Chernobyl - Sky/HBO Mini-Series

Anyone watching this show?
I’ve got through the first 3 eps and it’s pretty amazing so far.
Part drama, documentary and horror rolled in to one. I’m fascinated by what happened at Chernobyl and they effect it still has on the world today (and for a long time to come).
Just how close things were to being a lot, lot worse is chilling.

Amazingly acted and shot. Can’t wait for ep4!

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I was lucky enough to see the preview at bafta (don’t ask) and it is absolutely incredible. One of the finest pieces of television drama I’ve ever seen.

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Seen the first one so far. It is fucking intense. Very good but hard to watch

I’d forgotten about this, thanks for the reminder!

I’m just finishing up reading Chernobyl Prayer which is one of the most genuinely heartbreaking but beautiful books I’ve ever read.

It’s a series of monologues from people who lived through the disaster in various different ways. Honestly can’t recommend it enough.

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It’s the best thing on telly by a mile at the moment. Each episode more horrific than the last. The bit at the end of episode 2 where the screen is going black as the radiation meters squeal louder and louder is the stuff of nightmares.

Im loving it, any chance you get to see emily watson is a real treat.

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Read this a few years ago and it’s stayed with me - an astonishing book.

I would also recommend The Unwomanly Face of War, another collective oral history by Alexievich but about female soldiers in the Soviet armies during WWII - similarly it is full of fascinating and haunting details that other history books wouldn’t touch on.

We just caught up on the TV series (ep 3) and it’s great. What a nightmare. Although I had some idea of the civilian and cleanup worker experiences from Chernobyl Prayer, most of the official stuff is new to me - the powers that be trying to downplay things, apportion blame, and avert even more unthinkable disaster by the skin of their teeth. Very ugly, and very frightening.

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If you’re fascinated by Chernobyl, and you should be because it is fascinating, go there. Went 4 years ago when visiting Kiev and it is one of the strangest places I’ve ever been to, especially the abandoned city of Pripyat that is less than 1km from the plant.

Remember watching a documentary on the coach that took us there, pointing out how close it came to a nuclear holocaust - the Soviet Union, who were notoriously secretive, absolutely shat it, asking for help, and Hans Blix turned up to help put out the fire spreading to the next reactor. Had the fire spread, causing a further, much bigger explosion, the resulting fallout would have resulted in the whole of Western Europe having to evacuated!

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What is it, a doc or dramatisation or bit of both?
Edit - haha read the whole post you clown.

holy shit, somehow I’ve never heard about that.

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They touch upon the near 2nd explosion in the series and that fact a large area of Europe could have become uninhabitable. I would love to visit the area. It would be an amazing experience.

I remember being inspired by this old blog post someone mentioned on another site many years ago: my motorbike
(Chapter links at the foot of the pages)

I’m also reading this at the moment: Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241349028/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RXy6CbBH9DA7V

What the actual disaster or the tv show?

no I’d never heard that evacuation of western Europe was a real possibility

Ooooh shit. This is definitely mine to get now.

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Done.

So basically I work in nuclear power. Or did. And chernobyl is one of the only Level 7 incidents ever (Fukushima Daachi being the other one) and it is so interesting to hear the stories.

BTW the UK had an incident. Level 5, called the Windscale Fire.

The UK was saved by Cockcroft’s Folly, added at the last minute, and widely mocked. My last job was to help safely demolish it, which is currently happening.

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Some of the monologues are from clean-up workers, others from scientists, some just from people in the wider affected area about what it’s meant for their lives.

I don’t quite know how to explain it but just giving people the space to talk about their experiences feels humane somehow. And the observations and some of the phrasing are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever read. There are moments when it’s just stopped me dead in my tracks.

I feel like I knew a lot more about the factual side and the kind of cultural impact - for want of a better phrase - than I did about what it meant for the people living in and around Pripyat and across the affected area of Belarus.

I’ve started composing some music sort of inspired by it all. It’s been a long time since a book of any kind has had this deep of an impact on me. Hoping I can do it justice.

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SHIT ON IT

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This is shitting me right up.

Naked miner crew chief is an absolute legend.

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svetlana alexivitch is extremely good, anyone with an interest in post war soviet history should read her. i also recommend second hand time and boys in zinc by her too. oral histories again, first is about collapse of the soviet union and 2nd is about the soviet war in afghanistan. heartbreaking and amazing work.

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