The Chernobyl Podcast | Part Two | HBO 

Remember those names - the first firefighters who arrived at the scene of the explosion and started combating the fire: Vladimir Pravik - died May 11, 1986 Victor Kibenok - died May 11, 1986 Leonid Telyatnikov - lived longest among these firemen, which is a miracle in itself. Died in 2005 of Chernobyl-related cancer. Vasiliy Ignatenko - died May 13, 1986. In 2006 posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine. Nikolay Vaschuk - was instrumental in preventing fire from reaching reactor number 3. Died with the rest of his crew on the same day. Hero of Ukraine. Nikolay Titenok - died May 16, 1986. Hero of Ukraine Leonid Shavrey - miraculous recovery in the facility in Kyiv. Had bone marrow partially replaced which help the organism and DNA to fight off radiation exposure and sickness. Ivan Shavrey - the younger brother of Leonid. Also survived by miraculous treatment in Kyiv. Again, partial replacement of bone marrow. Petro Shavrey - the oldest brother. Also survived. There should be a book about this family of heroes or maybe a separate HBO movie. Alexander Lelichenko - electrician technician of Chernobyl NPP. Was responsible for preventing an additional hydrogen explosion. Received lethal dose of radiation and died on May 7, 1986. Hero of Ukraine. The first wave of firefighters consisted of 28 men in total.

"they don't allow the children to play outside. In Frankfurt..." camera pans down to children coming home from school with the emerging smoke coming from the reactor in the background. what a thrilling and horrifying episode...

Love how Boris Shcherbina (played by Stellan Skarsgård) became more and more respectful of the scientific expertise of Professor Valery Legasov (Jared Harris). Humility set in after seeing the fall of that helicopter.

I loved how when the three guys went into the water, the director uses no words but just the sound of the Geiger counter. It was just intense. And when the light goes out, I may have flat-lined. The scariest things aren't ghosts or zombies or aliens... It's always things that can actually happen.

Holy shit what a great episode. Those three guys had balls of steel to volunteer to go into that water. Ananenko, Bezpalov, Baranov. Heroes.

As a Russian I literally admire this man who made this show. It is so true, so accurate in details. That's amazing.

Thank you for mentioning the May Day parade in Kyiv. I was disappointed that it wasn't in the show, but at least some people will know because of the podcast. For a lot of Ukrainians, that was one of the biggest betrayals: not cancelling the parade.

Being from Belarus - I have such tremendous respect for the writer. Now only was he able to depict the story in such detail and accuracy, he was able to understand the soul of people from Soviet Union, and show their heroism. Absolutely amazing!

I think this series could win an Emmy.

One of the most shocking things is that 2 of these 3 Chernobyl’s heroes are still alive. One of them died 2005. This is important because press reports often that they were dead in several days. All of them were engineers, who knew the power plant perfectly. That’s the reason because they could do their mission in the whole darkness.

The musical score is spot on really compliments the eerie feeling.

I was born and raised in Kiev, the capitol of Ukraine, which is located 69 miles away from Chernobyl. That April of 1986 I just turned 12 years old, and I lived in Kiev, Ukraine for three more years after this accident! Thank you Craig Mazin! Thank you HBO! And, thank you SKY for making this miniseries and bringing this back to life with such a great group of actors, big research and amazing story script writing! This story is way way way overdue for the whole world to know and to learn! After watching the first episode I wanted to wait and see how the story will unfold into the next 24-48 hours of all events, before I comment on this! Now I feel, I can say. This show deserves nothing, but respect and appreciation! THANK YOU! April 26, 1986 was a Saturday. That time, that weekend I was outdoors, camping on the city wide type of Boy-scout competition (туристический слёт) , about 1/3 of the distance between Kiev and Chernobyl! That Saturday, was a normal day for us, full of outdoor activities, such as fire starting, tent building, trees climbing, guitar playing and yes, beer drinking too :) WE all felt to sleep exited and exhausted, thinking of packing and drugging all our camping stuff across the city in overcrowded public transportation. To our surprise, the camp wide weak up call came in 2 hours earlier, and when we got out of our tents we found our selves surrounded by city buses! (30-34 hours into the event) No comments or explanations were given. We were all loaded into those buses and taken back to the city! On Monday, everyone went back to school as we would normally do! For the next 3 weeks the live in Kiev happened as usual. We were going to school everyday, talking about, spreading rumors about possible nuclear explosion, or American nuclear attack, or some other crazy conspiracy theory, that kids could of come up with during those day. We were told to stay indoors as much as possible, keep windows shut, not to eat raw fruits and vegetables and wash our floors more often. We lived through May 1st Labor Day city parade. We were getting ready for school finals. We were dreaming about 3 months long summer vacations! To our big surprise, in the middle of May (about 3 weeks into the event) we were told that all finals are canceled and all kids grades 4-8 (10 grade schools) are being evacuated to summer camps along Black and Azov seas! And, that is how we spent most of that summer! Only small amount of population in Kiev was able to get off their jobs, grub their families and get somewhere save! Most of the Capitol city remained active, working, NOT evacuated. As I said, I was just a kid! I did not learn the whole extant of this disaster until after I left Kiev, Ukraine, USSR, moved to USA, grow up, went to college and learned the true facts of this event with proper scientific education, declassified historical records, without Soviet propaganda bullshit! Being a kid, I remember a laughing rime going around the school, amount kids, where we were about to graduate and become new generation of Soviet Citizens! This rime pretty much summarizes the general attitude of younger generation towards the Soviet system, Soviet communist party, our leaders: "Thank you, party our Dear For your kindness and your care For Peaceful nuclear reaction in our homes For 7 Renghen on Passover! Thank you, once again for this show and for following podcasts! Just a few small requests! 1. Less spoilers. In podcasts 1 & 2 few toppings were covered about things that are yet to happen in future episodes 2. Less laughing! Peter Sagal seams very exited about Soviet regime and the ways things were done down there! 3. Less comparison to America and how Americans would of act, handle things and react to event like this! Especially being exited with Soviet ways!

I used to think I knew how Chernobyl happened but because normally documentaries only show how the explosion went...I had no idea about the water tanks or the facts that there could be a much worse explosion...It's incredible this was a man-made accident. Good job making this series!

I'm from Estonia and was a child in 1986. I remember these days vividly. The first news that something big had happened came to us (inside USSR) from Finnish and Swedish seismologists detecting earthquakes from the explosions - the fact in-itself was not unusual because there were nuclear tests carried out regularly. But they concluded by the direction (Kiev) and magnitude that nobody was going to do tests in that area. They had personal connections to Estonian scientists and started to exchange data to find answers. Rumors among Estonian public started to spread immediately on Saturday, 26th of April, the day of the accident, but the accident was already a full public knowledge on Sunday, 27. of April 1986. The same day evacuations began in Pripyat and more specific information started to fall into place. Everybody was scared and nobody knew what to do - there was nothing that could be done by majority of general public and nothing was done by the Soviet governors. We had to wait for our fates and watch the nomenclature in their ignorance. It was the first time in the generation that the Soviet oppression was felt so real and in full effect, but it also felt vulnerable. Next day, we were all sent to school and work as usual, but there was a tension in the air - nobody smiled or partied these days, old war- and independence fighting stories were told by elderly. The "news" from official channels of USSR finally came on Monday evening only because they had failed to contain the information in all respects. Gorbatchov based his "glastonost" (transparency) doctrine on taking the role of publicly criticizing this "old way" of handling bad news. But he was seen as a weak leader by others (especially KGB) for selling out old nomenclature. But seeds of free journalism were planted on these days of silence that they all missed. Later updates from the Chernobyl were starting to air each evening with names and passport pictures of the fallen workers and conscripts - everybody watched the news in silence and feared name of somebody they new would appear... This in return started a massive (and nationally seen as a patriotic) desertion from Soviet army, which Red Army was not prepared to face and had no remedy for. Gorbatchov was right by saying - Chernobyl started the end of USSR.

Running to this podcast right after watching the episode

Absolutely a fantastic series. I've waited for many years hoping someone would create such an epic movie or series about Chernobyl. Thank you!

'Chernobyl' was not hyped at all so I didn't expect much from it. But Episode One held my attention and left me looking forward to Two, which I watched tonight and I'm hooked. This looks like a very well-done series, mainly because this incredibly scary event really happened.

Does anyone else agree that this podcast right after the show is the perfect ear snack? Just me?

Absolutely fantastic! As I had mentioned in the Part One podcast my wife is Russian and I am a Navy Nuclear Propulsion plant operator from the 80's and early 90's. We are both very impressed with the series. My wife was translating the poem in the beginning and the evacuation of Preterit and all was spot on. Excellent attention to detail!!

I found it interesting that there were so many women in the sciences in the USSR at that time. I wouldn't have thought that, but it makes me happy. On another note, that ending. Omfg. I was so stressed out I literally forgot to breathe. Those men were heroes, really. I'd be terrified to do what they did, tbh. Y'all deserve MULTIPLE awards for this show.

I said this in the last podcast and I’ll say it again, this series is almost completely accurate to the real life events which occur as well as the objects, vehicles, clothing, and other equipment is so amazing to see. I don’t know how you got it in such large amounts but is simply amazing seeing people walking around in the actual equipment which was used in the clean up by the Liquidators after the start of the disaster. The end of this episode was so crazy to see, cause you read about it and don’t really get the scope of how scary it was being underneath a burning RBMK-1000 reactor, and this episode just made more real and just amazing! For those who don’t know, the Firefighter’s equipment which was brought down into the basement of the hospital was so radioactive that it’s still their to this day. Sadly it can’t be seen because the entry to the basement of the hospital has been filled with dirt which for good reason, before that you could literally walk down into the basement and touch the clothing which was worn in and around the reactor.

I am still amazed and surprised to read how many people concentrate not on main tragedy of the show and detailed research, performed by its creators, but on a simple fact. The presents of a female (fictional) scientist as a lead characters in the show. If, the addition of a fictional character is not in question, after a few explanations from creators of this show, then why, people ask, this character is a woman? Looks like this bothers many people! I believe, the use of female character is another huge credit to HBO team for good research and good presentation of Soviet culture of those times! Here is a little highlight of the Soviet culture of 1980's for those, who did not know: The standard American scenario of youth integration into the society did not exist in USSR. Forget about standard: High school graduation, college parties, marriage, career, house, mortgage, minivan plan! All kids graduated 10 year school program at the ages of 16-17. At the age of 18 all boys were required to serve 2+ years in the Soviet army. Only those boys, who managed to get accepted into a 4-year colleges/universities, were excused from the army. That rule gave all boys only one chance to apply, pass all tests and get accepted, before they turn 18 and get collected for the army service. Girls, on the other hand, had 2-3 years on their hands to apply, get in and advance in schools, while boys (boyfriends, husbands) are serving in the Army. (I believe, we will see young solders of the Soviet Army later in this show) After the army service, the Soviet tradition demanded "normal citizens" to start families, get jobs to provide for those families and wait for the government to give you a free apartment to live in. Normally, young family would live with his/her parents under one roof, until government gives them a separate unit. One could not buy, sell, or build private house/unit in the city. Only "community", or "state owned" housing was allowed. In villages, away from big cities those rules could be bent and under-looked. Only a small number of boys after serving in the army were able to come home and get back into education, to get a degree. Also, an education in USSR was free, and great, and could compete with many other education systems across the world, only a small percent of people, mostly in big cities, could get a decent degree. And, if degree could guaranty one a good career, it would not make one rich. Salaries of scientist, engineers, doctors and all other professions requiring a high levels of education were government controlled, not worth an effort! No private business! People of the lover scale jobs, such as construction workers, farmers, taxi drivers and/or plumbers were making equal, or at times high pays then teachers and engineers. To cut the long story short. It was totally normal to see a man in USSR working blue color jobs full time and some more, providing for families, while woman, holding a worthless college diploma, working a cheep full time job, caring for kids, making family meals. Both parents shopping for food/goods whatever you could find at the spare time. I think, HBO picked a perfect presentation of an educated Soviet woman with no power, or influence in that system! Bravo!

My father worked in radiology department in a hospital in Czechoslovakia and their dosimeters went off and they had no idea what was happening, since other places were reporting the same thing.

Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov, and Boris Baranov are names that join Vasily Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov on my list of names that I wish I heard in school.

Ananenko, Bezpalov, Baranov are real HEROES. As a all firefighters, that was just doing their job and faced with death. And after that you realise that they were just real persons, not a movie "heroes"

This is a perfect complement to an already perfect show. Two smart people talking about the show, one of them is the creator of the show. Hard to beat!

After listening to this podcast episode, I'm dying to watch a director's cut of the series! So many great scenes waiting to be filmed.

General Pikalov was pretty badass in this episode.

This series is probably the best show out there right now imo realistic accounts of history not overly dramatized but done in a very tasteful way, the subtleties of how the Soviet union operated in the show is probably something not shown to Western audiences before

After having watched the entire series I can say that Episode 2 is my favorite. The three volunteers, especially, whose names I now vow to remember... gut-wrenching.

9:26 "Uh, everything is under control, situation normal! Uh, we had a slight reactor malfunction, but, uh, everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?"

СПАСИБО! HBO! Вы рассказали о том, о чем нам стараются не напоминать! Я из Минска, мне было 16 лет в апреле 1986. Апрель был очень теплым, мы все время находились вне квартир и домов. Принимали солнечные ванны на крыше нашего дома. Играли в волейбол во дворе. Дети выходили на прогулки в детских садах. Нам не давали йод, не предупреждали об опасности. Никто ничего не знал. У меня тогда был друг из семьи ученого из Академии наук Белоруссии, там ситуацию узнали первыми. 28 апреля он всех выгнал с крыши, где мы загорали и спас нас

Well, I am a chemist, and I need to straight one thing up: if you get irradiated it doesn't neceseraly mean that you've become a new source of radiation. Shure, a neutron flux could produce some radioactive isotopes on your body, but it's neglible. But if you get covered by dust containing radioactive nucleides - then you can be considered dangerous. Dust, that had fallen onto the clothes would primarily stan on that clothing, or just fall down. So, the firemen and other people that died from radiation sickness weren't as radioactive as we could think, especialy if they were washed. Of course, the rooms, the sheets etc. had been contamineted with this dust probably hours before anyone came up with the idea to take their clothes away, so the radiation in thoose rooms was significant. Especialy dangerous were radioactive isotopes of potassium, caesium, iodine - all of those acumulate in human body in the same way that minerals do, and from there they are practically imposible to remove, additionaly it can make a human being a source of radiation.

The reason Legasov was called in is that it was Saturday pre May 1st holidays which is huge holiday in Russia. Nobody else was around at that time

The thing I appreciate most about this series, I think, is that it stays pretty true to the actual events at Chernobyl. Sure there's embellishment, but many of these are based on something else that _did_ happen. For example, a helicopter _did_ crash when doing the boron drops into the reactor, but many people had no idea it really occurred.

I actually whimpered in terror during several parts of last night’s episode, and I know this because my son told me. This series is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

I love how the music track is done. So many movies and shows are absolutely ruined because of the music track. Good job

I remember that parade in Kiev. I was 6 years old. It was hot and sunny. I wore my best dress and had ribbons in the hair.

A true hidden gem, such a relief to watch show made with amazing love and attention to details after GOT s8 sloppy writing disaster.

Thank you Craig Mazin and the team for making such an incredible show. Not to mention HBO for continuing to support such amazing and unique content. I'm at the edge of my seat waiting for the horrific beauty of the next episode. Its hard to stomach at times thinking of the sacrifices that where made, I think everyone owes those who died fighting this disaster the respect of watching this show or at the very least informing themselves of the fallen and what they did.

Perfect attention to details! I lived in USSR those time, all furniture, small things, even sounds are real. Hairstyles and clothes make actors look very Russian! This is the best vision of that time! The only thing really wrong is threatening motivations and behaviors Komunist party bosses. A threat to "throw the scientist from the helicopter if he won't tell how reactor works" sounds comic and absurd!!! They normally made an accent in "high ideals of all mankind" in their rhetoric, that was their tool, especially in 1980-s. The worse threat was "you will go to the court as a national betrayer", yea that was most probably scary at those time.

All the harris/valery and emily scenes were incredible.

My family and I lived in the Kiev region. Then, after the explosion, we found ourselves in 4 zones, not subject to eviction. Yes, and the third as far as I know, not evicted. My daughter was 2 years old. we didn’t know anything and on May 2 our whole family worked in the garden and planted potatoes. There was a very strong wind. It seems that nature wanted to dispel as much as possible the invisible death.

I love these podcasts just as much as the miniseries!

The three men who went into the chambers to open those valves should absolutely be household names.

In the original version, it actually says the "fires". So it made even more sense. Sometig like this: "By the Russian tradition, having just scattered The fires behind them in Russian lands, Before our eyes our comrades were dying, In a Russian way, tearing the shirts from their chests."

Fun fact, there was more then 1000 busses, there was way more because they also was coming from Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia.

The actors at that second meeting with Gorbachev did a great job of conveying their horror and disbelief even though none of them said a word. Upon hearing the nightmarish news of what was about to unfold their faces really started to look pale...

" There is no stirring music, there is no tension music" Only that there is. It may not be written like music for the charts, set for piano/guitar/strings/drums/percussion instruments etc. and with lyrics, but there very much *is* music, or if you prefer: a film score, and it is used perfectly to increase tension and convey horror. Watch the first episode again, the scene on the bridge for instance, or the one at the end, and you have this sound that is permeating everything, like the radiation. In fact, I think the first times it can be heard are used to almost condition us to associate it with this invisible threat, so it can be picked up in later scenes like the one at the end to remind us of exactly that.

I needed to pause for a minute after 36:30. The final core of the plant wasn't shut down until the year 2000. Which means they had people operating the plant for decades after the disaster occurred... in a nuclear exclusion zone

Endlessly better than GoT.. this one actually deserves an Emmy.

I'm so glad with what Craig said about the cinematography and not wanting to add drama. That was my one fear when I saw the trailers, with an event like Chernobyl, you do not need to add drama!

These podcasts are an amazing addition to the show. Good move HBO

Hey. As living in Ukraine, and knowing a lot about those events, after watching the first two episodes i can say that HBO really tried. I want to apologize for my English right away. From the point of view of a feature film, this is a very high-quality approximation to reality. If anyone is interested, I can only say about some of the shortcomings noted, but I'm just amazed that there are so few of them if you don’t have to worry about very small details. 1) Apartment furnishings - they are more suitable for the 50-70s than for 1986. Of course, in the 80s such situations were in many apartments - but this is more likely in my grandmother, or in apartments of unskilled labor. Nuclear physicists were the elite of the working class of the country, for the most part they didn’t really have such an old-fashioned apartment setting. 2) Also, the appearance of many residents of Pripyat in the film reminded me of clothes on Soviet collective farms of the 70s. Pripyat was a very young city, it was not even 20 years old at the time of the accident, and the average age of residents was 26 years. And these were very successful young people by Soviet standards. In the film, they look too old-fashioned. Also, some cars, such as the Gas-51, are clearly outdated for the year 86, etc. 3) In general, there are very few Hollywood clichés in the film, but they still exist. For example, Shcherbinsky’s dialogue with Legasov in the second series, where Shcherbinsky tells Legasov that he will be thrown out of a helicopter if he doesn’t tell how a nuclear reactor works. In reality, such a dialogue could not be. Party workers had tremendous power in the country, but it was impossible to hear such expressions of speech from their mouths, throwing cheap threats around demonstrating their power, was considered to be an incredibly bad tone. It was a couple of clichés, but I don’t want to focus on them, as I will say frankly - I was expecting some typical blockbuster on a historical theme, but I saw a high-quality film with a minimum of moments to complain about.

As if it wasn't enough with the greatest mini series ever, you also give us an incredibly riveting podcast to go along with it. What have we done to deserve all this great content, HBO?

Simonov's poem was the only right thing to begin the episode with. Thanks a lot from Russia!

This TV series got me completely speechless, perfect editing, sound effects, score, and of course everybody got it right. P.S.: I would have had a sister if the Chernobyl disaster had not happened. My mom had to have an abortion, due to fear of birth defects.

WHAT A BLOODY SHOW.

I'm from Ukraine. My country was the epicenter... I watched the first episode yesterday and it made me burst into tears... It was the time of my grandparents, my mom... I can't imagine how the government could hide information about this catastrophe from people! I'm very happy that Soviet Union is gone. Unfortunately, we have a lot of older generation people who even want that time to come back. It can be clearly seen through elections :( By the way, we still have a lot of "chornobyltsi" in the country - they are that citizens from Prypiat, firemen and other stuff and they're still suffering. I wonder do you see any physical or other effects of this tragedy in your country?

I love this series so much! Before it I knew nothing about what happened at chernobyl and now I have found out so much. My god I never knew it was that bad.

I am stunned of your mini-series about Chernobyl. It’s made so realistic even for me who grew up in Soviet Union. My applause!

The score at the end could've easily been a soundtrack in the game Half Life.

Episode 1 if this podcast was great. Thank you! Continuing to delay sleep for part 2 :))

Remember as you watch this … that it really happened .. the soviets covered it up .. people died .. and many more were injured. Disasters are always confusing and chaotic in the moment. Thank you for not tying a neat Hollywood bow around it. History gives you perspective that those who lived it did not have. Nuclear power is statistically safe but when it goes wrong the payoff is unimaginably bad. Speaking from a lifelong relationship with nuclear power here. I would sum this up as a Navy nuke operator and later a career as an engineer. This topic without extensive background information is confusing to the uninitiated layman as it is so technical. Thank you for not getting lost in explaining every detail. And as someone not from Russia who has lived and worked there .. things and people in Russia look very strange to westerners who are not familiar with the culture and the people. Thank you for making the effort to portray all of this from a Russian view of things. This documentary is amazing. I have read and studied this event from a technical aspect. The show you have created is filling in all the social and bureaucratic factors which made it so bad. The Soviet mentality of hiding the truth and avoiding blame is there for all to see. Echoes of those attitudes still exist today. And last please remember that the Russian people are not represented by their government or its machinations. I have found almost everyone I worked with there to be intelligent, resilient, resourceful, imaginative and easy to admire, easy even to love.

looking at Craig's filmography... what an amazing leap forward from things like Scary Movie 3/4

Fantastic series, I wish I didn't know about it until it was fully released. I CAN'T WAIT.

what an amazing 2nd episode I was riveted - all the officials were seriously deluded and refused to listen to the experts. Stellan Skaarsgard is superb as is Emily Watson. Wow.

Absolutely outstanding series. Should win plenty of awards. Skarsgard, Harris and Watson were amazing to watch. I cannot convey how good this series is, or how much I truly enjoyed it.

It is utterly chilling to watch,like watching some dreadful accident in the most exquisitely horrible slo-motion imaginable,yet I cannot tear myself away from it. Just based on the two episodes so far this deserves to win awards.

The ending got me, so intense

Mad props to Craig Mazin for Boris' character arc, absolute perfection.

I loved the "Yes I was worker and now I have the power" scene. It encapusalted perefectly what was wrong with the core idea of the soviet union.

This series is on the level of band of brothers. So thrilling. Have been waiting for a long time on a series about these subject. Watched a lot of video’s about the accident and exploring all the sites. Really can recommend Bionerd channel.

Craig Mazin's a genius! Thanks a lot for this master piece!! The podcast is an equally essential part of the mini series that does a wonderful job of explaining many aspects of the miniseries which we as audience often want answers for. It's also amazing to understand how even the fictional parts of the mini series are well thought and not just pure imagination to drive the episode in an interesting way. Thank you again, the experience I have had in the past 2 episodes is beyond conceivable!

I've been waiting for a series like this since I read "Voices of Chernobyl" and watched "Seconds from Disaster". I've been fascinated by the events and learned everything I could about it. The whole scene of the poor plant workers staring into the fissioning reactor, and the image and sound..... the firefighters dropping, and the staggering amount of denial by everyone in the gov't and various boards..... You've got a work of art here!

Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov, and Boris Baranov ...Rest In Peace. These 3 men made the ultimate sacrifice and stopped the disaster from becoming worse. They saved millions of lives.

I love the explanation of the score. I couldnt figure out why i felt SO creeped out the whole time and I now realize it was specifically because of the sound track. Crazy

This show is incredible. Thank you for making it.

They didn't say what was amazingly well done was the end of episode two when, appart from lights going off, we could only hear a single sound: the geiger counters going crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier!

Yo HBO, tell Mazin to do Fukushima next

I 'm from Romania and nobody ever talked about this in Europe especially in Eastern European countries. 3 men saved the entire population of Poland/ Romania/ Ukraine/ Belorusia and Letonia... these men are heroes that should have statues and parades named in their honor. of course there were so many other that helped at the plant and died but these 3 men stopped that second fatal explosion that could've wiped the half of the European and Asian continent.. just to think about the fact that I should've been dead already or never borne at all in 1990 if not for those 3 courageous people it's mind blowing.

And the divers actually survived, that's the most unbelievable part of the true story

Great series, I'm learning more about the disaster and I've been fascinated by it for years.

This is how you write and direct an award winning show.. putting all that effort into the small details pays off immensely. this show is fantastic

This show is hauntingly amazing, and I applaud the cast and crew for bringing it to life.

Will HBO do a Fukushima mini series next?

generation kill, band or brothers, the Pacific, now Chernobyl! GOD DAMNED HBO YOUR MY FAVOURITE CHANNEL!

I love these podcasts, discussing every scene, giving more insights, this is something you want to come and hear this

The ending of the second episode I can't think of a scarier way to die in the dark in radioactive water

“They kinda just forgot about the Nuclear reactor”

I can’t say enough about this excellent miniseries!! Kudos to everyone who worked on it! It’s wonderful how we can now get to understand the heroism of those who carried out their assignments knowing that they would soon be dead. You have honoured the memory of everyone who died!

The increasing sound of the Geiger counter at the end of the episode will haunt me in my dreams

Awesome series and podcast. Well done HBO and friends. Much food for thought in this series.

It is so well done , and the podcast is the perfect companion to the series .

I WATCHED MANY DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT CHERNOBYL. THESE FIREFIGHTERS WERE THE MEN OF STEEL AND BRAVERY. TRUE HEROES.

45:33 -- How could you have left out the dosimeter going crazy during this scene? That would would've made the scene even more EPIC!!!

It's strangely satisfying to hear Craig saying "Correct"

I have been in love with this setting since exploring it in the Stalker series years ago. The last 2 episodes have been absolutely fantastic, I can't believed what happened back then.

They kept the other 3 reactors running??? It completely blows my mind. As he says, with the sound of helicopters flying overhead dumping sand and boron into the split-open reactor 4, right next door, and they kept the other 3 running. It beggars belief.

Thank you for this epic work. I was born 600km from disaster one month after. Amazing work in creating that atmosphere, it is epic. No people who speak Russian will watch evacuation scene without tears. Thank you, we need work like this to unite all smart people in all balkanized countries.