This Is MENTAL! Chernobyl Episode 1 REACTION - " 

I was a Child when this happened..and here in Sweden Scientists told us not to eat Berries&Mushrooms or eat Deer&Moose meat for many years after this accident.. The affected atoms in the Air carried radiation here and poured it down on us in the following Rains.. Stellan Skarsgård and some of the Swedish actors remember this event themselves, but we never understood the details and severity until many years later.. I can only imagine the fear People in the Chernobyl area must have felt...thnx for sharing !!

So excited to see you reacting to this series. It's so, so good. The soundtrack adds so much to the series. The composer, Hildur Guonadottir used sound recordings of actual nuclear power plants as a part of the soundtrack. Those low, moaning sounds you hear as a part of the score are actual sounds from power plants. This is a really powerful show. You will love it!

Thanks, Wilson! Thanks, EJ! ☢ This series is top-tier... very true to what happened (a parade of ignorance and ego leading to unnecessary suffering)... and very visceral. I hope lessons of respect-of-science, importance-of-prevention and compassion are learned by everyone who watches.

I was one year old when this happened, living in Czechoslovakia. I have a friend who was born the same year as the accident with several physical disabilities. Doctors believe that it could have been connected to the Chernobyl disaster. This disaster affected millions of people in big or smaller way. And everything was made infinitely worse by the cover-up and the indifference of the people in power in the SSSR.

He said, "but we did" (do something wrong), because it exploded. He was thinking that they must have done something wrong, otherwise this wouldn't have happened.

Thanks guys for selecting this one. I remember the Chernobyl disaster very well.

"Is this the explosion? I thought that would have been the finale or something." Exactly! It's a great example of incredible story-writing. We START with the explosion (the thing the audience already knows about), deal with the aftermath, and unravel the mysteries in the following episodes. Just as the people who experienced the disaster would have to work backwards to figure it all out.

This show and Dark are the two shows I always search for new reactors to. :)

Keep in mind, the danger of radiation to the people is intangible, whereas the fear of the Soviet party punishment is absolute. My favorite part of this series is how each character's fear of the state is gradually replaced by fear of radiation - some sooner, others later.

Them tasting metal was not because of metallic particles in the air but your taste buds reacting to high radiation exposure. Also could be symptomatic of brain damage as well.

Yeah, this can be a hard, frustrating watch because of the state of denial getting in the way of dealing with the real issues at the plant, but the series is so well done.

Fun fact. the reason the high range decimator was locked in a safe was because equipment theft was a serious issue in the USSR. Because the USSR was a command economy, ie no market. So a Black Market formed which could get you anything you needed/wanted because the State owned Stores didn't sell much, and private stores didn't exist outside the black market. Issue is Rubles were worthless on the Black Market because the currency was ridiculously inflated in the USSR. People often referred to the Ruble as Monopoly Money in the USSR as a result. The Communist party tried to hide the inflation behind Price Fixing but that only meant people had plenty of money but nothing to spend it on. So if you needed medicine or a case of Vodka it was easier to get it in the black market than through the State owned firms. But to pay for it you needed hard capital, which is anything of value in short. So theft was the best means to get hard capital. Whether it's cans of paint, or a high range decimator. This massive theft also fed that Black market as it's how the Black market got it's goods as well. Person at a hospital steals medicine, you steal cans of paint, you trade paint for medicine, and then someone trades something else later on for the paint. etc etc. Ironically it's an issue Russia still has today. Which is why the Black Sea flagship Moskova's fire extinguishers were under lock/key. Which lets say aided in the ship sinking a few years ago from cruise missiles fired by Ukraine.

When watching this series, keep in mind that this was during the Cold War and the USSR valued its reputation above all else. The priority was "saving face" and not "saving lives" so they kept info on this incident and radiation risk exposure on the DOWN LOW. They **cannot** display any signs of weakness to the West. The average USSR citizen knew very little about nuclear power, in fact, that stuff is a one of their state secrets, so please keep this in mind when encountering moments of unbelievable ignorance 😅 Can't wait to see your reaction to the next ep! It's my fave in the whole series ❤

Great reaction guys. This is a brilliantly made series. Pleased you are watching this one.

This episode sticks close to history. Everyone with a name is a real person. During the recent invasion, Russian soldiers got sick digging trenches in the Red Forest.

I remember when this happened and a friend of mine died from a rare form of thyroid cancer that probably was caused by radiation from the accident.

so glad y’all are reacting to this now!! great catch on a lot of the details! as for the accents, i believe they settled for not adopting a russian accent as to not distract the viewers. get ready for more incredible writing and acting!!

The taste of metal is your mouth reacting to rhe radiation. The red blood cells in your tongue and in your mouth tissue burst, releasing the iron that is carried in them, hence the taste of metal

I would definitely recomend reading the article called "Chernobyl, history vs Hollywood" after you've watched all the episodes, as it explains a bit more of what the show got right, and what it didn't 🙂

3) Moreover, one died from mechanical injuries under the rubble of the collapsed structures, and the second died from thermal burns, that is, from a fire. Nothing was reported about radiation injuries and there was little understanding in this information. But it still brought some peace of mind. Having taken all the necessary technical documents and received from comrade KALUGIN some idea of the structure of the station, about 3 possible troubles that could be there, I dropped by my home. At this time, the driver brought my wife, as we agreed, from her work, we were supposed to meet there, somehow solve some of our family problems, which, of course, turned out to be unresolved. I briefly threw to her that I was leaving on a business trip, the situation was unclear, I did not know how long I was going and flew to Vnukovo. At Vnukovo I learned that the Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina, Chairman of the Bureau for the Fuel and Energy Complex, had been approved as the head of the Government Commission. He was outside Moscow, at that time in one of the regions of the country, conducting a party and economic activity there.

9) On the roofs of the machine room, on the site of the territory, there were pieces of graphite blocks, either whole or destroyed. Quite large elements of fuel assemblies were visible. A white column of combustion products, apparently graphite, was constantly flowing out of the reactor mouth, several hundred meters long. Inside the reactor space, a powerful crimson glow was visible in separate large spots. At the same time, it was difficult to say for sure what was the cause of this glow. It was clear that quite a lot of activity had come out of the 4th block, but the first question that worried us all was whether the reactor or part of it was working or not, i.e. whether the process of producing short-lived radioactive isotopes was continuing. Since it was necessary to establish this quickly and accurately, the first attempt was made by a military armored personnel carrier belonging to the chemical forces, sensors were mounted that had both gamma and neutron measurement channels. The first measurement with a neutron channel showed that there was supposedly powerful neutron radiation. In order to figure this out, I had to go to the reactor myself in this armored personnel carrier and figure out that under the conditions of those powerful gamma fields that existed at the facility, the neutron measurement channel, as a neutron channel, of course, does not work, because it senses those powerful gamma fields in which this neutron channel as a measuring device is simply inoperative.

10) Therefore, the most reliable information about the reactor condition was obtained by us from the ratio of short- and long-lived isotopes of iodine 134 and 131 and, by means of radiochemical measurements, we were able to quickly verify that short-lived isotopes of iodine were not being produced and, therefore, the reactor was not operating and was in a subcritical state. Subsequently, over the course of several days, repeated corresponding analysis of gas components showed the absence of short-lived isotopes escaping. And this was the main evidence for us of the subcriticality of the fuel mass that remained after the reactor was destroyed. Having made these initial assessments that the reactor was not operating, we then began to worry about the following questions. This is the fate of the city's population, the number of personnel that should be at the station and who should serve it, even in this state - the first questions. Predicting the possible behavior of the fuel mass that remained after the reactor was destroyed, determining the geometric dimensions and all possible situations and choosing a method of action. By the evening of the 26th, all possible methods of flooding the active zone had been tried, but they had produced nothing except a fairly high rate of steam generation and the spread of water along various transport corridors in the neighboring unit. It was clear that the firefighters, having eliminated the fires and fire sources in the turbine hall on the very first night, had done so very quickly and accurately.

Here is a sort of standard comment I have posted on a lot of the reactions to this series that I come across...hope you don't mind me copy/pasting it here. One thing I will add, is that the more I learn about the history of the RBMK reactor and of the Chernobyl power plant, the more I feel that a lot of context is left out of the show, and it could have been more accurate if it had revealed some of that. This a really good series...one of the best ever made...but the producers did get some things wrong. Some things were changed intentionally for the purposes of storytelling, and the makers of the series put in a series of notes at the end of the last episode of the series explaining some of them. They also have a podcast that they put out along with the show in which they talk about other things they altered from the history and why. However, I do recommend you check out the History vs Hollywood article on Chernobyl when you are done watching the whole series, so you can find out about the other things that the producers got wrong that they do not admit to. Definitely wait until you are done with the series so you do not spoil anything for yourself.

In the Soviet Union, only a tiny group of people, none. of them civilians, are classified to know about nuclear reactors. State security is infinitely more important than the safety of their citizens. The head guy who was in charge in the reactor doesn't dare blame the State, or he'll lose everything. No one dares disregard him or be blacklisted. I believe they simplified the makeup in order to keep from grossing out the audience.

Hi Guys the series is pretty historically true. I need to tell some things. first off in the Soviet Union, the Most important thing to the is Image. Also a person cannot refuse to do something they are told to. If they do they are shot on the spot of hauled off the prison. Now if your at the point an atomic bomb explodes you die instantly from the heat. Now the series does dramatize the effects of radiotion. If you exposed the effects takes days, weeks, months, years to have it effects. It does not work like they show. Also once a person who exposed has their cloths removed and body washed someone else Cannot get the effects of radiation. So keep this in mind. Also in the Soviet system to repot that some accident occured is just as bad as the actual incident thats wy they all go intoa state of denial. Now the Soviet well understaod the effects of bombs and radiation but the KGB (Soviet secret Police) classifed as anything to do with atomic energy, so thats why theres no safety eqipment, no traing. People just kept ignorant except only those top ones who knew. Now I warn you that each spisodes gets more and more worse. be ready to cry. you will not find exactly what and how it happend till the last episode. BE sure to read each of the ending credit true scense. There one line u must get. No spoilers..

Was there in 2011. Beautiful location. But eerie.

5) In Kyiv, when we got off the plane, the first thing that caught my eye was a cavalcade of black government cars and an anxious crowd of Ukrainian leaders, led by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Ukraine, Comrade Alexander Petrovich LYASHKO. Everyone had anxious faces, they did not have precise information, but they said that things were bad there. Since we did not receive any specific information here, we quickly got into the cars and I found myself in the car with comrade PLYUSHCH. We went to the nuclear power plant. It is located 140 km from Kyiv. It was an evening drive. There was little information, we were preparing for some unusual work and therefore the conversation was fragmentary with long pauses and, in general, everyone was tense and each of us wanted to get to the place as quickly as possible, to understand what had actually happened there and what scale the event was that we were supposed to meet. Here in Pripyat there was already a sense of alarm, we immediately drove up to the building of the city party committee, located on the central square of the city. In short, a hotel, quite decent, was nearby and here we were met by the heads of local authorities. MAYORES was already here, he had flown there earlier than the government commission. There was also a group of specialists who had arrived there in response to the initial alarm signal. The first meeting of the Government Commission was immediately arranged

The dogs eat corpses not kitties. C'mon, man.