The general who took the reading was Shagga, Son of Dolf! IRL that general was a highly decorated veteran of WWII and incredibly died at age 78 of natural causes in 2003. His massive balls must have deflected the 15,000 roentgen.

My wife is East German and was 7 when this happened. After she watched this show she talked to her Mom about it who said they weren’t told anything about it. No one warned them while the West Germans were keeping their kids inside. The Soviets admitted very little until it was all exposed.

The helicopter crashed because it went through the smoke and hit the crane on the other side. When you watch it you can see the hook block of the crane drop once the blade severs the cable.

Chernobyl got 19 emmy nominations, with jared harris, stellan skarsgård and emily watson included

Boris has the GOAT character development. He went from: "I'm told it's the equivalent of a chest x-ray" to "I'm told we'll need.... all of the liquid nitrogen in the Soviet Union." Such a great character. "By God Boris, you were the one who mattered most"

I was so hoping that when he said the line "Please may I express my concern as calmly and respectfully as I...," that he would pause for a brief second and then followed up by screaming "WE ARE F***ED! WE ARE ALL F***ED! That's as calmly as I can put it."

An aspect of this stuff that people seem to have a hard time reconciling is that this was also an era where there was quite a bit more ignorance in regards to how dangerous radiation is, obviously there were educated people who knew pretty well how horrifying the effects could be. But it's all too easy to look back on this long *after* Chernobyl has happened and be like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING". Hindsight and all that.

I live in Belarus and there’s still some radiation. My aunt told me about this, sadly she passed away because of cancer. It’s horrifying because it’s actually happened. Thank u for reacting to this series, hello from Belarus ❤️

True fact, the flashlights really went out. That happened in real life.

I live in Italy and we all know about Chernobyl, but I was surprised how few things I actually was aware of. Most of the women of Northern Italy developed thyroid problem, my mom one of them, around 1990. I highly recommend the HBO podcast Chernobyl, with the creator Craig Mason, and the book he references often. Can't wait for the next reactions, girls, you're very authentic and respectful

I am surprised how ppl say "how come we didn't know about this" I was around 8 and I remember Ted Koppel reporting on it, they even did a ten yrs later report. And you got to remember this was Russia in the 80's, most Americans did not care about what was going on in Russia or the people back then. TBH, we almost like that again now.

"Is it this hard to care? Doesn't seem so difficult to care." Two words: Puerto Rico.

The movie you're thinking about is Once upon a Forest.

oh bless your heart, darlings 😂 you must not know about Soviet Russia in the 80's.....the State wants you to know only what the State wants you to know.

Obviously, this was a huge thing in Europe. I was 26 when it happened, and lived (and still live) in the area that was hit by the fallout in Sweden. The nuclear power plant that first detected it is 1.5 hour from where I live. They obviously have lots of radiation alarms that went off. First they thought they had a leak, until they realized that the work crew brought it in from the outside. Analysis quickly showed that it couldn't even be from that plant (different type, much safer btw), but was typical for the type used in the USSR. We still can't eat some things growing in this area (mushrooms for instance), and wild game has to be tested to make sure it's safe to eat. The Sami's reindeer herds up north were heavily impacted as well.

Piece of the poem that is read on radio in the beginning: You know, I believe that the Russia we fight for Is not the dull town where I lived at a loss But those country tracks that our ancestors followed, The graves where they lie, with the old Russian cross. By old Russian practice, mere fire and destruction Are all we abandon behind us in war. We see alongside us the deaths of our comrades, By old Russian practice, the breast to the fore. Alyosha, till now we've been spared by the bullets. But when (for the third time) my life seemed to end, I yet still felt proud of the dearest of countries, The great bitter land I was born to defend. (Konstantin Simonov) I was just so surprised with US producers getting into russian culture that deep, it's amazing

Well it is basically how we treat our own earth. This is fine, nothing is on fire.

I absolutely LOOOOOOVE your reactions. And glad you use headphones, as the sounds/music/dosimeters are being used so brilliantly throughout. Glad you grasp the facts, and get the full punch of it. Thank you. And love how the three volunteers came forward... precisely as 'Fukushima 50', that volunteered to go the furthest into the plant. Great people.

You two are obviously too young to know what the Soviet Union was like during this time. They were image obsessed and extremely authoritarian. You couldn't walk away from Chernobyl. When they told you to do something you didn't refuse. Refusal meant time in a gulag at the minimum. The Soviet eyes and ears of the KGB were everywhere and you couldn't trust your neighbors to keep your confidence. I was a teenager at the time and it was bizarre to see news reports with near panicked scientists talking about it and yet the Soviet Union just kept denying anything was wrong. When they finally admitted to an accident, they then kept downplaying its seriousness.

it’s very interesting because most european react channels i’ve seen, for the most part, know about chernobyl and the general facts of what happened. it’s something i’ve always heard about, everyone i know knows about it, it’s been mentioned throughout school etc. and then pretty much all american react channels i’ve seen have little to no knowledge on it or that it was even a thing. that’s not me dragging anyone, i just genuinely find it interesting because it shows how history and events spread y’know anyway i totally agree, it’s an incredibly tough watch but it’s necessary. people need to know this was a situation as serious as it is depicted (some elements were even toned down for tv). loving your reactions! you two are very respectful and compassionate which is nice to see

When I saw your reaction to that doggo running after the bus I thought, "Oh, you're just gonna LOVE the 4th episode..."

Thank you so much for continuing this! Watching the empathy in your faces is refreshing.

Imon see's a dog running after it's owner and says "OMG that's so sad"..... She doesn't know what's waiting for her in a few episode's :(

For us in Germany, it was very real. I remember being a child and not being allowed to play outside anymore. Germany was still devided in East and West. The cold war was not over. But they could not hide it because it spread to far away regional. Nowadays, mushrooms and some wild animals are still contaminated in the South of Bavaria.

general's name is colonel-general Viktor K. Pikalov , commander of Chemical troops of USSR (three star general , like Patton)

Little Boy (the bomb dropped on Hiroshima) was a 15 Kiloton Bomb, so twice that is 30 Kilotons(9 Kilotons higher than Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki). So the amount of radiation is forty 30 KT bombs.

I was 16 when it happened. Even though I live in Ireland we were issued iodine tablets (never needed them thankfully). Every summer to this day a charity called Children Of Chernobyl brings children from the area to my town for a few weeks of fresh air & good food. It really helps them. You might want to check the news. Something else has happened in Russia & it's unfolding in an eerily similar way.

11:43 Once Upon a Forest. I watched that as a kid too

This show is very powerful.

Many folks (including the 2 of you here unfortunately) missed the significance of a 3 megaton explosion that would "eject" the 3 remaining nuclear reactors exposing not 1, but FOUR cores. The result: Instead of 1 relatively covered/controllable nuclear core, you would have 4 totally uncovered cores. The implications are unthinkable.

16:45 "What if they turned into superhero-dogs and stopped this?" Oh wait until episode 4 and see what really happened to those dogs.

I remember vividly when this happened. The newspaper headline said a radiation cloud was coming and everyone in Europe was gonna be poisoned, it was terrifying. We weren’t allowed to set foot outside in the rain, I had a phobia about rain for years

The control room workers that went down to turn those wheels on the night of the explosion are sick & dying in the hospital as of this episode.

"Who are you? What's your name? How can I buy you wine?" A year later and that is still funny as hell.

You guys should watch the after credits historical information. To get more info on the scenes dramatized for the show.

It’s significant that there is patriotic poetry on the radio...you always knew something bad was happening when they stopped the programming and started playing that

The character Ulana Khomyuk (the female nuclear physicist who wiped the window at the beginning) is not actually a real person unlike most of the characters in the show. But a representation of all the scientists that wanted to expose the truth and go against the Soviets secrecy and pride at the time. An entire tragedy and its heroes can never be truly summarized in ~5 hours on a TV show. So Ulana was created as an amalgamation for all the heroic scientists that helped solve and tell the truth of Chernobyl. Since women were not in any kind of political power or high status, and all the people in the history of Chernobyl as well as the show is all guys, the creator wanted to "represent [the] many women in STEM who had to break through gender-biased barriers in the pursuit of knowledge and truth." There is a podcast for every episode of the show with the creator and and I HIGHLY recommend that people listen to it. He talks about the fact and fiction of the show, things that didnt make it, behind the scenes, why certain decisions were made, etc.

I was stationed in Germany in 1985 through 1988 on the Border At the town of Bad Hersfeld, the U.S. Government would not evac our dependents when we knew that the fallout was coming because it was not economical. Today the U.S. does not recognize that the exposure ever happened.

"how we did not know about this? Noone every told us that? " Well said. Nobody told you about Fukushima either, so wait 50 years for another HBO show.

"I'm scared, I'm so scared." - Yeah, that's about the emotion we had as kids back in the 80s, when our parents told us, we couldn't play outside for a while. And why.

The first time I watched this show I was glued to the screen. It is hands down the most intense show I have ever seen. I have never felt such unbridled rage and deep sadness at the same time.

The three workers who went into the water-filled basement are heroes to everyone in the world. We ought to be teaching about these men in our schools.

19:47 so true! It is an hour long of 👊🦵👊 I could not binge watch this series. I watched it over 5 days

“I had a lot of anger” me: and you will be even angrier during this episode! I honestly just wanted to punch people for the first 3 episodes (mostly the first two) and then I was depressed during the last two. Literally. What an amazing series.

The old man is Donald Sumpter who was Maester Lewin from game of thrones.

I'm Swedish and no one really told me about chernobyl from what I remember. I had to ask my mom as a kid cause I saw it referenced a lot in games and movies. Then she told me how everyone was very paranoid and not allowed to eat anything growing outside for quite a while. I've heard to this day they still find wild animals (boars or moose) with radiation in them up north.

Be patient with Scherbina. He is one of the best characters. He starts out as a bad guy and shifts as he figures things out.

Probably hard to believe this, but I'm betting you'll end up loving Stellan Skarsgård's character Boris Scherbina by the end of this show. Speaking of Stellan Skarsgård,: In an interview promoting this show he said he remembered back in April of 1986, when he was living in Sweden with his wife and his children up to that point (sons Alexander [Eric from "True Blood"], Gustaf [Floki from "Vikings"], and Sam), seeing news reports on how the government had detected the radiation that came over and effectively banned any of its people from entering the upper third of the country due to it falling there.

I'm from north-eastern Poland and I can confirm that this event was a very big deal here. Pretty much everyone knows about this and some people have personal stories. Our region was hit by radioactive cloud in the first day after the explosion. My mom was pregnant at the time with my sister and she was born with thyroid problems due to exposure to what my mom describes "dirty rain" she found herself in. Later the authorities distributed iodine to almost every citizen.

Once Upon a Forest ?

I love that ending. It was like something straight out of a horror movie. And it really set the tone for what the series as a whole is like. Man I really feel like you two are going to have a hard time with some of the upcoming episodes.

"Y'all in trouble" XD That... was kind of a culture shock. :D

I remember in the UK of talk about whether children should be let outside at the time too. The news had updates on where the cloud had gotten to. I still remember the fear, and also the footage of the livestock all over Europe that was slaughtered due to contamination.

The helicopter did not dissolve, the pilot could not see through the smoke and fly the heli into a crane. The heli blades collided with the thick steel cables on the crane which destroys the blades, if you look carefully in the show you will notice it.

it is the same today: scientists and experts in their fields get ignored. in some areas that isnt too big a problem, in others outright fatal. but most importantly, your image is intact, the population is not concerned and you go BAU... that is the ignorance of many people of position in power, but also of the "mass" sometimes, so to speak. Until its too late and the "why hasn't someone told us" regrests come in. well, there were some, but you didnt listen.

I live in a town north of Stockholm called Gävle, the radiation hit our area and still today people does not pick mushrooms and berries from certain parts.

i cant stand people like them girls during the meeting scene, they act like they know how everything worked back then, like they would have had the balls to stand up in front of thoses dude and tell them they are "idiots"

More fun science discussion for anyone interested! Thanks for the video :) 4:06 There are different types of radiation, some more damaging than others and some more penetrating than others. The window keeps the actual radioactive material in the air out a bit though, enough to prevent the detectors picking it up beforehand. 14:16 If they are contaminated then yes they can spread it a little bit. But the main issue is the biggest source which is the reactor itself. It doesn't spread like a disease though because it doesn't reproduce in any way. Whatever radioactive material they leave behind is good. They can change, wash and it'll all help remove some contamination. It is most important to remove these people from the area to reduce the intensity of exposure and reduce the amount of further contamination. Quarantine is a good idea to contain the contaminated material, but once the people are as cleaned as possible they need to be taken out. It's not like a disease where it'll eventually blow over (apt at the moment!) because radioactive material takes hundreds to thousands of years to stop emitting radiation. It's a curved line - there is a lot of radiation for a "short" amount of time, like 100 years, during which most of the radioactive material would have decayed. Then there is a low level of radiation for a long time after, like 50,000 years while the remaining radioactive material decays. 16:42 Radiation can damage DNA, which leads to mutation. The chances of this not being a damaging change to the DNA is very low. If you're very lucky it won't have a significant effect; if you're unlucky it'll likely cause cancer and other damage. Obviously "mutants" like the X-Men is pure fantasy! 19:22 I believe the radiation is messing up the batteries but I'm not actually certain (correct me if I'm wrong). The breathing apparatus is likely fine as it in't dependent on batteries or electricals. 25:00 I'm not actually sure what happened to the helicopter, but the radiation would definitely affect the people, a few minutes is all they could handle. To me it makes sense that the radiation messed with the electricals of the helicopter but I'm not sure why it looked like the rotor blades broke. "Dissolve" is a chemical term. The heli didn't literally dissolve but I get what you mean. 25:49 The radiation won't get stronger over time unless more radioactive material is released. Every hour it releases a fairly fixed amount of radiation to pretty much the same radius. The spreading is the radioactive material dispersed in the air travelling with the wind, continually emitting radiation wherever it goes. The water that they're going into is bad because it is contaminated with radioactive material, but actually the water itself acts as a defence against radiation, absorbing some of it, so if they are submerged they get a bit more protection. Thanks for reading, hope you found it interesting and maybe learnt something :)

The radiation they are detecting are from small pieces of the reactor's fission products being carried by the wind and deposited on the surface. They cannot directly detect radiation from the reactor in Chernobyl, because the radiation from the remaining(still burning) core is being attenuated(absorbed) by the building around it, the earth, and water molecules in the air. Every meter away from a radioactive point source the exposure to it goes down geometrically( if a 1 Curie source was present at one meter it would expose a human being to 1 REM, this is a constant used in the Nuclear industry. so at 2 meters the measure is .5 Rem, at 3 meters .25 Rem and so on reaching background radiation somewhere between 100 and 200 meters(estimate). as you find out in this episode, they discover the source is actually 15,000 curies(likely more because they could not get to 1 m from the core). Based on a reading of 15,000 Roentgen at 1 Km from the reactor(if the reactor was on a flat open surface with no objects in the way)a person would receive 0.00003 REM. The Reactor at Chernobyl is surrounded on four sides by steel reinforced concret which is fortunate, because concrete and steel(and water for the matter) can attenuate radiation, reducing the activity to 1/10th through 24 inches of Concrete or 4 inches of steel(since this is a building where only i beams and rebar go into its construction, this rule doesn't apply as much per steel, but does apply for the Concrete walls). The real hazard are the fragments being scattered through the smoke from the fire, which is turning the area around the reactor into a massive plane source. The Russian government is hamstrung by their secretive protocols, none of their politicians have any serious hard science grounding. The scene where they predict a 2 megaton blast is not based on scientific fact or evidence, its actually a propaganda lie the Russians told to turn the accident into a triumph, in reality all that would have happened would have been few hours of a steam geysers erupting through weak points in an already damaged building, Reactors 3, 2, and 1 were never in any danger of being damaged in that case. It is physically impossible for a U 235 Reactor to result in an atomic explosion, for that to happen the volume of present Uranium has to be force into a space far smaller than its density would normally allow, to do that, Nuclear weapon use high power explosived to propell halves of a Uranium(or Plutonium) core at each other at a measurable percentage of the speed of light, crushing the Uranium into a Critical mass density. The Reactor being on fire is actually doing the oposite, and melting the Uranium simply dilutes the Uranium back into its native state of UrO2(Uranium Oxide, or Urananite, which is harmless)

It's actually stupid that no one in this comment section and the watchers knows that it's actually in Ukraine

Big thanks for reaction, very tough watch but high level program. Gives light to those russian peoples who gave what they could to work the problem.

10:12. “Whats your name?” -General Vladimir Pikalov “Who are you?” -WWII veteran, served in the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad, and the siege of Berlin among others. A military engineer-chemist and head of the Chemical Troops of the USSR Ministry of Defense. “How can I buy you wine?” -you cannot, because this tough sonnuvabitch raised an eyebrow at the Grim Reaper, who immediately and politely moved his death date to 2003 at age 78.

Kudos to you ladies for choosing this brilliantly crafted portrayal of the Chernobyl disaster to react to. A difficult "watch" to be sure. Your reactions are true and as you gather more insight as to what happened there, you will be shocked even more. We, in the West, have a hard time with the USSR response to this disaster. The US has an organization to over see our nuclear programs, the Atomic Energy Commission, which is staffed by scientists/politicians with proper background. The USSR had no such organization. The heroic acts of the lower level people cannot be overstated. Please keep watching....and we will surely enjoy watching you!...TC

I love seeing your reactions to this series, it really is amazing since a lot of this is true and did happen. I was born only 6 months after this happened, thankfully no where near Russia or Europe, but it doesn't feel so long ago. I don't know how I found this channel or these reactions hut I'll be watching the rest of them too. I can't wait. ^_^

It should be noted that three mile island happened here in the US before Chernobyl. The US techs were able to avoid a meltdown. But the way information was released and what people were told to do was just as poorly handled. It was just handled poorly in different ways and for different reasons. Had three mile island gone full meltdown, the death toll would have been just as bad here :(. Absolutely NOT defending the soviet system in any way, it deserves no defense. Just noting that we had our chance and our final grade was every bit as bad. We were simply luckier/used better tech/better safety standards/training? All of those things? None of those things and something else entirely? Yeah.... so... completely unrelated question. How are you stocked on tissues these days? No reason for the question.... just curious..?

20:07 USA has come close to a nuclear accident multiple times. It's scary indeed. To read about how and when, read Command and Control by Eric Schlosser. He did research about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. There is also a PBS documentary based on the book.

My mum was a kid in Poland when this happened and although the communist government didnt outright admit too much it was obvious it was a huge deal and kids in schools had to take iodine and shit. Years later she has pretty bad thyroid problems, likely because of the radiation and my grandads cancer could also be connected.

Fallout from this accident even reached the east coast of the United States. It was in limited amounts, but it was detectable.

It's hard to see, but the helicopter did not dissolve after flying over the reactor. If you look closely, the pilots likely died or got sick, and the propellers got wrapped up in a crane or something.

NO SPOILERS Y'ALL!!! NO SPOILERS!!!

The Blue Flower cartoon is probably Redwall: Salamandastron. The mice need the flower to cure Dryditch fever.

nuclear disasters have happened prior to Chernobyl, 2 in fact in the Soviet Union. Chernobyl was the one they couldn't hide from the world. The incident was a major factor in the Soviet collapse. In order to maintain their global image as a superpower, they needed to cover it up. However, if they did whatever they could to resolve the incident, they would have looked weak and incompetent as an adversary to the United States.

The reason most people didn't hear about how bad it really was is because it was the Soviet Union, and it wasn't until relatively recently that some of the most alarming facts came out. Nuclear energy was considered a state secret, and so they revealed as little as possible about it.

The "I'll do it myself guy is Colonel-General Vladimir Karpovich Pikalov, Commander of Chemical Troops and veteran of Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin. He actually made the personal reconnaissance of the reactor complex as shown and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Imon and Abi we don't have the best record in teaching history in the USA equal in equality across the country but other countries are similar. European countries were taught about the incident IF their media was not controlled by the USSR at the time. Even 5+ years after the explosion there were people unaware of the magnitude and its consequences to their bodies. But in general other continents also don't report about everything that happens in history. America is not alone at all.

"Quentin Tarantino should make a movie about the radioactive super-hero dogs saving Chernobyl" - you had my attention, now you have my curiosity.

Fantastic show and glad you're continuing, there's a Podcast available on HBO or KZfaq by the creators that speak about the events in each episode that I highly recommend to watch afterwards if you have the time.

The helicopter crash did actually happen, but it happened months later and it wasn't caused by radiation. The tail of the helicopter clipped a wire from a crane and caused the crash. I didn't notice it the first time I saw the episode, but it is the crane that causes the accident here too. Not the radiation.

You know that meme "It gets better"? This is the opposite. The theme of the first couple of episodes is "It gets worse".

When the three men volunteer to go in the water, it gets me, every time. Incredible courage. ,

this is reality , this has happened and for their sake u should continue watching it , it's painful but it's the truth that they hided for years , the truth that the world should know about.

13:43 Germany isn't that far away.😄 As the crow flies, it is about 1150 km (≈715 miles) from the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl to Berlin. (goo.gl/maps/GfaBWdGZ4bv3xRYE7 ) That's about the distance from New York City to Chicago.

Emma Watson's Ulana Khomyuk is so awesome. I was really sad to learn she's a composite character, I wanted her to be real so bad. It's honestly scary to think what might have happened without Legasov, and Gorbachev. They were the right men, in the right place and time. That moment where Gorbachev sees "Ok, this timid man is standing up to his superiors, and to me. This must be very serious. This is the guy I need to listen to." saved millions of lives. It's really scary to think about that. Forget all the politics, that fact alone makes the Soviet system scary, the lying, the secrecy, the intimidation that caused skilled, knowledgeable people to deny reality. Forget the economics, and the principles, whether you're a Capitalist, a Communist, or somewhere in between. Surely we can all agree that aspect of the Soviet system is terrifying.

LMAO yep Imon's EXACTLY right, bahahahah - those episodes are like being thrown into a little room where somebody casually kicks your ass for an hour. By the end of every episode I was gutted.

With the evacuees, they weren’t quarantined. My parents lived in Kiev at the time and had just been granted access to a new apartment in a new building, which was then populated mostly by the people of Pripyat. They sent my brother away for about six months, made him go to a different daycare half an hour away when he got back, and they would have produce shipped in from family in Russia for the next three years before they left. It was an absolutely insane time, and the only reason my parents knew to do any of that was because a family member working in the government warned them. The public was not told about any of the dangers, even long after it happened.

Apparently not everyone has heard of the Soviet gulags. “Well, I would’ve said...” and “why didn’t he do...”; all the Reaction videos for Chernobyl are the same from every channel. The State is God; you don’t disobey, unless you wanna catch a bullet and get your family taken to a “re-education” camp. The answer to all your questions regarding Chernobyl can be answered with “because Communism”.

Dude I love Once Upon a Forest - the movie you're describing at 11:30

I can’t believe that people trying to save money nearly cost us the northern hemisphere of our planet

Guys if you are going to do another show after Chernobyl I cannot recommend Amazon Prime's The Boys highly enough to do it justice. I think you two would love it.

Once Upon A Forest (1993) is the animated film your looking for @11:33!

If you want to understand some basics of radiation, look up Alpha and Beta particles and Gamma radiation. It will help with the show. The official who was dismissive of the woman nuclear scientist reminded me of internet experts who feel they can interpret data without studying the underlying science. This show is a cautionary tale for all of us. BTW - I work with a Russian who’s parents had friends go work in the Ukraine as part of the response. Sadly, all of them died of cancer.

ONCE UPON A FOREST YESSSSS

You will find it difficult to watch all of this series, but after the finale you’ll be so grateful you’ve finished.

Great reaction video. Fair warning, the next 2 episodes are great, but pretty rough to watch.

If you guys watched closely, many of the people in that room was looking at the General Secretary because they really didnt know what to do. Every time he turns a page on the report document, they all do. This was to illustrate that many of these people got their job because of who they know and not what they know.

13:40 Fun fact: it went across the whole of Europe within a couple of days, here in the UK some farm fields were only recently allowed to graze livestock on them again because of Chernobyl. Furthermore radioactive particles from Chernobyl circled the whole planet. Every one of us has a piece of chernobyl inside us.

My whole family was outside in the garden back then in southern Germany. All of us have Hashimoto, plus me and some of my sisters got additional serious diseases. Wish they had informed us a day earlier ...

Hi, great reaction you two. Just to give some context as to why those people behaved this way. First off, you have to understand back in those days, the only information available was through the tv news and printed newspapers. Nobody was an "expert" on nuclear power plants. Even doctors and nurses were sometimes woefully inept because they did not have the proper information. So a lot of these "ignorant" behavior stems from the fact that what may be common sense today wasn't so in their time. Second, in regards to the cabinet meeting and the way the politicians behaved. Communist Russia was all about not screwing up. If you do your job well, and don't mess up, you rise quickly through the ranks. Mess up once and you're out on the streets, mess up twice you're probably forced into labor camps etc.. So by the time they rise up to the top, everyone has a PhD in covering their asses and deflecting blame. Nobody can give a real opinion, because being truthful could get you fired or worse sent to jail. Russians suffered through many mad dictators. Stalin was infamous in killing people on a slight whim, so everyone was fearful of failure. This then created this legacy of lies where nobody can tell the truth.

Ladies, this is going to be a tough ride. The worst part is that the show is fairly accurate, overall. This stuff really happened.

me father working for bear factory in Czech abd in his time happend he was nearly 500kilometers from that place......completely normal...nobody know nothing....thats normal in Russian federation in this time....home in Czech pople know it after 2weeks from ilegal radio stations