Chernobyl on HBO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This program is getting more terrifying every week. It stays with me.

Spoiler——


So in the last episode I am assuming they conducted a “draft”to get workers?

Yes. They drafted them. Imagine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just watched the latest episode and I can’t sleep. It’s an amazing mini series but I can get the imagery out of my head.

I think Skargard is fabulous in the show.

The dogs.... couldn't watch that.

[Anonymous]

I'm amazed that all in all only 4000 people died.

[Anonymous]

Spoilers for the content of episode 4---

See, I'm a huge animal person (yes, I watched the last episode cuddling my cat), but I almost thought they made too much of a big deal about the animals. They were going through evacuated areas--these animals had been starving, eating each other, completely abandoned. Plus, they were poisoned by radiation and would end up dying a slow, painful death. Shooting them, especially when the one soldier was adamant about not letting them suffer, seemed like the humane thing to do. Not easy, of course, but I was surprisingly not as affected as I thought I might be. Certainly not as much as I was seeing that empty bed at the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spoilers for the content of episode 4---

See, I'm a huge animal person (yes, I watched the last episode cuddling my cat), but I almost thought they made too much of a big deal about the animals. They were going through evacuated areas--these animals had been starving, eating each other, completely abandoned. Plus, they were poisoned by radiation and would end up dying a slow, painful death. Shooting them, especially when the one soldier was adamant about not letting them suffer, seemed like the humane thing to do. Not easy, of course, but I was surprisingly not as affected as I thought I might be. Certainly not as much as I was seeing that empty bed at the end.

I know. But the idea that they would whistle and all the dogs would come running..... gah. No doubt it was the right thing to do. But still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spoilers for the content of episode 4---

See, I'm a huge animal person (yes, I watched the last episode cuddling my cat), but I almost thought they made too much of a big deal about the animals. They were going through evacuated areas--these animals had been starving, eating each other, completely abandoned. Plus, they were poisoned by radiation and would end up dying a slow, painful death. Shooting them, especially when the one soldier was adamant about not letting them suffer, seemed like the humane thing to do. Not easy, of course, but I was surprisingly not as affected as I thought I might be. Certainly not as much as I was seeing that empty bed at the end.

I've been listening to the Chernobyl Podcast, it is really good the director talks with Peter Sagal about each episode, and they discussed why the scenes with the dogs were included. Basically they wanted to show how the disaster affected a wide range of people who were tasked with the cleanup and such. Sure you have the more extreme acts of bravery/danger like clearing off the roof, or fighting the fires, but over 750,000 people were involved in all sorts of unpleasant tasks and they weren't given a choice either. You were just told "do this" and you had to do it, whether it was killing men in Afghanistan or killing pets in the exclusion zone. I thought that the difference between the two grizzled men who had been doing the job for a while, and who drank vodka for breakfast, and the young kid on his first day was quite striking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m watching this now, and starting to have a panic attack about the amount of nuclear weapons in the world.

Back in 1990, 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing, we were running every scenario possible on their nuke stockpile. We guessed 98% of them would be secured in the event of a complete collapse. That would leave over 1,000 nuclear weapons unaccounted for. It used to give me nightmares. (Meanwhile, Dick Cheney was all but cheerleading that the Soviet Union disintegrate into civil war and not giving two effs about the consequences. He made our lives very difficult.)

Through an amazing amount of work by both sides, and no doubt some sheer luck, every weapon the Soviets (and the eventual former republics) were willing to admit existed ended up accounted for. Still, there were some......incidents.......where nuclear materials were unexpectedly stumbled upon.

Cooperative Threat Reduction in the 1990s is a triumph, and a really unknown story.

I was working in this space at that time. Some of the Russian nuclear materials were in a room that was sealed by a piece of string across a wax fingerprint seal. If the seal was broken, they knew someone had been in the room. Was frightening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed that all in all only 4000 people died.

Source? I think it's hard to pinpoint how many people died over the years.

[Anonymous]

the hospital scenes were just shocking! revolting and terrifying.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Just finished the final episode. This series was incredibly powerful and so well done. The actual events, including the lies and cover up, as well as the aftermath, were horrifying. This show really brought it all to light in a way that was informative and poignant but also terrifying. Truth is stranger than fiction. Well done, HBO.

[Anonymous]

I’m looking forward to this series. I went to Chernobyl last summer and walked through the abandoned village of pipiyat (or whatever it’s called). It was super interesting!

[Anonymous]

Holy shit, that was amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking forward to this series. I went to Chernobyl last summer and walked through the abandoned village of pipiyat (or whatever it’s called). It was super interesting!

Pripyat. Somehow, after watching this series, I’m surprisingly angry that you visited and don’t even know the name of the place. “whatever it’s called” seems so disrespectful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m looking forward to this series. I went to Chernobyl last summer and walked through the abandoned village of pipiyat (or whatever it’s called). It was super interesting!

Pripyat. Somehow, after watching this series, I’m surprisingly angry that you visited and don’t even know the name of the place. “whatever it’s called” seems so disrespectful.

I wouldn’t go near that place with a lead suit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Say what you will about Russians but they are a culture like that. They consistently put the needs of others before their own and display self sacrifice. They fought in battles even when the odds were bad (Stalingrad). Italians on the other hand surrender.

This is not ww2
Russians oppress minorities, always have. Russia is for Russians mentally.
The army conscripts from minority nation's like Latvia, Estonia were sent to help. They were not told where they were going, what was going on.
Within 3 years they were dead

I think it’s the collective mentality and repression of individualism rather than self sacrifice. Many were sacrificed by others higher up in the command chain for the “collective good”. For example, during WW2 hundreds of thousands armed with wooden sticks were sent against the nazi troops for diversion as part of the Dniepr battle. Here is another example: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/25083847.html in both, higher ups sacrificed the people. I think the Italians were smarter about it - if it was my son or brother or father, I very much would have preferred the Italian approach.

these are extremes, but the same attitude permeated to many other aspects of life, the individual does not count, the collective is what matters.