Thanks for watching guys! Hope you’re enjoying the video. Let me know if you’d like me to continue the reactions to the Chernobyl series ☢️👩🏽‍🔬 In the video I make the conversion from rubles to USD 💵 with today’s market value, even though the time line has to be taken into account. In 1986, 400 rubles would be equivalent to a couple of thousands USD, which is still a questionable amount of money to give to someone that might die from radiation after they’ve completed the job! Glad to hear that the divers actually survived in real life!

All three of volunteers survived and i believe 2 are still alive today.

Worth noting that Pikalov, the general the drove into check the readings, was a decorated WW2 vet. He was wounded multiple times, including severely at Berlin. While recuperating in Sochi he talked to some chemical warfare soldiers recuperating too, and ended up going to the Military Academy for Chemical Defense in '51, rising to command the whole branch by '69. By '86 he had overseen cleanup operations of spilled traincars in Russia, old WW1 gas warfare chemicals in Germany, and a Dengue fever outbreak in Cuba. He ordered his driver out without any prompting or warning of the danger, telling the young man “Stay here, son, you are still to become a father”.

I live in Germany and in the area I grew up in I still get told that you shouldn't eat specific mushrooms from the woods. Some eat those otherwise eatable, some don't.

One of the heroes who went into that water was interviewed and said that they didn't have geiger counters, and they moved much faster than they showed in the Miniseries, as they knew the basement well. He credits the fact that they could move so fast as the main reason they didn't get as much radiation as was expected.

A man working at the nuclear plant Forsmark in Sweden came to work in the morning about two days later and they found radioactive materia on him - from the outside! It had been raining. The people working at the plant were confused because the numbers were so high outside the plant that they were sure that it must come from them. It took them hours to understand that it didn't. Sweden "only" got about 5% of the fallout.

Its interesting that of the 3 volunteer heroes to shut down the water, two are still very much alive today, and the one who did pass was from a heart attack in 2005.

Hi Elina, a small correction, you checked current ruble to euro rates, back then, it would actually cost around 1 ruble to have a supper for 4 people. 1 rouble from these times it would be around 32 euros in current rates (as my country was under soviet occupation at that time too, here you could buy for excample a novel (a book) for 0.2-0.15 rubles back then). it would be 12 836 eur early, not 6 euros :)

8:44 I grew up in a part of germany that was most contaminated by that accident. Even now, you shouldnt eat mushrooms or boars from certain regions. My physics teacher tolde me once that once the accident came public, he measured radiation levels in the schoolyard with school equipment and was able to detect Iod131 by its halflifetime as well. Thats really scary...

The firefighter clothing is still piled up in the abandoned hospital room just as depicted at 2.45. I don't know the current radiation level from the clothing, but hospital authorities realised quickly just how radioactive the jackets, helmets etc were so no one was allowed to touch them or enter that room afterwards. People apparently go to that room on tours or Pripyat but are still not allower to enter the room or touch the clothing.

I think it was somewhere mentioned outside the show that the scientists from Belarus is meant to represent a larger number of scientists trying to find solutions and evaluate risks. Not saying that 1 individual did all the things she did in the show.

Now the whole scene with the glasses finally makes sense. Never thought about that. Please keep reacting to the rest of the series, this is the most informative reaction I've seen so far. Love it.

The Geiger counter at the end isn’t on the three people, it’s for the audience. Think of it like background music to set the mood. Also, if I recall correctly all three of those workers who went into the plant went on to live long and healthy lives. Some people just get lucky with radiation.

The episode ends with cliffhanger but we know they succeeded since it did not explode in reality... whats more interesting and the show doesnt tell you much about is that they all 3 survived it... and i think two of those men are still alive today...

And surprisingly, in real life none of the divers died because of their mission.

Actually, the people who went to shut off the water below the reactor hardly got any exposure because they were surrounded by water which is an excellent neutron absorber. These volunteers actually lived long lives and died of old age. But it definitely was very intense moment. Nobody knew what was going to happen.

Hi Elina, I can't agree with you about the nurse. If we saw a person bleeding, then we wouldn't even think about our own risk and render assistance. This nurse saw people literally burning from radiation and she did best to put that fire out. She may have known about radiation exposure but not the true effects.

@elina: there is another reaction to Chernobyl you may want to check out: Alla Shapira (who was an MD-first responder at the time) gave her opinions on the show to vanity fair.

Chernobyl was the worst nuclear power plant accident the world has seen, and yet when compared to other sources of electricity generation we find that nuclear is the safest we have.

My only gripe is missing scene reactions, such as the helicopter when the pilot is told "You fly through that, tomorrow you will be wishing for that bullet!"

I'm so happy to have found your channel. My wife and I love you! Keep it up, make them longer.

One of the scariest things I've ever seen was the actual real fireman's clothing in the hospital basement and it still being so radioactive today 40 years on as it was on the day it would kill you within week or two

Thank you so much for doing these videos. It's amazing to have some perspective from a expert on all if this. I understand that these shows have to have some dramatic effects to make them interesting to watch but, knowing what is accurate and what is not makes me appreciate the whole series and the real situation of Chernobly even more. Thank you for taking time out to do these kinds of videos. Please keep making more videos.

Hi, physicist myself but I love hearing you talk about these events. A while since I saw the series and you have likely more inside knowledge to share that I can absorb 🙂

Interestingly, the divers survived IRL. And while a similar helicopter accident happened, it happened at a different time (than in the series).

Hi Elina, thank you very much for your video! Just a quick remark to your comment on the iodine 131 detection: I'm pretty sure that it was simply a gamma spectrometer, identifying the I-131 by its gamma radiation. Actually, the graph you are showing around 2:17 minutes are the gamma lines of I-131, for example at 364 and 636 keV ;) In the scene one can even see the heavy lead shielded doors of the spectrometer which are common also for modern gamma spectrometer devices. By the way, it's unlikely that it was an x-ray diffractometer, since such devices are used to determine crystal structures of crystalline materials which regular dust clearly isn't. This method also requires some (time consuming) sample preparations, while with gamma spectrometry you literally can place the sample directly into the spectrometer and get meaningful results within minutes. Furthermore, it's not possible to determine isotopes with X-ray Diffraction. So, distinguishing between radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes is not possible.

I m so happy to see those episodes from you and see how much people like it ❤ you are amazing and such a beautifully intelligent woman ❤

I’ve been eagerly waiting for part two and now I’m eagerly waiting for part 3. Your thoughts as a Nuc. Phy. are what make this interesting-pointing out things and making connections we might miss. Also, if the movie makes any mistakes, please let us know. Thoroughly enjoying all your creations. Slava Ukraini.

i would love to see you react to the rest of the series! although i didn't go into watching this series myself with no knowledge (because i am passionate about nuclear physics and nuclear accidents), i still learned new things from you through watching your reaction to the first 2 eps

In this episode, there were a few things the makers of the show got wrong. For one thing, the character who said that they should close off the city in the first episode and is evacuated in this one, did not exist...he was added for dramatic purposes. Also, the helicopter crash did not happen so soon after the explosion...it really happened months later in October, 1986. Other folks have commented on the 3 workers who actually survived and had long lives. ✌✌💯💯

3:00 Those boots and clothes are still there down in the Pripyat Hospital basement today, where they were left in 1986.

Either the device you mentioned, or an ancient gamma spectroscope would be my guess. Either would identify the isotopes in the dust. Also, the three guys at the end of the episode, they are three of the unsung heroes of the Chernobyl disaster response: Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov and Boris Baranov.

Excellent reaction video. Enjoying the Chernobyl reactions.

Your videos are really good! Keep going! 🤩

Elina, I remember this happening when I was in high school in the U.S.A. We were told U.S. detectors were finding radiation at heightened levels. Wow that was a terrifying era to live through. But as a mental midget compared to you, I'm so grateful you are doing these reviews/reactions. I thought the Chernobyl TV show was brilliantly acted and directed. Your insight is so helpful in looking back and understanding what really happened. Thank you!

Until this video I didn't realize that the upside down cups weren't contaminated on the inside and thought that it was just an unimportant detail but it makes a lot of sense now

I would love to see a series explaining the different modern designs for reactors: SMR, LFTR, etc.

Wow thank you for explaining the scene with the glasses

This was the first video I clicked on. I'm studying to be a chemical engineer and I had many of the same questions throughout the series that you have answered please keep doing these videos. I've heard that many of the regulations and best practices were developed because of this disaster, and I wasn't sure how much of that was true.

I'm happy you are doing the rest of the series, but, damn, you nuclear physicists do take your time between episodes. I guess I should return in a few years to check out episode 5.

i love this series and i love your reaction... please go on

All divers were alive after that, one died in 2005 due heart attack.

I enjoy the insight, great reaction.

Love your reaction and explanation. Please keep watching and reacting to this. It is an incredible show and i would love to see what you think.

I have tuned in t o your channel and i will keep watching your reaction for the Chernobyl series. :)

I am really looking forward to your reaction to the last episode.

Hi Elina, just wanted to drop a quick note to say I'm loving the videos, very interesting to get an expert opinion on a great series. Keep up the good work and already looking forward to part 3!

So good to finally see your reaction to more Chernobyl. The evacuation scene is soo eerie, love how they show it. There is few little errors in this episode, like the helicopter crash, that happened few months later during Sarcophagus construction, and the 4MT explosion that is in levels of thermonuclear bomb, far more than it was possible - they feared that the new explosion could damage other reactors which could make more open core scenerio. 4MT is city leveling explosion. The divers had a path already "scaned" to some degree in terms of radiation, so they planed accordingly their way, thankfully water shielded them from much of radiation, but their lights did died. Also I red somwhere that this old politician that was evacuated was meant to represent the old stalinizm administration but I don't know if that's true.

I don't know why the KZfaq algorithm brought me here, but I'm so thankful it did. Wonderful video and explained in such a wonderful way. Keep'em coming.

Please keep going. I really liked the show and hearing your thoughts makes it better. If you are still looking for things to react to, I think the SL1 accident would be good. Thank you!

Hi Elina, so glad that you're continuing with this series, I was afraid that you'd abandoned it. PLEASE keep them coming! Coincidentally, today (I'm not kidding, just literally today, Saturday!) I visited the Doors Open day at the Nuclear Research Facility in Řež. Saw a mini-particle-accelerator and looked into a reactor! They do research of SMRs, but also nuclear safety research and, among other things, painting analysis and dating. It was SUPER interesting! Nice coincidence that you posted a video today as well 🙂 As for the Russian language in the beginning - my take is that there was a lot of russification, and people there just spoke Russian. Also, later in the series, they're going to take people from the entire USSR. (IMO, if the movie were made these days...they may have made this particular quote/poem slightly differently.) It was a sad attempt by Stalin and others to kill the Ukrainian language, which was thankfully unsuccessful. They do be trying to kill the national identities and to assimilate the languages... wait, so they're not the Orcs, they're the Borg! 👀 11:58 though, I have to agree with some comments, back then, 400 rubles was not terrible. Not that great either! HA! But let's focus on the silver lining. Instead of Gorbachev, they could've had Brezhnev! That would've been FUN! I love your channel! ❤

It is not quite correct to evaluate the USSR ruble at the current exchange rate. In the USSR, the minimum salary per month was 70 rubles, the average was about 150. So 400 rubles was about 3 average salaries.

1:45 This equipment is called an "oscilloscope", which functionally allows you to detect several types of radiation.

I generally assumed there were some technical liberties taken with the show and while it doesn't take away from the quality of the show as a drama, I'm grateful for your analysis about its accuracy. Thanks.

*_"I'm a Nuclear Physicist. Before you were Deputy Secretary, you worked in a shoe factory."_* **SLAM!!!!**

The three drives didn't die within a week but lived for many years after. Also, the explosion of if they didn't go in would have been much smaller than stated in the in the scene with Gorbachev. Still, at that time, they thought they would die within a week, so they were still heroes.

I love your videos Elina. Would you please make a video about RTGs? (radioisotope thermoelectric generators)

Thank you for making this! Was nice to watch! :) Honestly, your nails kinda stole the show when you were talking a lot for me haha. Nice

I thought you were going to point out the theaters confused a thermal explosion (steam) and a thermonuclear explosion. Thomas understand me, the explosion would have been bad, but not in the megatons

Seems like I recall a story about someone who was so radioactive he had to live in the wilderness for the rest of his life

Yes, keep going, I enjoyed the series but understood there was quite a lot of dramatic license. It’s nice to have the more egregious errors pointed out by someone who is qualified.

Small correction. It was a nuclear plant in Sweden that detected the radiation, not a university. At first they thought it was a leak there so it took another day before the world found out it was from Sovjet.

400 rubles at the time is actually akin to 26,000 USD today.

Im not sure if you are aware, but the shot of the helicopter crashing after passing near the reactor building was a real event though it happened months later. The soviets dropped various glues and agents to capture radioactive material for dumping into the core as the Sarcophagus was constructed, and an Mi-8 managed to clip one of the cranes being used that day. the HBO series recreated it precisely other than the drop and the date.

Funfact: The actor at 10:55 is, A famous (same actor who plays Cpt Squidface in Pirates n Caribbean) Swedish actor. I am from Sweden Hence how I know. Also seen the TV-Show before.

Really cool video! I'm from Sweden and at the time of the Chernobyl disaster, my father worked at the Forsmark Nuclear Powerplant as a nuclear physicist. He was working on the same shift when they detected one of the workers having high levels of radiation on his shoes. He told me and my family the entire story and we watched the series together. It was a humbling experience and my father was not only disappointed but also saddened. Saddened by how the authorities, the high-ranking seniors of the Nuclear powerplant and by extent the government were hiding such devastating news from not only their own people but also from the world. This story made me interested in nuclear physics and, to contradictory to what one would imagine, a person who is very much for nuclear power and energy. My father still works at the same nuclear powerplant to this day, but on a higher position as he has worked there since the beginning of the 80s, starting as a junior in 1983/84.

I think this was simply a HPGe or a NaI(Tl) detector setup, some preamp and a shaper connected to a very old MCA with a printer connected. She sees the Gamma Lines from 131I and this is why she knows...

The firefighters (VPCh-2) was a military based fire unit (part of MVD) thy had no knowledge regarding radiation and exposure since USSR doctrine was 'it cant happen in USSR' and never to "inform" anyone regarding soviet secrets, this is also stated on Valery's Legasov recorded memoirs. That also explains why the Pripyat hospital and none of city occupants had Iodine pils. The used water because they thought it was a regular roof fire, emphasizing during call that roof between block 3 and 4, it's also stated in full 20 min recording of emergency call (transcript). The show shows only 10 seconds of the actual call.

If im not mistaken about the 1st foreign country to report on the radiation was indeed Sweden, but 1st country to detect the radiation was Finland. But due to proximity to USSR and not so great relationship...Fins didnt dare to report it right way, but soon after Sweden.

I'm sure anyone who had access to appropriate safety gear (gloves etc.) used it as much as possible. The question is, what sort of safety gear if any, did they have access to?

Please finish this series it's so great. And you're very relatable to my daughters they love watching you

Please react to the rest of the Episodes, I love this HBO series and I love even more to see a nuclear physicist like you react to it! 😋💖

For a lot of the mistakes made by the people in the events, we have to cut them some slack because few people had really had to consider the logistics of such a disaster before this point. E: Fun(?) Fact: There was a helicopter that wandered too close to the crane wires in the real event too. Somewhat more fun fact: The three cool dudes who swam through the radioactive water lived. As of 2015 2/3 were still alive, one died to a heart attack a few years prior.

I'm loving your commentary on this disaster although I hate that it happened.

11:52 Love that empowering art there, I am sure it is all so organized. Are Mediterranean slavs more athletic?

An interesting detail was, that there was teams of eg. 7 liquidators and had only 1 dosimeter. So one guy measures at the door 5 Roentgen and then they went in. But at the end of the room, there was 500 and the team received a fatal dose in minutes. But the guy that waits at the door, still says 5 Roentgen. So they didnt even realize what kind of mistakes they do. Also those lead shields on the trucks. Lead needs to be at least 5-10cm thick, to hold back some gamma. With these thin lead plates on the trucks, they blocked alpha and beta, but maybe just 50% of gamma. So if they had like 2000 Roentgen in front of the buidling, then the drivers still received a fatal dose of 1000 Roentgen. Not to speak about the roof, where they had 10.000 Roentgen. People should never have been sent up there.

Hi Elina, thank you for your expert opinion. I had wanted to watch this series but there were so many experts like yourself and historians familiar with the disaster saying how inaccurate the series could be at times that I just decided to skip it. But that part with them opening the window and the radiation detector going off, does that indicate that the glass is lead or would even just a basic glass window have been enough to prevent the detector from going off? I suppose it's just blowing in the wind, but I am ignorant of just how wide the radiological field of each particle is and its ability to penetrate certain materials Thank you

The men they sent down in the water at the end, may not have had geiger counters in reality. It may have been added for dramatic effect in the series. I do not KNOW this, I just SUSPECT it, because that is often the way things are done in movies.

Surprisingly the 3 "divers" survived until the 2000's and 2 of then were still alive in 2015.

Hi Elina; is the English phrase "contaminated with radiation" incorrect? I suspect it is, and that the phrase "contaminated with radioactive material" is correct. Thank you for your excellent video!

The first trace of radiation detected in Europe from the 1986 Chernobyl accident was at Forsmark, Sweden's second-largest nuclear power plant. when an employee passed one of the radiation monitors on his way back from the restroom. it showed high levels of radiation coming from his shoes.

I remember when the Chernobyl accident happened. Initial Soviet reports said 2 people had died!

You touch on an interesting reality point, how Mueller tube Geiger counters basically shut down at around 3 (3.6 you say, but the reality is for the older ones sometimes as low as 3) roentgens. A totally different kind of device is needed for the radiation levels of a nuclear event. Some call them War meters, some call them Radiacs, but those devices are useless unless periodically calibrated and there are only a few places with the equipment to do that accurately. The old d (BBC?) documentary in which they interviewed the people who actually were involved with trying to fix the incident had the radiation levels maxing out their war meters which usually stop at 500 roentgens.

The Ruble-Dollar exchange value would have been about one to one back then. Make of that what you will, considering Soviet economy. 400 bucks adjusted for inflation would be about 1100 today.

Thanks for doing a video about this Elina! I was hoping you'd comment on the "Megatons" comment in the politburo briefing when Legasov is explaining the potential consequences of the core dropping into the bubbler pools. Yes I agree a steam explosion containing fission products would be bad, but it wouldn't cause a nuclear scale explosion!? Right? That line has bothered me more then Han Solos "Parsec" line....

Please continue I would like to know more details

11:58 - Currency rating of 1 Soviet rouble to US dollar was $1,8797 by April, 21 2021. For better understanding google:prices in USSR for basic products, and also salary.

Loved watching the show, and completely missed the reason for him asking for a different glass.

Actually, if you adjust for inflation it comes out at about 600 dollars not 6 dollars.

The fuckup with boron and neutron absorbing matter in this case is that just like the control rods, sure it can contain the neutrons shooting from a thing that is near it or is surrounded by it, just how fuel rods are essentially encaged when the control rods are fully down. But in case of a full reactor meltdown, where there are no more fuel rods arrayed in specific geometry, contained in adequate material that will allow water to flow around them and through the material that ``bears`` them and control rods is that the fuel rods that were controllable are now a slagged mass of critical metal in a highly energized state, so just taking that whole mass which is the core and literally putting it in a jar of sand, boron and ground up control rods would still not be able to stop it, as there is too much nuclear matter in contact as a single slab, the absorbing material will only be able to suck up the neutrons fired out of the outermost layers of the slagged core(quite a good thing), but the inside of the core will just keep firing neutrons at random in whatever direction, causing more fission, causing more free neutrons... Its kinda like how nitroglycerin cant be kept at large quantities as the mass of it itself will produce enough force on the lowest layer to cause an explosion... There is no way to stabilize it truly at a large scale, just as with fuel rods which can be kept isolated and wont ``ignite`` the chain reaction as there isnt enough mass that produces neutron shots, but once you slag a full core down to the bottom of the reactor vessel, you have a lump that is large enough to sustain itself and keep firing as much as it wants, regardless of what you do to it from the outside... I mean, its the reason the core is still warm to this day... you can confine it, douse it, block the radiation, but the core itself isnt being stopped by that nor really affected at all... Its just a miracle that the remaining matter present after the explosion, making up the reactor with all its fuel rods was small enough for the meltdown of it not to make a much larger slab which could not even be contained really and could go supercritical just by being as big as it is... Now im no nuclear physicist, but i did spend years learning shit on this subject and many similar out of curiosity... Elina will be able to confirm whether what i wrote is true, but i have little doubt about it except on some wording i used which may be misinterpreted, but putting processes that arent really tangible and dont have everyday observable examples in simple words is quite hard...

many kinds of reactors that function in differing processes... same shut down protocol to one causes a melt down in the other.

The 3 people who went into the water all lived, and I think 2 of them are even still alive.

Oh, boy. I wanted to see is there a comment about glows already but tired scrolling through the same comments from people who didn’t watch the show. Most of “mistakes” people keep pointing out are simply directoral/production/art choice, since it’s a drama not a documentary. There is a statement in the last episode listing all changes made to the actual story and reasons for them, including the three divers, non-existing persons etc. Anyways, doctors and nurses didn’t wear gloves in SU. Only surgeons had them on for major surgeries mostly. I had a very minor surgery as a kid in SU, surgeon didn’t put glows on in my case. Medical stuff never had enough of them in hospitals, so they try to save as much as they could for E.R and O.R. So not a mistake on part of the series or depicted medical stuff, rather historically accurate.

Ah we measured the 131I in 1986 everywhere in Germany... was easy to meausre... our scintillation detectors went in the overflow.

0:25 It is quite natural that the speech was in Russian, because during the Soviet Union, Russian was the main language throughout the entire territory of all CIS countries. All other languages ​​were considered additional, depending on the republic, which Ukraine was considered at that time.

Actually, the message that is spoken to the citizens of Prypiat is another "downplay the shit out of this" type of exercise - what they're saying is that there is "an unfortunate radiological circumstance". In the same vein, getting your leg cut off is "an unfortunate locomotive condition"... :D

Watched on Ko-Fi, just her to improve the algorithms! ❤🤙

1:55 You are probably right about the xray deflectometer but I've seem some impressive identification results using gamma ray spectroscopy. I have no idea if that technology was around in the 1980's. Would a deflectometer be able to determine which isotope was present? The chart you showed did have I-131 in the corner...

Actually the "divers" who shut off the water ended up surviving, I guess their scuba suits protected them well enough and they got lucky.

ELINA: _"I'm guessing their name is nowhere in that list."_ 🤭🤭🤭