I’m sure I will enjoy the series going by what I’ve seen so far and the overall reaction. But I doubt it will stop bothering me here and there, specially given that the show is set in a two-language area (Russian and Ukrainian) with all that entails.
Which sucks (it bothering me). I wish I wasn’t like this and could ignore it.
Something that I don’t think came up in the Qt3 podcast but that I thought a lot about while watching (and maybe Craig Mazin mentioned it in the Chernobyl podcast) is that the kind of structural deceit that was woven throughout the USSR was a cause of the disaster, but there were also qualities of the Russian and Ukrainian people that made them uniquely suited to enact the kind of insane cleanup methods that were necessary. The divers volunteering, the miners doing their part, the “liquidators,” the roof-sweepers… There’s a mentality of the sacrifice and suffering of the individual for the whole that might be in some sense stereotyping, but nonetheless seems built in to that culture’s self-image. (There was also of course a strong coercive nature of the state that made it easier.) Mitigation of the disaster in the U.S. undoubtedly would have proceeded differently.
Wrote my thoughts on the show in the other thread, but to chime in in some of the aspects discussed in the podcast.
Gorbachev: Dingus, me thinks you’re confusing him with Boris Yeltsin, because “often drunk and didn’t know what he was doing” definitely wasn’t the reputation Gorbachev had.
Sounds about right. Gorbachev was far from having the amount of control the likes of Putin or Stalin had. I think the series gives you a good idea when Bryukhanov–the curly-hair guy in charge of Chernobyl–mentions that he has to notify such and such person who then will notify someone else who then will notify someone else who then will notify someone else who then ultimately notify Gorbachev. You can see how with each step information might get tweaked and sugarcoated. Gorbachev would be able to make calls, but he was dependent on the intel that made his way to him. And the Central Committee of the party also had its own power dynamics.
Oh, @tomchick, you asked why Legasov didn’t tell the truth at Vienna but did at the trial. I think part of the answer is in what we learn at the end, that Legasov was apparently quite the Communist loyalist throughout his life. It was funny that they didn’t call that out earlier, because I think it makes his character that much more fascinating. But I think that explains why he wanted to believe the KGB’s promises, and why he would call out his country within but not to the rest of the world.
(Although note that, kind of sadly, that whole trial was the most fictionalized of the stuff in the show. Legasov wasn’t even there. The brilliant red and blue cards were totally invented.)
I have no doubt you’re right about this.
Last night wasn’t my best night for reasons having nothing to with the show, but now that you bring up Yeltsin, I realize my mistake.
-xtien
“Someone has to start telling the truth.”
One thing that has become apparent from this series. Reagan and the US military did not destroy the Soviet Union. Chernobyl did. The cost to fix the mess was astronomical beyond belief and they were already hurting financially thanks to the Afghanistan debacle and trying to run a closed, centralized communistic economy. But the bigger issue was every single country under Soviet control now saw what was in store for them due to Soviet incompetence. The loss of respect and distrust towards Russians blew open the iron curtain.
Reagan got way too much credit.
As for Ludmilla risking her own and ultimately her unborn child’s life - it surely is infuriating to watch that. That said, she is young, she’s desperate, she loves her husband, and being close to someone and having a physical connection by touching them is meant to be a comfort to both of them. And yeah: people probably weren’t really educated when it comes to the the effects of radiation and how it works since the government wasn’t eager to convey the impression that they’d be doing something that could rather harmful to its own people.
It’s also safe to say that the general public in the Soviet Republic wasn’t as well informed about the severity of the situation and the possible consequences even after the government had to confirm/admit publicly what had happened at Chernobyl. Not like people had easy access to non-Soviet news sources.
Btw., I’m happy they decided against actors doing a Russian accent for the reasons mentioned in their podcast. (I also appreciated that about Death of Stalin.) While I also would have watched the show with Russian actors and subtitles… that’s certainly something that was never going to happen at HBO.
B-b-but Saint Ronnie “spent them into the ground” with Star Wars!
So, finished the series and the podcast. Loved both.
I personally found the final episode the weakest, but listening to the podcast I’ve realized there’s an irreconcilable worldview between people who lived the end of the cold war from an English speaking country vs. those who lived it from Western Europe (Eastern Europe is yet a different viewpoint, judging by the people I’ve talked with about it). I think most of my issues with the show stem from that disconnect.
Some weird things/inaccuracies regarding the podcast:
-While I’m sure this is contentious in the US. Gorbachev is widely regarded as a better leader than Reagan around here. His Nobel Peace Prize is considered one of the less contested ones, and he’s seen as the person who peacefully led the Soviet Union into a democracy, curtailing the abuses of the regime, and without burning the world in the process, while Reagan is seen as playing with Europe’s security by instigating an arms race and raised tensions for internal political motives. From this point of view, his portrayal in the show felt pretty spot on. Reagan never got a Nobel Peace Prize, mostly due to European perception of their corresponding roles in History (however right or wrong that perception is is probably a matter for historians, I make no claim of not being influence by our own propaganda).
-The Kursk was a Russian disaster, not a Soviet one. It happened in 2000, 8 years after the end of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The movie can’t show an authoritarian regime at work (at least on paper, one can question how non-authoritarian Russia ever got), and definitely not the Soviet one.
-While the West is infinitely better at freedom of the press, our governments are not much better regarding inability to address our mistakes. Somebody says in the podcast the Fukushima disaster was immediately communicated. It was not. It took the government three months to acknowledge meltdown, while there were pretty definitive clues at most 3 days after the fact (during the disaster I kept in chat contact with a nuclear engineer that called the meltdown after some day three radiation readings).
But great podcast overall. I agree with the cosmic terror angle. That’s the most fascinating part of the show for me.
Edit: As for the show, I came to appreciate it’s approach, even if it’s slightly hamfisted at times regarding the political setting (doing a disservice to the real horrors of the regime). The only thing that infuriates me is its insistence the authorities didn’t want to fix the reactors. In fact, a directive to fix the graphite tips in the control rods was issued before Chernobyl blew up. The criminal element being that there was no reason given for the directive (to keep the secrecy about the lack of safety of the design), so reactor operators considered it low priority and frequently did not upgrade the tips in lieu of other repairs and maintenance.
That’s really interesting to know, thanks.
Oh jeeze, did I say “Soviets” when I was talking about the Kursk movie? That’s embarrassing. Obviously, I know the difference between Soviets and Russians, but I must have been caught up in the similarities between the Kursk movie and Chernobyl miniseries.
It’s really cool to read this perspective, Juan. None of that had occurred to me at the time, of course, but it makes perfect sense in hindsight. Reagan has been so disproportionately lionized by American conservatives that it’s easy to lose sight of how he must have looked to the rest of the world.
-Tom
From the Midnight in Chernobyl book, I believe that 100 rubles was about one month’s salary for most workers. So, while not a huge bonus, it’s not nothing. Certainly more than the $100 it sounds like without context.
Guess what all… Russia lied about a nuke accident AGAIN?! Say it ain’t so: