Doesn't take anything away from the miniseries, but I found this critical article quite interesting. The author claims the show exaggerated many of the impacts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael...lear-so-wrong/

“A global nuclear catastrophe is not possible in the USSR.” It’s simple.

Ya, they were on some cult level thinking over there. Faith in the mighty USSR!

“What’s as big as a house, burns 20 liters of fuel every hour, puts out a ****-load of smoke and noise, and cuts an apple into three pieces?”

“A Soviet machine made to cut apples into four pieces!”

this was so ****ing good it's unreal.
anyone nitpicking should reexamine their entire life choices and learn to appreciate brilliance.

it's hard to believe communism was real.
you read books like animal farm and think it's just great hyperbolic satire then you watch this and realize holy **** that's actually how it was.

the speech in ep1 where the old party member is telling his comrades they need to have faith in the state and cut off the town etc is just incredible and horrifying.

well, 1984 was was pretty prescient, too. Only 35 years too soon:

Orwell’s 1984 was nothing like actual 1984. But it’s exactly like 2019.

in episode 2 he tells Shcherbina that they will both be dead within 5 years due to their exposure.

Just beasted this, this morning.

Wow

I'm just kind of in shock. Incredible really. They kept the thing going until 2000 as well. Mind boggling stuff.

The insanity of communist Russia is being surpassed in the USA today. Americans have a lot to learn from a regime where facts don’t matter.

USA is no worse than it ever was. Nor is it much different than Soviet Russia. Gov gonna Gov. Power gonna power.

LOL, show your math! When it comes to science stuff we are at a much higher level, ya there's idiocy and corruption here and there over and over but the Soviet Union was dragged down by a cultish level of hubris. It would take a lot to get to that level of incompetence.


They were on some king **** where no one could criticize, meanwhile anyone with a big mouth can tell the president, the governing body and the voters how stupid they are and why they are so stupid showing THEIR MATH!! Show us your math....

Finished the show. Binged it across two days with my partner and only left the room a couple times to wipe away tears. I thought it was fantastic.

On April 26, 1986 my parents were living in Kiev with their young son and infant daughter. My mother was 7 months pregnant with me. They heard about an explosion at the Chernobyl plant but details were scarce. Rumors spread like wildfire and it became impossible to separate fact from fiction. By the 28th, the official party line is that the problem is contained.

My maternal grandfather was a Hero of the Soviet Union. This afforded him special privileges. He got news directly from the party and was reassured that Kiev was in no danger. He spent his days calming my suspicious father and sick mother, and laughed at the growing rumors.

On the 29th my father gets a call from a friend in Kiev. This friend was a janitor at a government research facility. Last night they were visited by party officials who demanded he open up the supply closet and turn over their advanced dosimeter. This janitor had heard about the explosion at Chernobyl but knew better than to ask any questions. But this man liked my father and his own pregnant wife felt sympathy for my mother so they made the call.

For the next week most of my family stays indoors, with the windows and blinds tightly shut. My father continues going to work. My grandfather is still convinced nothing is wrong.

At first life goes on in Kiev like normal, but a little bit quieter. My parents' house was next to a large elementary school so their street was usually bustling with children. Not anymore. Eventually my brother fakes an illness and stayed home, too.

The rumors got louder. Eventually everyone in Kiev but the oldest, staunchest Communists knew that their lives were hanging in the balance. Many people were convinced they were about to die and every day was treated as if it could be their last. The streets got loud again. Iodine and red wine was shipped in from every corner of the Soviet Union to combat the effects of the radiation. Vodka flowed like a river. People partied and sucked and ****ed like it was the end of the world because it really was.

The first week of May was a blur. My mom got very sick and they ripped out a lot of her teeth. She lost her voice. Doctors weren't sure why. My brother was detained by men with radiation meters who took his shoes and he walked home barefoot. My dad and my grandfather fought, a lot. Government officials visited our home to suggest my mother get an abortion. When she refused they left but returned a couple of days later.

Eventually the trains start running but tickets are impossible to get. Thankfully my grandfather's status afforded him certain privileges - including first dibs at train tickets. After days of fighting he is finally convinced to buy three tickets for my mother, my brother and sister. They packed up a few belongings and on the second week of May the three of them headed to Poltava to stay with my grandfather's niece.

My birth was a difficult one. It appeared that I had a few health issues. My development was delayed. The doctors weren't hopeful that I would ever lead a normal life. For the most part they were wrong. I used to get my thyroid checked a lot but everything has always come back perfectly fine. I constantly worry about cancer but I'm an old fart now so hey lucky me.

My parents are two episodes deep into the series. They are very impressed by the accuracy. About halfway through episode 2 my dad calls me and says [maybe huge spoiler?]:



which obv turns out to be correct.

Here is my workbook

incredible show. there isnt much out there that Im not able to stomach but the pet shooting scene came close.

I think I would have enjoyed the last episode more if they didn't open with the suicide since it kinda took "he gets shot by the kgb after testifying" off the table

Wanted to pop in and bump this blog again. Tons of cool pictures, I highly recommend checking it out.

Just lol. The USA is a sad place right now and Trump is the worst, but this is just factually incorrect. Do you really think if Chernobyl happens in USA today, events would unfold in the same way? Information suppression, delayed evacuations, keeping up a facade to the world that everything is OK, lying to citizens about what precautions to take,...

A+ post. Did you ever figure out what happened with your mother? How did information spread to everyone in Kiev? Was everyone passing along the information, or...?

Trump is a just another politician/businessman. Ya he's a slave to the ego money and power but pretty standard in a world where everyone is programmed to be a slave to the ego. Your argument is ******ed!

If you woulda said something like "Americans are a bunch of brainwashed idiots ****s that currently amount to robots in a circle jerk of self gratification." your argument woulda meant something. Instead you came in here with nothing to back up your nothing claim.



Weak argument and no research to back that **** up.....

The USs version of this is companies leaking a bunch of **** into waterways and groundwater while spreading as much misinformation as they can. There's no leaks, if there are they're small, if they're not the stuff is safe, etc. There's plenty of areas where the cancer rates are abnormally high because of this kind of stuff. But yea, a full blown nuclear catastrophe is way worse than anything that can happen in a refinery or chemical plant, so we don't really know what would happen in that sort of event. But, like, our track record isn't exactly good.

The main difference being that if you had made a comment like this in the soviet union, you'd immediately find yourself in a ****ing slave camp with your whole family. There were kgb agents and snitches absolutely everywhere, you could not say one bad word about the regime. Russian journalists that don't hail Putin still somehow appear to commit suicide by shooting themselves in the back 10 times abnormally frequently.

There is a pretty significant difference in how a nuclear accident was handled in the US.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Thr...sland-accident

Not to mention that in the US in that era the conventional wisdom was that building a graphite core reactor would be utter insanity.

The USA still covers up a bunch of stuff that causes death and suffering and incarcerates ppl on b.s. or for political reasons. Look at the handling of climate science.

As bad as 80s Soviet Union? Proly not. Maybe. In some ways.

I don't think this Soviet era is as bad as some of you describe. Like they weren't shooting and gulaging everyone who griped like in the 20s and 30s. Those miners were pretty outspoken.

They explained the miners, they had the soviet union by the short and curleys. Bad example.

It seems like they were the only ones that had any kind of union. I'm just basing that off of the little I know from this show and the info gathered after lol. Seemed like they had carte blanche next to normies tho.