One thing I found really eye-opening about this show is that it really showed both the bad side as well as the good side of Soviet culture.<p>It is unquestionably the case that Soviet authoritarianism and disregard for safety is to blame for what happened. But one thing that is often forgotten, but I think the show highlights, is how well the aftermath was handled.<p>Yes, Pripyat should have been evacuated earlier, and yes, they should probably have notified the rest of the world sooner. But think of this: the Soviet Union mobilized 500,000-750,000 people to clean up the enormous exclusion zone. They got thousands of men to don full lead suits (that could only be used once) to run out on a roof for 90 seconds each to throw off radioactive rocks one at a time. They built the enormous containment structure in just a few months, arguably the greatest feat of civil engineering in history. One of my favorite scenes in the show is when Legasov says he immediately needs 5,000 tons of sand and boron to cover the core, and Scherbina basically just walks off and gets it for him (along with a full fleet of helicopters to drop it).<p>All of this was necessary, and they did all of it, no matter the cost. This was unquestionably a real strength of the Soviet Union. Can you imagine that the US would have been able to respond like this? Either today or in the 80s? I can't. With the exception of wartime mobilization, I can think of almost nothing else that even compares. There are few (if any) societies in history that could have done what the Soviet Union did in response to Chernobyl. In a way, the world is lucky it happened there and not somewhere else.
I came across this yesterday but wasn't sure what to make of it.<p>I have no prior for themoscowtimes.com. When I googled for corroboration (as a non-Russian speaker) all I found was blogspam citing this article.<p>It gives me pause because, as reported, it seems almost comically reactionary. "We're going to make our own Chernobyl show but with CIA saboteurs because some historians don't say it didn't happen." From the article:<p>> Still, an attempt will be made to put an entirely different spin on those events. Russia’s NTV channel has already announced that it is shooting its own “Chernobyl” series based on the premise that the CIA sent an agent to the Chernobyl zone to carry out acts of sabotage.<p>Can someone with access to Russian media corroborate this or provide insight?
How ironic. The main theme of the Chernobyl mini-series is that lies do not only not make things better, they exacerbate them. Now, in order to fix PR "fallout" there's another "lie" emanating from almost the same source - Kremlin and surroundings. As the lessons of history teach us - this does not work. This "blockbuster" will obviously not be seen at a level comparable to HBO's mini-series. But even those who might see, will most likely see it for what it is - attempt to cover-up and put up a good facade in front of a disaster. It is almost unbelievable that Craig Mazin captured this essence - "the nation that is scared of humiliation will humiliate itself".<p>I know that it's most likely a PR stunt, and there's probably not going to be any movie made, and the money grant from the government will be gone and not accounted for, and yet. And yet. How ironic that in attempt to whitewash the national disaster portrayed in this mini-series, Russia is doing what has been presented in this show as a main cause of the Chernobyl incident.
I loved the show but in case you missed it this was a very eye opening take that seems genuine.<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-chernobyl-got-right-and-what-it-got-terribly-wrong" rel="nofollow">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-cher...</a>
I thought the show was brilliant. Nightmarish, and hard to stop thinking about. One of my first jobs was working on presentation materials for a book on Chernobyl. This was quite some time ago, but the photos and the story have always stuck with me. What I didn’t really grasp until watching the show was how strong a case could be made that (despite the common narratives) Chernobyl was the real catalyst for the fall of the USSR. Epic, expensive, embarrassing, disaster only a short time before the fall.<p>I was fine with the creative liberties the show takes. You have to. Otherwise you should just have people read five books on the subject. But books don’t reach as many people and television is a strong medium in its own right. A lot of the criticism feels like “the book was better than the movie” arguments. For the most well rounded impression of actual events, do both! Read the books, and watch the drama.<p>But keep in mind that humans are driven by stories and narrative. The “official” events are a narrative, as is the reporting, the opinion columns, and yes, the show too.
One thing that surprised me as I watched the show, is that it really didn't have a single antagonist, or a consciously evil act by anyone depicted - the evil that lead to the accident was always in the design of the system itself, not in any particular person. Everyone making decisions, even the worst ones, was working with information he had on hand, with assumptions and logic he was taught as gospel from very young age.<p>It's very unusual to see a western show that would so truthfully depict a societal story, instead of slipping to the usual level of character-driven drama.
The point is well made in the article, and I feel the same would happen with stories connected with India. Indian TV is such a clusteref<i></i>k of bad content and lazy work that when the west would inevitably make a season on any of the countless things which happened in India, it'll be heads and shoulders above anything we could ever make today. And then the same "Oh, this is not the correct story" propoganda will be touted by people, gloriously oblivious to the great opportunity which they wasted by making mediocre me-too drama.<p>Also, Chernobyl is a great show!
this might be unrelated, but i drew a number of comparisons between the kremlin and the Fukushima incident in terms of intractable bureaucracy. The sheer number of mistakes made at Daiichi really struck me as impossible. I guess it didnt hit home for me until the 12 mile exclusion zone was imposed and irradiated garbage began showing up on US and Canadian coasts.<p>It was nowhere near as dire or blatant as Chernobyl, but some issues were definitely things I felt like we had learned about these types of disaster by 2011.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Poor_communication_and_delays" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_Fukush...</a>
Regardless of the actual truth, I think it's important for people everywhere to be skeptical and to probe their governments. I'm glad this has the Russian people asking questions and discussing the undeniable tragedy at Chernobyl, this is how we prevent ourselves from repeating history. I hope the people of Russia can shake the authority's trees enough that the truth falls out.<p>It's also important to remember that the rest of the world is one unfortunate incident away from nuclear disaster, you only need to look at Japan's Fukushima [1]. There was also the plutonium rods picture near disaster [2]. We <i>all</i> need to learn from these lessons.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/near-disaster/" rel="nofollow">https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/near-dis...</a>
Wow. The article's author has no Russian accent whatsoever. (Unless it was translated by an English speaker). Wish I had the same command of English. Somehow I doubt multilingual Ukranian newspapers are that much unaccented in their English. I had no temptation to open the Russian version of the article because the English text was not awkward to read.
I don't feel I understand why Putin would have anything to deal with here. It's not like he's some huge USSR booster or hater. That Russia didn't produce a prestige TV program about it before the west is not exactly a pressing issue, and Russia isn't particularly known for its prestige TV exports.<p>All criticism or compliment about anyone Russian, dead or alive, doesn't have to be contextualized into a salvo of a propaganda war that imperils or emboldens Putin. Or maybe it does, for clicks.
Funny, I didn't realize there was an HBO TV show, but that article sure reads like some stereotypical Soviet propaganda, albeit from "our" side.
Personally, i found the series on HBO to have been poorly researched and even more poorly delivered in execution.<p>A whole part of dealing with Russians as well as a large part of how their policies are shaped can be understood through culture. The characteristic bent in mannerisms that value "honor", "masculinity", less emphasis on the exact and more on "estimates" while working through problems etc. Most people who've dealt with the Russians will agree, that this series came across as British propaganda, badly inserting their societal structures to communicate the events flowing in another, completely different structure. The main character looked like a poor Austin Powers impersonator playing a Russian.<p>As an example, the Female Scientist, Ulana . . i have no problem with the producers exercising creative freedom to designate her character as the substitute for the hundreds of other scientists who worked on the project, but in doing so, wildly misrepresented the role of women in Russian society during those times.<p>The choice of English as a language itself . . fine. What the producers can't seem to grasp is the delivery of Russian is aggressive. You don't make statements in tense situations with the British smooth tongue. That does not serve the understanding of the situations during those times very well.<p>I could go on about the sheer lack of patriotism displayed by any of the main characters to the point where it felt as though it was forbidden when in reality, anyone who's lived through those times and interacted informally with these people knows the opposite is true, but i repeat myself.