Chernobyl

My husband grew up near Kyiv and his father drove one of the buses that evacuated the civilians from Pripyat. I have heard his stories of the disaster; the people's concerns, fears and sacrifices. We watch this together and he is amazed at it's authenticity. The set detail, the way the Soviet regime hierarchy functioned, the denial and secrecy surrounding the disaster. He tried (as he usually does when watching a Western production based in or about that part of the world) to find errors or inconsistencies but has not been able to - yet.

The acting is impeccable by all, the filming is top notch, the sounds used to heighten the tension versus music. The way they are able to capture that exact feeling of anxiety, horror, disgust and sadness all rolled into one is admirable.

I have completed the series and it definitely ranks as one of the best. This story has been waiting to be told and there is hands down no one better than HBO to do it. Russia has said it intends to produce its own Chernobyl program, it will be interesting to compare the two. Theirs will purportedly label the CIA as the perpetrator....

As my mother tells it, the weather was quite nice, the sky was clear without any sign of clouds in the spring of 1986. It was like any other day behind the iron curtain. Not a lot to do but not a lot to worry about either, a long day of boring work after dropping the kid off at the kindergarten, just to pick him up again at the afternoon, just like yesterday or any other day since the beginning of time. This is why she did not understand why the old lady (who she very much liked because she seemed to love children and had that neverstopping smile) told everyone at the nursery school not to let the children out to play, don't feed them the veggies and don't let them drink the milk we had for every lunch before that day. We lived in a hungarian town close to the croatian border and the life in that town was pretty simple apart from that day. We lived 900 kms from Chernobyl and we did not even know that place exists until 3 days later.

Apparently a man who did not introduce himself called most of the schools and nurseries in the country and told them the same message. A lot of teachers did not take it seriously as he did not mention any details, just the warning: do not let the children out, do not feed them any vegetables which grows overground (potatoes are fine), do not let them drink anything apart from bottled liquids.

Noone knew what it was about. Noone knew what danger we are in. I assume this is why it was such a shock. The life was simple and we were not supposed to know stuff. We were not supposed to be afraid, maybe only because the capitalist pigs over the iron curtain. But something changed that day. A faceless, nameless man risked his life and called everyone he could to warn them about Chernobyl. News like this is not easy to contain, soon everyone was talking about what could happen and why. Is it a nuclear attack? Is it the CIA? Are they looking at us from satelites? Are they bombing us?

It was the first crack on the Iron Curtain. Not Reagan's stupid monologue, not the thousands of fleeing east-germans, not the soviets economy's ridiculous debts. Entire nations realized their lives mean nothing, millions felt betrayed. A man with no name defeated the Soviet regime with a few telephone calls.

We still don't know who that man was. After 30 years and a few inquiries we have no clue who risked his life to prevent thousands of deaths and millions of illnesses. Some historians are adamant the person was executed and vanished without a trace, some say noone found him at all. All I know I have to be grateful for him. We all have to be. He saved a nation. Sure, we could survive the radioactive cloud the mild wind blew over our country but when I look at my two children who are the same age I was back then I am pretty sure I am not willing to take any risks. Would you?

Dear anonymous man who defied a violent regime to save millions: We will forever be grateful. Dear ukranian workers whose names we will never know: We will forever be grateful. The workers whose names we know: We will forever be grateful.

This show tells a story noone should forget and this is the right way to tell it. Bluntly. How the man with no name told us.

I was born in Ukraine, 1971. Parents - Soviet "intelligentsia": mother was a high school teacher, father - medical doctor in the military. By the time it happened, we lived near one of the strategic nuclear missile site deep in Siberia. Every year, during the summer school break we used to go to Ukraine, where we spent most of vocation. It should have been the same in 1986, but Chernobyl happened. Official info reiterated that there is nothing to worry about, unless you are in the vicinity of reactor itself. But we all had learned to read between the lines and my farther used his military channels to find out EXACTLY what kind of catastrophe was taking place. He had some info from KGB guys themselves. However, he was reassured that Kiev and certain parts of Ukraine was free of the nuclear fallout and the level of the radioactivity was within normal urban level. He was also clearly warned where NOT TO GO under any circumstances: North-West of Ukraine and big part of Belarus was a heavy fall-out zone. They also mentioned some European countries. Needless to say, that nobody else was talking about this on TV. We made a decision not to change our plans for the summer, but keep in mind those warnings.Each of us had DKP-50A - dosimeter that measures the exposure dose of gamma radiation. We checked the data afterwards and all measures were withing normal limits or less. I remember though, that it was restricted to collect mushrooms or wild berries in the forests anywhere in Ukraine. Any dusty environment was considered dangerous. All water wells were sealed with plastic etc etc Mini series exceeded my expectations. Authors put quite an effort to correctly depict intricate details of this catastrophe. As other reviewers already mentioned, I had noticed so far ( 3 episodes) only minor discrepancies in the overall image of the life in the USSR. People, behavior, political relations etc. Example of such a minuscule inaccuracy - officials, let along common folks, didn't use "comrade" as frequently as it might seems from the episodes. It was very formal, official form of addressing. Usually, after first meeting, they addressed each other by the first AND middle name. In the military it was different - "comrade" + rank (as in modern Russia, BTW). I'm looking forward to see the rest. I am thankful to the authors and actors for their job. My deep bow to those who lost their lives and health, saving millions of lives. EVERYONE should watch this show and see for himself the kind of horror that can be unleashed in the nuclear war.

Im ukrainian, born in 1988 and still live here. I want to give the authors of this show a big thumbs up for the whole set they have made. Every little detail of the buildings, flats, uniforms, clothes, cars, especially big thumbs up for ambulance "RAFiks" (RAF-2203), almost everything is 99% identical to the real things of the time, just a few mistakes on some signs that have been written in a mix of russian\ukrainian and some other unknown language, but it all doesnt matter, because what i have seen previously in other movies about soviets were so bad that its not even comparable to this. The other thing is this "comrade" word that almost everyone throws while calling or shouting at someone, its just one of those stereotypes thats still left in western world, in reality no one in an everyday life talked like that, especially not in Ukraine in 1986, it was mainly used in 'official' language in meetings and media, people just talked like you and i would today. Apart from this two small inaccuracies i am shocked at the level of production of this show, it is very good, no one outside of Ukraine has ever made a good tv series about Chernobyl before, i have a weird feeling it was made by someone from USSR, because there was zero moments where i cringed watching it. It was mostly "spot on", "spot on", "wow, spot on". Can't wait for the next episode!!!

A Belarusian here, born in 1983. Parents were scientists, knew everything on the 27th. Chernobyl is never forgotten in Belarus and all the details of the tragedy (a flawed reactor, Soviet style apparatchiks in control, a failed experiment, a clumsy cover-up) are widely known. Yet the series managed to depict the horrible events in a way never before seen. A definite tour de force, I had to literally pause a couple of times to comprehend what had just been shown. Goose bumps and tears, what a masterpiece. Likvidatory - heroes, who contained Chernobyl - should never be forgotten.

Grim Soviet atmosphere depicted accurately apart from some very very minor details. Surprised that a Swedish director who made music videos for Madonna and his English-speaking cast managed to portray Chernobyl events better, than anybody from the countries most traumatized by the explosion.

The tragedy will live forever because of this haunting masterpiece, what a brilliant creative achievement.