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I remember the day Chernobyl blew up very well. I was 7 years old, visiting my grandparents dacha and playing with my sister outside all day. It was a happy day. We did not know what was happening. There was no announcement, no warning. Later, the rumors spread. Our school's military prep teacher started giving out unofficial (and thus delivered in hushed, secretive tone) advice on how to deal with radiation fallout ("Drink grape juice. Wear hats. Do not eat local fruits and vegetables"). The vegetation grew lush, almost double in size, the weeds in our garden resembled Triassic forest. I was sent away to visit relatives in Latvia. When our plane landed in Riga, it was met by a firetruck and rinsed out...
Watching the first episode of these series (the one where the reactor blew) was very difficult. I had to pause many times. It was certainly realistic. The set, costume designers have to be given credit - it was like going back in time. I don't know how realistic the depiction of human interactions was. Parts of the dialogue seemed so very British it was hard to imagine my people using similar phrases when dealing with an emergency... I don't envy the translators who will be undoubtedly soon be dubbing these series into Ukrainian and Russian. But from historical perspective, these series are definitely a must watch for me. Already I have learned something I didn't know, about the chief scientist who prepared Chernobyl accident report committing suicide after leaving tapes of evidence (who has them now? can I read a transcript?) On a greater scale, the central theme of these series to me is the truth and people in power who try to use or manipulate or outright deny it in order to achieve their means or preserve themselves. Ultimately, it always comes out, but at what cost?
*Update* There is a podcast that goes along with these series. From the first two episodes I have gathered that although the creators tried to stay as true as possible to the actual events, they had to make some changes (there was no scientist named Khomyuk, for example: she was an aggregate of hundreds of scientists that worked on containing Chernobyl, many of them women). Also, as other reviewers have noted, for further reading I highly recommend "Chernobyl Prayer" by Svetlana Alexievich, a Nobel Literature prize-winning book of eyewitness accounts of the disaster and it's aftermath.
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