Chernobyl Show vs Reality - Footage Comparison 

That sound of radiation meter through out the Series is enough to equal 100 thriller suspense horror movies

Those miners, divers, firefighters etc. are real life heroes...

It’s freaky to think that picking up just a tiny stone of graphite for even a second, you’d be dead within a week.

Man I had no idea there’s actual footage of that helicopter falling apart. This whole series is so haunting

The scene with the three volunteers going into the reactor basement, wading through the water with just the sound of the dosimeters going off the scale, with no dialogue, just sheer panic, is one of the most humbling, aniexty inducing and inspiring scenes I have seen. I felt so many emotions I needed a day or two just to process it. Masterful film making.

everybody gangsta till the control rods start jumping up and down

I was surprised to see the real footage of the helicopter falling apart in the air. I though they did that to make the series more dramatic and interesting

My grandfather was one of the people cleaning the rooftop of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor... He was allowed to go up there for only one minute and never come back since the radiation was so high... After that he spent about a month helping in the civilian areas. Edit: *He was a builder in his daily life, so perhaps he was helping filling places with cement or stuff like that. That's at least what his daughter (my mother) tells me...* He passed away few years ago without ever telling me this story, I learned it through USSR documents I found thanking him for his contribution...

Rip all the people who died in Chernobyl and the people who where there to clean up the mess

Velary Lagasov - Man who literally saved millions but was completely removed from history untill HBO - Chernobyle series came.

"Don't let them suffer." "I did everything right." "In one week, you'll be begging for that bullet." "In five years, we'll be dead."

Great show. I lived in Kiev when Chernobyl happened. Kiev is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) away. I was only 13 at the time. They didn't tell us about Chernobyl on April 26th. On May 1st there was a parade in Kiev and still we had no idea. Then finally they decided to let us know but they downplayed the whole thing and people were not aware about how dangerous it was. God knows how much radiation we got. We moved to US in 1990. My mother had a thyroid cancer but she is still alive. I was watching this show knowing that my whole family was only 62 miles away from this hell. The interesting fact was that we found out about Chernobyl from my mother's sister who lives in US. She called my mother and told her about the disaster.

Those soviet cameras had better quality than some smart phones nowdays

From what I've heard, one thing HBO portrayed incorrectly was the sheer incompetence of Soviet medics, while in reality all of them were trained to deal with radiation poisoning. There were special radiology brigades in local hospitals.

The two emotional parts in HBO’s Chernobyl series was the scene where they buried the firefighters in pure cement and in another scene where they were shooting the dogs, even puppies because of the animals having radiation exposure.

Hi, I was there. I was a kid at the time. This series has been amazing. It was pirated and spread across Russia almost immediately and has been key to survivors getting together and forming community. Story telling really is key to connection. Thanks for this, man. It made me cry a little.

Ey, my grandpa was there on that roof cleaning all that radiation...he is sadly dead now.

Scarier than any horror film, because it was true horror.

4:28 HBO went to the past and brought the real people

This show was one of the most visceral experiences I have ever had on TV. I can easily say that it is the best TV show ever been made. The realism in the shots, the acting, the pace. Absolutely amazing.

In Soviet Russia, we make mini series about HBO

it's my country , it's my pain, it's my unhealed wound. I was 6 when it happened, but I remember everything. I was live in Kiev and was on May 27 at the children's playground with my friend. It was beautiful warm morning. I remember the green juicy grass and the smell of cherry blossoms.

As a Russian, I can admit that this Chernobyl series is excellent in terms of visual quality and perform such important attention to minor details as an exact numbers on cars or correct signboards, e.t.c... I even found the clock from the Gorbachev's table to be the same as ones of my great-grandmother. Althought I gave it well-deserved 10 points on IMDB, nothing is pure perfect, so I'd advice ones who got hooked by this accident to explore more materials, soviet videos and footage. The book 'Voices from Chernobyl' deserves your attention as well. The series plot by itself is well-matched to actual events but has some flaws which I'd consider to be significant. Whatch and enjoy then, but don't take everything as a pure facts.

You are dealing with something that has never ocurred in this planet before.

Wait who was holding the cameras on the roof? *WHO WAS HOLDING CAMERAS ON THE ROOF*

I remember always laughing at jokes about Chernobyl, looking for movies and games based on this place. Now after watching the miniseries I've finally realized how horrible it was and how many lessons I need to take in my life.

I, as the liquidator of the accident at the nuclear power plant, want to say about the series. In general, the series liked, but there is a lie ... 1. We almost did not drink vodka. Before work drank 50 grams for courage. Not more. In the evening, they drank red wine half a bottle per person to remove radionuclides. But we drank mineral water in thousands of boxes. And it was her who should have been shown, and not vodka. 2. The scene when the minister came to agitate the miners is shit. Never in the USSR did ministers go in support of machine gunners, machine gunners never pointed weapons at people. Cranberry. 3. “I’ll throw you out of the helicopter if you don’t tell me how the reactor works” is also a lie. 4. As soon as they measured the radio, they immediately began to take out the inhabitants, but they did not tolerate it until the last due to secrecy. But in general, the series is good

After watching the series I asked my mom if she remembers something from that time. She was at time a sort of intern nurse in a hospital in our country Finland. In a maternity ward they were dealing with birth defects and suspected defects caused by the accident.

I was in Chornobyl on May 26, 1986. My mother worked in Chernobyl for 1.5 years, got a disability. Died at 53 years of life. The film is absolutely authentic.

4:28 that scene...so accurate man..

In Belarus, on medical records there is a line “participant in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident”. And there is still some radiation in Belarus

My aunts husband was one of the first liquidators at Chernobyl right after the explosion. He was an engineer, that work on decontamination and constructing and building the water barriers with dams and water filtration systems so the contaminated ground waters and water from plants cooling ponds and channels didn't seep into Pripyat river and later into a Dnepr river. In 1990 my aunt gave birth to her daughter, my cousin. She was born with leukemia and died in 1996. In 2001 my aunt's husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At the time me and my parents were already living in US, so he was coming to America to get his treatment. Unfortunately he died in 2008 in automobile accident. My aunt now lives in US as well.

I swear I learned more about this event in 6 episodes than I ever had in my years of schooling

Wow. That helicopter shot. Thank you for this Thomas.

Holy hell... I couldn't tell which footage was which at times.

I visited Chernobyl a couple of years before this show came out, and distinctly remember stumbling upon an overturned bus in the scrap yard with all the liquidation vehicles etc. This thing was smashed to pieces but stood out for some reason. I have pictures of it. Then when the show aired it turned out to be the exact bus the miners were brought in on, right down to the numberplate iirc. Unbelievable attention to detail.

One inaccuracy that jumped at me right away: when Shcherbina threatened to throw Legasov out of the helicopter on their way to the powerplant. 1 - it’s not 1930s anymore, you just don’t do that to a prominent scientist and a member of the Academy of Sciences. Didn’t feel authentic. 2 - it didn’t even seem necessary for the scene, it didn’t add anything. But the overall attention to details is ludicrous. To the point of manic obsession. Even the number plates on the cars that drive around Pripyat are accurate - they belong to Kiev oblast. Who in their right mind would even bother with this for the series that’s aired primarily in the USA. Hats off to the people behind the miniseries

1:25 OH MY GOD. 😱

Absolute respect for everyone who did all they could to work through the Chernobyl tragedy.

I visited Chernobyl powerplant as well as Pripyat in 2014. I felt chills while watching this mini series. It is a masterpiece. Thank you HBO

Great video! I’m now officially obsessed with the Chernobyl disaster

Thousand of Chernovyl Kids were taking to Cuba for medical treatment and detox , a town called Tarara , east of Havana . They miss that part on this series . The children come from areas downwind from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986, and to their families Cuba offers both a refuge and a hope for better health. Known as Tarara, the seaside camp outside Havana is one of the last vestiges of Communist solidarity with the former Soviet Union. It had been used as a summer camp for Cuban schoolchildren, but it was devoted to children affected by the Chernobyl explosion after a Soviet call for international assistance after the accident

I live in China, I was watching this show January/February 2020 when Covid was out of control. The similarities (government cover up, not knowing what was going on and what would happen) were scary.

For anyone wondering, yes, geiger counters had a massive boom in sales after this show.

while watching the series, it was hard to remember that it all happened, like the chopper scene, and the 90 seconds, its nearly impossible to believe it happened, but it did, and that is what makes real-life-based series brilliant

I can’t help but think of the Covid pandemic when I think of _“What is the cost of Lies?”_ So many lives lost at the lies of Governments all over, depending on their responses.

the reality is, that surviving liquidators today receive a pension of 72$

So many of my Polish family have died because of Cancer and Thyroid issues due to Chernobyl. This is why this show is hard for me to watch. But man it seriously is the best mini series there has ever been. The attention to detail is just insane. Gave me goosebumps the entire watch time.

The decision to link the show so strongly to a podcast (even massively promoting the podcast at the end of each episode) discussing the real history and how the show differs from it was a interesting one, for me. One excellently highlighted by your video. Vaguely reminded me of documentary master Eduardo Coutinho and his discussions about the artificiality and dramatizations of documentaries brought upon by the impossibility to capture "reality" (which in truth, is a fiction as of itself). Keep up the good work!

“These are the most important 90 seconds of your life,” I told my gf the same thing

As a Russian I'd say that HBO did an amazing job of creating Soviet atmosphere. My mom, which was actually living in Soviet time and had suffered from Chernobyl plant's - poisoned rain, says the same. I'm surprised that there was no such great film or series created about these horrifying events by our guys.

I was born april 23rd 1986, in USSR. About 500km, or 300miles away. Have friend with physical anomalies like missing fingers, and this show looks so authentic that I cannot believe it was done by a different country, every single detail, its just unbelievable.

RIP to all those brave personalities who worked over there and they knew before that the consequences are fatel.

I watched the whole 1hr interview with Dyatlov and I think HBO did him very dirty portraing him as a heartless monster.

This show makes you think. Even today, lies are happening. It's just different circumstances, but it's still the same cost. Lives!

I find it incredible how similar the show shots are to the real video. Really outstanding work IMO

Craig Mazin did such an amazing job with Chernobyl and now The Last of Us is turning out to be an equally impressive success. His attention to small details is great but even more outstanding is that, when he does alter and adapt stories, all of the changes seem meaningful. One of the few people I've seen really nail dramatic embellishment while never pushing it too far beyond believability.

I can count on my hand how many times I’ve been to Chernobyl It’s 14

Скорбим и любим тех кто боролся с этой катастрофой , ликвидаторы спасибо вам ! Низкий поклон и земля вам пухом.....

5:11 i just thought of something i think that scene was not ment to be used as the front cover for Chernobyl but they realized how cinematic it was and used it anyway .

4:51 You vs The guy she tells you not to worry about

This is called hyper professionalism.

This series is amazing. It should get Oscar. I watched it 3 times and every time I notice new details. They even have pens from that time. And the best is that British actors look like Russians/Ukrainians. This series is a water to my reactor.

Loved This! Thanks Thomas, I already kind of knew how much attention to detail the creators had put. But after watching this this makes me appreciate this show on whole other level. Thanks again for continuing to put out quality content. I always look forward to your videos. 😃👏🙏

Damn. When she said "А там люди есть?" (Are there people?). It kinda got in my heart.

That series was excellent. Probably the first time it should have more episodes. Also, when I watch something that has a historical value, I very often search to confront it to reality. That documentary was informative. Thanks.

Visually the series was incredibly accurate in representing the time period, locations and events (for the most part). My only gripe was that they made Dyatlov such an ahole where in reality he was a very competent nuclear engineer who wasn't yelling at all his subordinates all the time and calling them idiots and who knew immediately that something was catastrophically wrong as soon as the explosion occurred. Prior to that, there was no indication that an explosion was imminent and all the people in the control room were pretty chill. They just had no idea about the flaws in the reactor design and that there would be a positive void coefficient created or that scramming the operation would set off the explosion. There is a video where before he died he talks about what happened and it's pretty interesting as the comments about telling Viktor Bryukhanov about the severity of the incident and seeing graphite and that Bryukhanov decided that there was nothing wrong, not him. He also comments about the fact that the committee created to investigate what happened was overseen by the designers of the reactors who would never admit that there was a fault in its design as they had a vested interest to keep their careers and admitting fault in the design would threaten Soviet stability and Europe and the US would force the Soviet Union to shut down all the other power reactors at the time. He was made the scapegoat. The show and HBO ran with him being an ahole and the main villain because he did at one point earlier in the day of the accident threaten to fire someone if they didn't go through with the test that night. Valery Legasov was also a bit different in real life and all the scientists brought in to help were condensed into the character of Ulana Khomyuk. The rest of the people involved including the general who drove the truck to check the level of radiation, the general in charge of the liquidators and everything to do with that was spot on. The only change was where Legaslov talks with the general about the roof cleanup and using robots was changed to educate the audience as the general already knew about it as in reality the 3 locations of the roof and their levels of radiation severity were named after the general's granddaughters and not by Legaslov.

One of the things that stood out for me is that the government early on used the term, “misinformation,” on things that were actually real. That’s a term I had never heard prior to 3 years ago. Shows you where we’re at

Watching the series is just haunting. It's so hard to believe that all that stuff actually did happen. What a world.

one thing that surprised me the most is that almost evey scene in comparison uses identical if not the same set of clothes and object also the actors has identical face and hairstyles with the real on too.

At 1:21 that's not Legasov, but Anatoly Ligachev, a radiometry specialist

This sort of thing works a lot better if you don't also make large storyline modifications. After the show came out many surviving people that were working the Chernobyl disaster were interviewed about the accuracy. The two biggest thing are that the miners said that they never all got naked to dig the tunnel and the military never brought in brand new troops to roam the streets shooting the pets of people that were evacuated.

Highly recommend the podcast as a companion to this incredible show. I hope it sweeps the Emmys.

They didnt actually film anything for the show, just made the old footage HD, its honestly incredible how close to the real deal they got

ironic that a show with a message about how lies are bad relied on lies about the dangers posed by Chernobyl to make things more dramatic.

I wonder in the first scene how the camera worked normal on the original screen if that spot on the roof was the most radiation level? how did not fryed the circuits of the camera?

When those three men were wading in the contaminated water in the dark... and their flashlights went out......very chilling!

It's the scenes they added to the historically accurate ones that really made this series, like the one showing kids unknowingly playing in radioactive fallout... That shit's gonna haunt me 'til I die...

"These are the most important 90 seconds of your life."

3:40 Damn they got every detail right here BUT for some mysterious reason they changed the name of the program from "Time" to "News", which for an English-speaking viewer is pointess anyway

There were times when I could not tell the two apart

In case if somebody really cares. There is an error on 0:33 Instead of "Подымай НАШ состав" should be "Подымай НАЧ состав". НАЧ is a shortened word for "начальствующий" (people who are in charge, or shortly - boss). Subtitles are translated in the rigth way - "wake up bosses".

Why do people call it HBO's Chernobyl when Sky made the show? HBO only partially funded it.

I lived Soviet Estonia then, aged 15. in fact we heard the news first from overseas Finnish TV, not from Soviet Central TV. I did afraid the rain would bring radioactivity right into my head, especially as 1. May was coming. Later came rumors about reservists called to military exercise were sent to Chernobyl instead...

I must salute my grandfather as he passed away due to cancer which was caused by his service in Chernobyl. May he rest in peace.

The show is shockingly accurate. It’s nearly an actual recreation. That is unbelievable.

I just started watching the HBO series and was wondering if there was any real footage to compare it to. It’s surprising how closely it is made to the real events.

*World Rate Center : We're one of the most sadesst events on this planet.* Chernobyl : Hold my mother frickin *Graphite* ...

I always wondered: "Why was this series made at this time? Why now? Why not earlier?" Sure, it might've been the time the creator took interest in it, but I also believe it's because we needed it now. Many people are choosing to believe the lies they are being told because they are too afraid of the truth. They are so ignorant that they don't understand that they should be infinitely more afraid of the lies than they ever should the truth.

Everyone says the heli failed due to radiation, but reality said it looks like it hit the cable on the crane

I live in the country right next to the Ukraine, I wasnt born yet when this happened but my parents remember this very well. Big moment in our history 😞

I love how the camera keeps zooming in and out every scene in reality, it gives me vibe of some old sitcoms

my father could have been sent to Chernobyl but he was too young at the time by matter of months, but most of his friends were sent to Chernobyl and most died of got ill

We watched the series with a friend who was in the radio intelligence group in Chernobyl. We were both laughing when the officials appeared with guards armed with machine guns. This is nonsense, they would have these AK's shoved up in their asses. Complete misunderstanding of relations and subordination in USSR.

I'd love to hear the actual pep talk the boss gave the shovelers. There's already the difference in the computer readout between "let the Bosses know" (real life) and "we must let the People know" (Chernobyl (2019)).

HBO should do a mini series on Tiananmen Square

Wow the HBO Chernobyl vs reality footage is so crazy similar that one could almost think they used the real footage for some parts of the show.

Просто пара деталей. И, нет, я не русский. Я беларус. Just a couple of details. And no, I'm not Russian. I am Belarusian. In fact, Legasov told the whole truth back in Vienna. The International Commission re-investigated in 90 and confirmed the staff’s guilt. RBMK complied with international safety standards, Karl! The norms of the 80s, but the whole world agreed with them. To be "naked" in Russian does not mean to be literally "naked." Suffice it to be only in his underpants, to be told about you that you are naked. The minister who came for the miners was 59 years old, and he himself worked at the mine from the age of 15 ... And by 27 he headed the mine.

The Cameraman running around and shooting on the roof , how come the footage is so clean ?

Many lose their minds on fantasy shows, but this one is one of the best I’ve ever seen.