4 ms·

Related, if you haven't seen the TV show Chernobyl, I could not recommend it highly enough!

by kwar13 5mo ago

lb1lf 5mo ago
This. Also, Higginbotham's "Midnight in Chernobyl" is brilliant prose about the disaster, from the run-up through to the aftermath. At times, it reads more like a thriller (and a fast-paced one at that!) than prose.
- ffritz 5mo ago
  Same goes for his other book Challenger.
- man8alexd 5mo ago
  Higginbotham uses Medvedev's book as a source. Medvedev worked in the Ministry of Energy and he was their special representative in Chernobyl after the incident. His task was to cover the asses of the ministry and the reactor designers, so this book invented a lot of "facts" to put the blame on the operators, Dyatlov and Fomin.
materiallie 5mo ago
I thought the show was horrible. It was moralistic, quite on the nose, and the dialogue was pretty corny. There were a lot of obvious appeals to your average NYT and Atlantic type viewer, which is surely the main factor behind its critical acclaim.
- watwut 5mo ago
  I found the dialog fairly realistic. Maybe because I grew up in a similar country - it sounded like real world people talk. Also, events and actions were close to how reality unfolded with simplified cast of characters, basically.
  - lukan 5mo ago
    Simplified characters and strongly amplified and invented extra drama and events.
  - man8alexd 5mo ago
    I worked in the soviet nuclear industry (Sredmash) in the 1980s. The dialogs and characters are completely unrealistic and made me cringe. Everyone looks overemotional and infantile. The hierarchical interactions are comical - a minister would never go to talk to miners, he would just phone a subordinate and tell them to organize people, they don't need armed soldiers present to enforce something, it is not the Wild West. The authors have no clue about the soviet mentality and how soviet society operated.
    - gf000 5mo ago
      Well, how else would you show a minister giving a command to n layers of people before going to the miners on a drama show?
      - man8alexd 5mo ago
        Easy but boring. Realistically, the workers would be gathered in a hall and their immediate boss would give a speech: "The party and the government want you to serve the Motherland at this heroic moment and volunteer for a hard job. Whoever goes gets apartments ahead of the waiting list".
sebazzz 5mo ago
Yes it is very good cinematic. Unfortunately it is far from the truth.
Klaster_1 5mo ago
I also recommend Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, some of people the characters from the book are even present in the TV series.
leonidasrup 5mo ago
For a TV series the TV show Chernobyl was pretty accurate. For those who watched the the TV show, I recommend to also see an interview with an actual Ukrainian medical responder and radiation expert who was working in Chernobyl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GEPsSVpZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GEPsSVpZY Probably the best non-technical book on the Chernobyl disaster is the book "Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe" by Serhii Plokhy. It describes not only the accident, but also the whole soviet system and political, economical decisions which led to the resulting catastrophe. The most comprehensive technical report is INSAG-7 The Chernobyl Accident - IAEA. https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.p...
- man8alexd 5mo ago
  No, the show is not accurate. The last episode repeats the lies that Legasov told at the IAEA meeting in 1986, that were published as INSAG-1, and the show completely ignores INSAG-7. There was no drama in the control room, no indications that anything was wrong with the reactor, no power spike before AZ-5 was pressed.
  - leonidasrup 5mo ago
    It was a drama TV show, not a documentary. Whey compare it with TV shows, like Simpsons or movies like The China Syndrome, it was accurate. "according to INSAG-1, the main cause of the accident was the operators' actions, but according to INSAG-7, the main cause was the reactor's design." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_Cherno...
    - man8alexd 5mo ago
      The TV show pretends to be historically accurate, and many people believe that it is true. I would suspect that the majority of people have no other sources of information about Chernobyl other than this TV show.
  - sehansen 5mo ago
tdiff 5mo ago
It is silly how the show depicted Dyatlov as an arrogant sargeant behaving like a bully in American series about mid school kids. This alone sets the tone of a TV show that needs to have clear goodies and baddies, and obviously life is never that simple.
- nephihaha 5mo ago
  Most modern television tends towards caricatures and melodrama.
- man8alexd 5mo ago
  There is a real interview with Dyatlov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8__v9EswN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8__v9EswN4
- watwut 5mo ago
  I have seen real world adults behave that way. Including multiple managers. The real world Dyatlov being verbally abusive is something the show has taken from the real world. And before someone goes on about cultural difference, there are several high profile examples of American leaders/directors/business men acting in openly abusive ways.
  - man8alexd 5mo ago
    "Verbal abuse" isn't a concept that existed in the Soviet Union. Giving or receiving instructions with as many "suka blyat" inserted between each word as possible wasn't abnormal.
    - watwut 5mo ago
      It was concept that existed in the Soviet Union. And yes, people complained about those, got rid of them first thing whenever they could and retaliated when they could. Soviet Union people knew the concept of "non-asshole boss" and could distinguish it from "asshole boss". They would use those terms. Where they could vote for boss (and yes they could vote for boss in some institutions) they would avoid voting for assholes (unless they expected them to be assholes to external people). This concept existed also in literature, movies, music and general entertainment. It shown up there and the "good boss" always won (else it could be constructed as a critique of the system). Asshole boss was typically foreign ennemy in disguise.
pjc50 5mo ago
I'm just about old enough to remember seeing the live coverage of this and Challenger on BBC Newsround, as a kid. Couldn't find that broadcast, but HN might enjoy BBC "On this day": http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/april/28/newsid_4486000/4486099.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/april/28/newsid_4...

Related, if you haven't seen the TV show Chernobyl, I could not recommend it highly enough!

by kwar13 5mo ago

Related, if you haven't seen the TV show Chernobyl, I could not recommend it highly enough!

lb1lf 5mo ago

This. Also, Higginbotham's "Midnight in Chernobyl" is brilliant prose about the disaster, from the run-up through to the aftermath. At times, it reads more like a thriller (and a fast-paced one at that!) than prose.

ffritz 5mo ago
Same goes for his other book Challenger.
man8alexd 5mo ago
Higginbotham uses Medvedev's book as a source. Medvedev worked in the Ministry of Energy and he was their special representative in Chernobyl after the incident. His task was to cover the asses of the ministry and the reactor designers, so this book invented a lot of "facts" to put the blame on the operators, Dyatlov and Fomin.

materiallie 5mo ago

I thought the show was horrible. It was moralistic, quite on the nose, and the dialogue was pretty corny. There were a lot of obvious appeals to your average NYT and Atlantic type viewer, which is surely the main factor behind its critical acclaim.

watwut 5mo ago
I found the dialog fairly realistic. Maybe because I grew up in a similar country - it sounded like real world people talk. Also, events and actions were close to how reality unfolded with simplified cast of characters, basically.
- lukan 5mo ago
  Simplified characters and strongly amplified and invented extra drama and events.
- man8alexd 5mo ago
  I worked in the soviet nuclear industry (Sredmash) in the 1980s. The dialogs and characters are completely unrealistic and made me cringe. Everyone looks overemotional and infantile. The hierarchical interactions are comical - a minister would never go to talk to miners, he would just phone a subordinate and tell them to organize people, they don't need armed soldiers present to enforce something, it is not the Wild West. The authors have no clue about the soviet mentality and how soviet society operated.
  - gf000 5mo ago
    Well, how else would you show a minister giving a command to n layers of people before going to the miners on a drama show?
    - man8alexd 5mo ago
      Easy but boring. Realistically, the workers would be gathered in a hall and their immediate boss would give a speech: "The party and the government want you to serve the Motherland at this heroic moment and volunteer for a hard job. Whoever goes gets apartments ahead of the waiting list".

sebazzz 5mo ago

Yes it is very good cinematic. Unfortunately it is far from the truth.

Klaster_1 5mo ago

I also recommend Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, some of people the characters from the book are even present in the TV series.

leonidasrup 5mo ago

For a TV series the TV show Chernobyl was pretty accurate. For those who watched the the TV show, I recommend to also see an interview with an actual Ukrainian medical responder and radiation expert who was working in Chernobyl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GEPsSVpZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GEPsSVpZY Probably the best non-technical book on the Chernobyl disaster is the book "Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe" by Serhii Plokhy. It describes not only the accident, but also the whole soviet system and political, economical decisions which led to the resulting catastrophe. The most comprehensive technical report is INSAG-7 The Chernobyl Accident - IAEA. https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.p...

man8alexd 5mo ago
No, the show is not accurate. The last episode repeats the lies that Legasov told at the IAEA meeting in 1986, that were published as INSAG-1, and the show completely ignores INSAG-7. There was no drama in the control room, no indications that anything was wrong with the reactor, no power spike before AZ-5 was pressed.
- leonidasrup 5mo ago
  It was a drama TV show, not a documentary. Whey compare it with TV shows, like Simpsons or movies like The China Syndrome, it was accurate. "according to INSAG-1, the main cause of the accident was the operators' actions, but according to INSAG-7, the main cause was the reactor's design." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigations_into_the_Cherno...
  - man8alexd 5mo ago
    The TV show pretends to be historically accurate, and many people believe that it is true. I would suspect that the majority of people have no other sources of information about Chernobyl other than this TV show.
- sehansen 5mo ago

tdiff 5mo ago

It is silly how the show depicted Dyatlov as an arrogant sargeant behaving like a bully in American series about mid school kids. This alone sets the tone of a TV show that needs to have clear goodies and baddies, and obviously life is never that simple.

nephihaha 5mo ago
Most modern television tends towards caricatures and melodrama.
man8alexd 5mo ago
There is a real interview with Dyatlov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8__v9EswN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8__v9EswN4
watwut 5mo ago
I have seen real world adults behave that way. Including multiple managers. The real world Dyatlov being verbally abusive is something the show has taken from the real world. And before someone goes on about cultural difference, there are several high profile examples of American leaders/directors/business men acting in openly abusive ways.
- man8alexd 5mo ago
  "Verbal abuse" isn't a concept that existed in the Soviet Union. Giving or receiving instructions with as many "suka blyat" inserted between each word as possible wasn't abnormal.
  - watwut 5mo ago
    It was concept that existed in the Soviet Union. And yes, people complained about those, got rid of them first thing whenever they could and retaliated when they could. Soviet Union people knew the concept of "non-asshole boss" and could distinguish it from "asshole boss". They would use those terms. Where they could vote for boss (and yes they could vote for boss in some institutions) they would avoid voting for assholes (unless they expected them to be assholes to external people). This concept existed also in literature, movies, music and general entertainment. It shown up there and the "good boss" always won (else it could be constructed as a critique of the system). Asshole boss was typically foreign ennemy in disguise.

pjc50 5mo ago

I'm just about old enough to remember seeing the live coverage of this and Challenger on BBC Newsround, as a kid. Couldn't find that broadcast, but HN might enjoy BBC "On this day": http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/april/28/newsid_4486000/4486099.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/april/28/newsid_4...