough comment. Science lesson for today is over. Have a great rest of your week.
Yay science lesson!! Thank you, I always enjoy learning! Were you actively paying attention to what was going on during this time, since you graduated 3 years before.
@@VerowakReacts Oh yes. In fact the first company I worked for made a "robot" that could be used to clean up low level waste. For a while they were in negotiations to send a unit to Chernobyl. I actually spent the majority of my time in the industry doing control room design for what is called human factors or ergonomics. Designing to reduce the chances of operator error.
I live about 10 km from a nuclear plant in Canada. EVERY household within about 25 km is issued iodine pills. The evacuation sirens and telephone alerts are tested twice per year. I still think that nuclear power is safe and (relatively) environmentally friendly, but better safe than sorry.
Definitely better safe than sorry! It's good to hear the precautions that are taken and regular testing
There are no harmful emissions, but nuclear waste remains a problem.
Also, American reactors are designed different so there cannot be a runaway reaction. They're also equipped with containment vessels in case radioactive coolant needs to be dumped.
Though fictional, The China Syndrome is a great movie about nuclear power.
@@bloodymarvelous4790 Do you really understand what nuclear waste is (sometimes it can be just a piece of paper that passed beyond a certain threshold), how it's treated (sealed in geologically stable deep depositories) or that, as technology advances, a lot of spent fuel can be recycled?
I haven't seen The China Syndrome, but a review quoted on Wikipedia says: "a terrific thriller that incidentally raises the most unsettling questions about how safe nuclear power plants really are." I needn't read any more. Nuclear energy is, together with wind and solar, the safest energy source.
Fun fact: the waste from coal power plants is stored in the air that we breathe. Also, coal power plants are more radio-active than nuclear power plants due to the little radiation contained in coal. So much for "nuclear waste remains a problem".
Every time hear the old guy say „It‘s our moment to shine“ I think: No, it‘s you moment to *glow*!
The first episode definitely is the most frustrating how often the higher-ups refuse to believe the eye witnesses.
The first time I watched this episode I had to take a break and watch something more cheerful. But later on I finished the series in the same day.
Oddly enough, I'm the opposite. Sometimes after seeing a comedy, I need to take a break and watch something bleak and dark 😂
Verowak at around @00:32 “I hope you’re ready…”
I hope you were ready young lady.😉 This is a phenomenal show that is basically one part quasi documentary & one part horror movie. It really shows how the Soviet mindset among the people but especially the leaders contributed mightily to the disaster. This disaster was preventable & was due to Soviet design principles clashing with human error which created a disastrous mix.
The show displays the human side & how they contributed to the disaster which was also due to the design of that particular disaster. As much as we are reliant on energy & technology especislly now since computers, devices & their infrastructure are indispensable to modern life which require massive amounts energy this is a reminder of how delicate balancing technology & energy can be. Nuclear energy is an important source that we harness but the consequences of it & the potential hazards of it are horrifying. Chernobyl is a symbol of man’s arrogance & as brilliant as humanity is, we are a kite in a hurricane when it comes to nuclear power & its byproducts like radiation. This series really hammers home the incredible but scary power of atomic energy & how when it gets awry can be as nightmarish as it gets.
At any rate the show was brilliantly executed. Everything from the writing to the acting to the music, etc was all top notch. It immerses you into it & makes you feel like you are there. It doesn’t have jump scares or shocking bloody murders as the subject matter i.e. a nuclear disaster & its consequences are horrific enough. It’s 100% pure Nightmare Fuel🫣😵💫😵🥴
Haven’t watched your reaction yet but delving into it now. I can only assume that you enjoyed it like most people did as it was really well dome.
This is not a documentary, it’s a horror movie.
Irradiated is the word you were looking for.
This show is a great snapshot of the intellectual cancer that was the Soviet social order.
Another personal anecdote lol: My parents were licensed to work with nuclear material at the time so they had a geiger counter that we would use in our yard in Oklahoma and check the radiation levels. That was the year we no longer could make snow ice cream.
This show was so good in the worst way. People should have to watch it to see the dangers of having the wrong leadership.
It's so sad to see that people can suffer so much because of the leadership. Having a geiger counter would be pretty interesting!
Not just the Soviet system, I've seen exactly the same thing happening in various companies I've worked for, managers threatening people's jobs to get them to do something, then throwing them under the bus when things go wrong.
@@joehoy9242 Every organization, every system, is susceptible to rot and corruption. What makes the Soviet system an egregious outlier is that the system itself had it built in as a feature. Organizations like businesses and governments require agility and competence to be successful at their objectives. The Soviet system was the complete opposite. Bureaucratic and riddled with incompetencies fueled by the social order. The wrong people in the wrong positions.
The US has been suffering from a growing incompetent bureaucratic situation for at least the last thirty to fifty years. Both in private and public sectors. Certain damaging philosophical policies have trickled down from academia and up from the streets. In business, the human resource department has mutated over the last decades and has played a major role in altering how agile and competent companies can be. The wrong people kept in the wrong positions. Soviet literally just means committee. Committees are anything but agile and are the definition of bureaucracy. Especially when the wrong philosophies, the wrong people, populate them. These things festering in our culture for the last multiple decades has changed our greater culture too. (And not for the better in my opinion.) Corruption, protected incompetency, is never optimal in any system. Companies and other organizations that can't overcome this rot fail. Just look at the Soviet Union.
@@VerowakReacts But let that sink in, Verowak. This disaster was recorded in Oklahoma! The low level radiation field basically increased worldwide. I assume you weren't born yet, but in '86, we (in Canadian schools) viewed the Challenger explosion live, and not long after, heard news of Chernobyl
So happy you are doing this one. I was lucky to visite the abandonded city of Pripyat a long time ago .. The series really capture the ominous atmosphere
That must have been a very interesting and eye opening visit
I think it's helpful on this series to realize that it's a dramatization. When I first watched it I assumed it to be much more factual. Many of the events are tweaked to tell the story within the framework of the episodes. It's interesting to look up and see what differs from the real events.
The soundtrack is extra eerie because it isn't played by musical instruments, it's assembled from sounds produced by a real nuclear reactor.
I had no idea!! That's really neat
As one of your newer subscribers, I'm excited to see your watching of one of my favorite recent mini-series of the last few years. This was such a harrowing story that left me both inspired and concerned. Subbed a couple days ago, enjoying your content so far!
It's such a well made series, I want more like this!
Stable iodine helps prevent the thyroid from the uptake of radioactive iodine-131. It only takes 1 pill within 24 hours to help with that, as long as it isn't a massive exposure. I-131 has a half life of about 8 days, meaning half of it decays in 8 days. The two other major releases of radioactive isotopes of elements at Chernobyl were cesium-137 (by far the largest amount released) and strontium-90. There is nothing like stable iodine for them and they have half-lives of just over and just under 30 years respectively.
Thanks for this info, I love it when people comment and I can learn something!
@@VerowakReacts My pleasure. Just minor science trivia. I love this series. I was trained as a nuclear engineer by the U.S. Navy. They get some things a bit wrong, exaggerate some too, but for the most part this is an excellent dramatization of a terrible disaster that could have been so much worse, if not for those who risked their lives to mitigate it.
@@GeraldH-ln4dv Try this on TH-cam ` Chernobyl Anatoly Dyatlov’s real interview (English) `
Here is the real Anatoly Dyatlov’s story about the Chernobyl explosion was told by himself (he was deputy chief-engineer of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant). The interview was taken in 1994, a year before his death.
@@VerowakReacts Chernobyl is the second visit for HBO there was a 1 episode done in & around 2006 and filmed in Chernobyl`s 3rd reactor and interviews one of the engineers of the plant....
I live in Norway, we ate food rich in non-contaminated iodine for a good while after this was known to have happened.
This series is a difficult (but ultimately satisfying) watch. You're in for quite a journey. I look forward to (re-)watching along.
Dyatlov really was like that according to his surviving colleagues. Not all the time, but enough. He threatened people's jobs. He was lying through his teeth about the glow being the Cherenkov effect. That happens when the core is UNDER WATER. Fomin, at a minimum, would have know that. Concerning the denial: You had to pretend that the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise where nothing ever went wrong. If you raised an issue, it was all your fault. Perception trumped reality. They set out to build a tractor factory. Work fell behind schedule, but everyone was afraid to take the hit, so the paperwork moved along on schedule. Finally, the fire marshall came to inspect and found a cement slab. Concerning the lack of concern: the people were told that radiation was good, it cured cancer, it was a sign of technological progress, and if the Americans nuke us, civil defense has it covered. Everyone in this episode who has a name is a real person, and they stick very close to history. In the current invasion of Ukraine, Russian soldiers got sick digging trenches in the Red Forest.
I remember growing up watching this disaster on TV.
Oh boy, this is a rough ride
They definitely understood radiation sickness at the time. One example is the female MD asking about iodine pills.
But said knowledge wasn't widespread in the former Soviet Union. Heck even now I've seen show reactors who refer to exposure to nuclear radiation as an infection. So here in the west the sciences are taught properly either.
Even when taught properly, here in the west most taught information was absorbed only to pass a test in a week or two with a multiple choice summary needed quarterly.
We only actually learned what we were interested in. I doubt many were interested in radiation until we were older and concerned about the ramifications.
And an example of the the opposite in the same scene the older doctor asking why they would have iodine pills.
Also, it was a commonly held belief amongst the people that vodka had anti-radiation properties. Something about cleansing the thyroid, where the radiation was supposed to accumulate first. It was an old wives tale, and the government made an effort to set everyone right on the matter but they still used it. We’ll see people handing around bottles to the clean up workers later on in the show. They aren’t drinking to get drunk or numb the trauma, they believe it will save them from radiation.
Thank you. Gets old always seeing posts on reactions to this show where people claim that they didn't know anything about radiation at the time. They seem to forget that this happened over 40 years after the bombs were dropped on Japan. The effects of radiation were well known by the time this happened. The general public may have been somewhat ignorant about it, but that wasn't because the information was unknown or unavailable. Even now with unprecedented access to information most of the people reacting to and commenting on the show know virtually nothing about radiation. It's not because the information isn't available. It's simply that most people aren't going to take the time to learn about something that usually has no impact on their daily life unless they just happen to have an interest in the topic.
Jared Harris is such an underrated actor 🙌
I was 6 weeks old fresh baby when this happend, born in Czechoslovakia, one of the Soviet satellites in Central Europe. While I was getting my sleep outside on the sun, my parents got a call from their friend living close to Austrian borders, who was able to catch the radio signal from the Austrian radio (free world) telling people to stay inside because of the radiation in the air and disaster in Chernobyl. So they hid me inside afterwards... "Our" communist politicians did not even bother to warn their own people for a few weeks, so the scene that happened in the bunker about sealing the city a stopping information spreading is very much realistic.
It’s very telling of the Soviets way of thinking that they’d put good equipment in a safe so it doesn’t get broken. Whereas in the west, operators would be trained heavily on how to use sensitive equipment so they’d be effective at their jobs even if an expert wasn’t on hand.
They made so many budgetary cuts to training, personnel, and equipment that they rendered themselves useless.
It was not just their moment to shine; it was their moment to glow!
Dyatalov knew there was no core when he walked outside and looked down at the courtyard and saw graphite on the ground. He was in full cover my ass mode after that
In those situations, there's also often a reaction of "If it were true, then I'm so screwed that I don't want to think about it."
And the systemic culture of covering your ass by pushing all blame to the people under you, and always telling the people above you what that everything you do is going great certainly promotes that.
No he didn't...'cause it's NOT THERE!
He doublethinked that so hard.
He's certainly in the grip of savage denial at that point, so it's hard to say.
I can highly recommend the official podcast that was produced as a companion piece for the series. Craig Mazin is interviewed at length by Peter Sagal of NPR. An episode for each episode, plus some bonus material, it helps supplement the TV series and also provide insights and background into the filming.
Thank you, I didn't know about this!! I'll be checking it out
5:23 That would be one of the pump rooms adjacent to the reactor. There would've been a massive concrete wall separating the two rooms so the fact that the pump room is basically completely wrecked really illustrates how powerful the explosion was. Also, one grim fact about the pump room is that one of the pump operators, Valery Khodemchuk is still entombed in the pump room to this day.
The word is irradiated :) good reaction, just prepare yourself for whats comming :)
I really think you're not expected how this serie would play with your feelings after watching it in 2023 dear Verowak😭
This is one of the best series ever made. Your frustration will reach new heights as it progresses, but you’ll be so glad you watched it by the end 👍🏻
I do love the kind of frustration a series like this gives me!
Although this is a dramatization and I'm sure the obstinancy of the officials is exaggerated, it's important to consider that they refuse to accept the gravity of the situation because they know that if there has indeed been an accident of this magnitude, their careers if not their lives are already over. There is no greater sin in a totalitarian system than failure, so agents of such a system simply refuse to admit any sort of failure, merely out of self-preservation. To say nothing of a failure so massive that some say it hastened the fall of the Soviet government.
If you took your car to a mechanic, and he phones you up to explain the engine melted into liquid, fell out of the car and then flowed away down a drain - how long would you take before you believed him? Nuclear reactors can't explode. Till this one did. This is what'is known as a black swan event.
A lot of the decision makers were in denial. The effects of radiation were well understood.
What you want to avoid is a reactor having a meltdown because it continues to eject radioactive material into its surroundings. And reactor no.4 was past that. The mere fact the was graphite in the debris meant the cooling rods were gone. RMBK reactors were designed to be self containing in an event of disaster but this one exploded. That the reactors at the plant were supposed to be self containing meant that a containment structure wasn’t part of the plant design.
This was the worst nuclear accident to date. The radiation was detected as far north as Sweden, where it was reported as unusually high. The Chernobyl plant was operational until 2000 before it was finally shut down - 14 years after the incident. There is an exclusion zone that was established around the plant. And while there were eventually tours into the exclusion zone, it was reported that a good number of Russian soldiers got ill because they had occupied that area during the battle for Kyiv in 2022.
Yeah, there's probably a difference between just walking around and digging trenches in the contaminated ground...
Every year in the Exclusion Zone, which includes the famous Red Forest, during the summer which is fire season hazard in the forest, the radiation spikes enough to be detectable. This is because some of the released radionuclides, mostly strontium-90 and cesium-137, are released back into the environment when plants, animals and fungi are turned to ash in the forest fires.
Watch Star Trek VI. That is a VERY good sci-fi portrayal of this as well as the end of the cold war. (Some lines are actually direct quotes (Like "don't wait for the translation! Answer me now!") Sadly, just like people deny ignorance to save face, governments do that as well. To not "embarrass themselves", they are quite willing to sacrifice lives
The expert that hung himself is Jared Harris, son of Richard Harris who i believe was the original Dumbledore in Harry Potter. The guy you hate was english actor Paul Ritter, who btw also appeared in Harry potter + the half blood prince (Eldred Worple, or something) . He sadly passed away two years after Chernobyl first aired.
Jared Harris was also in The Expanse, which is another great series for science/sf fans.
That just means I'll have to rewatch the Expanse to see and recognize him! :D
@@VerowakReacts Anderson Dawes. A very different character and he does look quite different, but you can hear the similarity in his voice.
You’ll have to wait for the final episode to get a point-by-point walk-through of exactly what happened. ;)
5:28 - “so i guess it didn’t do a chain reaction because…”
strictly speaking, it did-a properly functioning nuclear reactor contains and controls an ongoing chain reaction; that’s how it generates surplus power.
the reason it wasn’t a runaway chain reaction as in an atomic bomb is that it’s really hard to get an explosive chain reaction going and then keep it from blowing its fuel apart long enough to produce a nuclear blast! you pretty much can’t do it by accident, least of all in a commercial reactor.
the manhattan project did a LOT of engineering to figure out how to use conventional explosives to rapidly compress (blast!) fissionable material into a small enough space that it could undergo substantial matter-to-energy conversion. even in the best case, only 25% of the bomb core chain reacts before it’s ripped apart.
but delicate, symmetrical explosive shaping aside, the biggest reason a nuclear reactor can’t become a nuclear bomb is that reactor fuel is WAY less enriched than bomb material. naturally occurring uranium contains less than 1% of the fissionable U-235 isotope. the rest is U-238; radioactive, but not fissionable. reactor fuel is refined to quadruple the concentration of U-235 to somewhere between 3-5%. bomb material is more like 90% U-235. producing enriched uranium in sufficient quantities is, in fact, the hardest part of engineering a nuclear weapon.
There was no one on the mythical “bridge of death” at the time of the accident. It was late at night. Immediately after the accident, a radiation survey of the nuclear power plant and the city of Pripyat was organized. There was no radiation on the bridge at night yet. During the day, the bridge was generally closed to the public. So no one was there and no one died from it.
Commented this above before reading your comment. Yes. We content ourselves with stories.
Thank you so much for reacting to this series. Watching it with you, I feel like I understand more than I did the first time I watched it. I'm really interested in your reactions to the next episodes, maybe you'll notice something I didn't.
PRIDE. In terms of Chernobyl the deadliest sin.
Can’t wait to see your reaction for the other episodes
Here in Sweden, my mom got me out of the sand pit and stayed inside when she heard the news about this.
This series are amazing, but each episode make you feel worse. Just so eerie.
Great reaction! 👍
Thank you! It must have been quite terrifying living nearby when it happened :(
The fact that they didn't have contingency plans for a nuclear disaster is horrifying. But it isn't surprising given the hubris and corruption in the Soviet Union. The blame game in the first few episodes is maddening to watch. It's difficult to understand how the Soviet Union survived as long as it did. They put the first satellite into space in 1957, but didn't make toilet paper until 1969! Many rural villages in Ukraine and Russia still have no indoor plumbling, but they have the most nuclear weapons in the world!
There's a great book about Chernobyl written by Serhii Plokhy, a Harvard professor and expert on Ukraine. In it, he explained how the plant was built with inferior materials, unskilled labor and against unrealistic deadlines. After reading it, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner and more than just once.
"Is that far enough?", no, it wasn't far enough.
The psychology and behavior of everyone in this episode is classic for those in a brutal, authoritarian state.
It's insanely frustrating to see! But so important to see also
"If I tell my boss not everything is perfectly going fine in my department, I will get punished."
"If my boss makes a mistake, he will unload the blame on me, and to save myself I have to unload it on someone under me."
Such a great series. Everything about the writing, production ,and performances are amazing.
That is a good quote! "This is how people are sentenced to death... through thunderous applause."
Keep in mind that this show is "based on" real events, but not a documentary. Several elements were made up or either downplayed or exaggerated to make "good television".
A Superb mini-series!
Thank you, Verowak! ☢ This series is excellent... and, for its accuracy, gut-wrenching to behold.
In high school I visited a Chernobyl exhibition with my class. There were a lot of photos of the accident in the exhibition. There were also contemporary witnesses present (liquidators) who extinguished the fire in Chernobyl and talked about what happened back then and what they had to do. The average dose of radiation received by a liquidator was between 10 Sv and 50 Sv, which is potentially fatal. 6-10 Sv is already 100% fatal within 14 days, with 10-20 Sv it is 7 days, 20-50 Sv only 3 days, 50-80 Sv Immediate disorientation and coma within seconds or minutes. Death occurs in a few hours due to complete failure of the nervous system, at a dose of 80+ Sv fast neutron radiation with immediate death.Approximately 50,000-60,000 liquidators were exposed to a dose of 10-50 Sv. there was also shown Video material from liquidators exposed to extreme high radiation just a few seconds it took and they were laying on the ground puking and dying it was really scary to see that.
One thing to beat in mind is that, at the time, there's a leak of education nuclear matters in general and a lot of compartmentalization about information on top of that. So everyone is constantly hitting their heads on barriers of what they understand and what is possible. First responders have no training on nuclear risks. The population don't have fear of the incident. It's so terrifying what happens when you control information and education.
Buckle up Verowak! So glad you're watching this and I'm also sorry.
When something is the first of its kind, it's impossible to know how people will react. Most of the times the people who create it are somewhat aware of what could happen, but the majority of the population have no idea. It's really terrifying
4:30, the Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because of this disaster, their protracted war in Afghanistan and trying to keep pace with the US in military spending, the USSR fell.
Ty for reacting to this series Verowak. Amazing series and even if some things are made up to make it a better series. I suggest watching the podcast that was made by the creator and a podcaster after each episodes. They give a lot of backstory to it and show how some things where a "front" politicians etc put on, but that they actually where not as incompitent as they come across in the series. Looking forward to you dropping the next 4 episode I know I will be watching and giving emotianal support from the future to past you :)
I didn't know about the podcast! I'll have to check it out to see what was changed for the series, thank you!
3:48 Nope. The reactor core (or what's left of it) makes its appearance at 7:26...
Yeahhh that’s horrifying… it looks like a miniature Sun is in the building. Poor guys faces were instantly turning red. I feel awful for all those people who were in and near the area :(
👍fantastic reaction . you are going to love this show❤🇦🇺
This is one of the hardest series to watch because it’s so tragic and frustrating and really scary, but it’s also one of the best series I’ve seen. Radiation is like an invisible force of death that can go through anything it touches. And the more your body absorbs, not just the amount but especially the duration of it, the more screwed you are basically. If you were anywhere within a few miles of Chernobyl at the time of the disaster you were almost guaranteed to die a few years later, and the closer you were to the reactor building you’d die even quicker. Next to the reactor core itself, a couple days to a week at most. So you absolutely got that right when you mentioned that depending on your proximity to the core, the quicker but also more horrifically you’ll die. I wasn’t prepared for this series when I first saw it, but I’m glad I did in the end. It got me fascinated with the science of radiation and let me know just how dangerous high levels of it is so I can avoid it. No thanks I’m good lol
6:12 you’re exactly right :( those poor firefighter had no idea what they were getting themselves into… and when I saw the scene for the first time of that one firefighter picking up the piece of graphite, I gasped and cried. If you look closely at the graphite he’s holding, you can see a slight blue glow. There’s so much radiation coming off it, you can see it. Just like the blue glow you can see shining up into the sky from the reactor like a beam. Same deal
This is a great docudrama!
Awesome series. Great reaction. I was in Europe when it happened. You picked a good one. Besides I worked at a couple of different nuke plants before I finally retired. Good job
Happy to see you and I hope you have enough tissues!
I have some somewhere! 😅
Jared Harris is in Mad Men, he's also Anderson Dawes from The Expanse, I see you have book 1 there. If you haven't watched the show yet, please react to it!!!
Sadly I watched the show when it came out. I don't remember what the differences are between the show and series anymore though 😅
@@VerowakReacts Ah, nice! I think I read somewhere that he agreed to this role in Chernobyl and started filming this series, which is why his Expanse character sort of disappears in season 3 of the show.
This show is so Traumatic and painful, watched it when it came out and still remember a lot of scenes from it. Also,hope you watch True Detective S1 after it 🙏🏻
They really do immerse us so well in this series! It's terrifying
One big thing is the 2pm meeting time was needed because it took time to bring all the important people to moscow from all over the ussr, its a long time but takes time to travel
One of the sharpest analytical reactors taking on one of the most well-written TV series? This is going to be good!
People got hit with the radiations from chernobyl all over Europe, as far as France and the UK, so noboby in the show is safe
100 miles away is not far enough away…
Exactly :(
It’s like you can see what I just watched. lol
Saw that it had high ratings and binged it like 5 days ago.
You are such a doll 😊
Admittedly havent watched the series yet...only seen pictures of the elephants foot and the tomb and the empty city....as i recall nothing was reported of the accident.... only when the radioactive cloud was detected in Germany France England and even Alaska did they eventually admit anything had occurred.
My cousin was with the Australian Army IRR (Incident Response Regiment) who did Chemical, biological, and nuclear (CBRN defense). Really scary stuff he wasn''t shy about how it can hurt but as a pilot we live and breath checklists. If something isn't right you challenge it. It's annoying AF but but checks keep everyone on the same page and alive. When I flew for Cathay we'd have a radiation clause in the contract. Fyling over the arctic during summer means bad radiation.
It must be so interesting being a pilot, and it's good that your cousin was open about the dangers of everything. I didn't know there was bad radiation over the arctic during the summer 🤔
@@VerowakReacts When we'd fly the Toronto or New York route in summer it's daylight the whole time and the radiation exposure is due to the glare off the ice sheet. Weird experience the first time getting to the hotel and noticing that I was sunburned. Radiation creeps me out, after watching this series I side eyed my microwave! Great reaction as always.
It's a very well done miniseries!!
It absolutely is!!
You know what worse thing about this series is that is it's based on real events it happened 💔
After you finish the series, if you're interested in what exactly happened to cause the explosion, Scott Manley has a really good science video about it called "Why Chernobyl Exploded - The Real Physics Behind The Reactor". High recommend! He's great at explaining nuclear technology.
They weren't supposed to run the test that set off the runaway reaction, they weren't qualified. Dyatlov ordered the night crew to proceed with the test when they were not qualified. The reactor had a serious construction defect. If the control rods had been inserted before the explosion, it might have been avoided - maybe. To give you an idea about how bad this was, if it had not been contained the radiation would have possibly wiped out half to two-thirds of Europe.
🔥🔥🔥 This is fine 🔥🔥🔥
My show of the year in 2019! Just Amazing!
After this and "Last of Us", I can't wait to see what Craig Mazin does next.
I absolutely loved "The Last of Us", and like you I want to see what he does next!
Many people do not understand the motivations of the people portrayed in this series.
In collectivist government systems - including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (aka USSR or Soviet Union) - individual rights are subordinate to those of the larger group. Each group's rights are subordinate to the next larger group and ultimately to the national government. In other words, the State is always the primary concern and any individual can be destroyed to protect the interests of the State.
This type of system allows for any atrocity to be committed for the "greater good." We saw this with the Holocaust committed by the National Socialists in Germany, the Holodomor committed by the Soviet Union against the Ukrainians, the Great Leap Forward committed by the Chinese Communist Party against its own people, etc.
It is this system that controls Ukraine during the events depicted in this show.
Since each person in this system knows that he or she has no rights, few people are willing to go against the "party line" even in the face of obvious contradictory evidence. Speaking counter to the official narrative was a fast way into a prison cell, torture chamber, exile to a work camp or a bullet to your head.
So, if the State published it is impossible for these reactors to explode - well, everyone with evidence to the contrary is mistaken. And since the reactor did not explode (because the State said so), we don't want them spreading misinformation. And the State, with the exclusive right to use force and own weapons, can make sure its interests are protected.
A lot like the present day USSA.
We can still roll it back.
First lets get the some stuff out of the way. This is an amazing series, really well written and the acting is amazing. Hats off to you for recognizing Stellan Skarsgard from 3 lines. He will be one of the highlight of this show. The other guy you have recognized is Jared Harris, another amazing actor.
This is a really frustrating show because it portrays rather accurately how socialism worked in the Soviet Union. If you made too much noise that criticized the system if you were lucky, you were made aware of the error of your ways, if not you were straight up jailed for it. If your "crimes" were deemed serious enough you just outright disappeared. Normal state of business in the SU. The story is very bleak and the pressure keep piling up but dont worry, all of your questions will be answered. ( pretty much all that you've asked so far ). It's similar to Band of Brothers, very draining emotionally because it did happen and it could've been avoided and the effects mitigated but everyone was way too busy covering their asses and shift the blame on others that a lot of effort was in vain. The magnitude of the catastrophy is staggering. You will see a lot of individual heroism mostly from everyday's people standing up and doing what needs to be done.
When they said they did nothing wrong but they did he meant that as far as they know they did everything right but something must've been off becasue the bloody thing exploded lol. It will be explained later dont worry.
BTW the word you were looking for was "radiated" I believe. :)
Also, I always appreciate a good Star Wars quite when I hear one. ( Padme, Revenge of the Sith )
At that time, on the USSR, it wasn't about being right or wrong it was about having someone else to pass the blame onto because $hit trickles down hill and you didn't want to be standing at the bottom. Not just with this but with everything.
Like the present day USSA.
Gorbachev was quoted as saying that this disaster brought down the USSR
At the very least, it shattered the illusion that the Soviet Union was competent at running itself. It exposed the widespread rot throughout the entire state in a dramatic way that just wasn't possible to keep glossing over.
If you like this series I highly suggest the "Band Of Brothers" series next and "The Pacific" both are great retellings of WWII on both fronts and are made just as well as this series., Welcome to History my friend!!!
Here is Band of brothers!! th-cam.com/video/hRl21SCvdh4/w-d-xo.html I will be getting to The Pacific later this year 😁
@@VerowakReacts Great a cultured lady interested in History!!! trust me you will not be disappointed!!!
Radiation sickness, the skin damage doesn't usually appear instantly, but the nausea is. The burns would appear in a couple hours. The damage, though, is instant.
The burns can appear much quicker if the exposure is high enough. Beta radiation burns, the most common, take a little longer like sunburns. But severe gamma burns, the rarer type can be nearly instantaneous, like putting your hand in a fire. With both, in acute exposures, moist and dry desquamation begin, eventually being visible. That's sort of like a severe blistering and then blackening down to the deep layers of skin and even the muscles, as shown reasonably well in the series affecting Vasiliy Ignatenko.
I was 11 living in the UK when this happened and very annoyed with my mom who wouldnt let me go outside and play FFS!
Dammit mom!! I want to go play outside!!!
I think the injuries are indeed showing too fast in the show. Most of the damage comes from the body not being able to replace old cells as they are dying off, which typically starts to manifest over days or weeks rather than minutes. But the kinds of injuries that the people have seem quite plausible.
I think this is okay, because the tension in the show would work out very differently if all the events are happening first and the severe injuries that the people suffer only become visible later.
This show gave me anxiety attacks, panic attacks, more than any horror film ever...!!
That's when you know they did a great job!