"Chernobyl": how the worst episode of the season ended

The final episode of the mini-series "Chernobyl" by the American HBO channel has been released. Even before it was over, he triumphantly topped the IMDb rating. And there are many reasons for this: from the brilliantly conveyed atmosphere to the genuine feeling of fear that comes through from every shot.

"Lifehacker" says goodbye to the series and tells what should be taken out of the terrible history of the disaster.

Caution: This article contains spoilers! If you are not ready to know them, check out our selection of books on the Chernobyl accident

What happened in the final episode

It may seem that we have already seen the most terrible thing in previous episodes: the real consequences of radiation sickness, the shooting of infected animals, the forever empty Pripyat. But the final episode turned out to be stronger and more emotional than all the previous ones: it was he who revealed to the viewer the main reason for the disaster. And it turned out that it is much worse than the consequences of the accident.

The creators showed the trial of the station director Viktor Bryukhanov, chief engineer Nikolai Fomin and deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov. They wanted to turn this trial into a show, but in the end it turned into a triumph of truth. Hiding the real causes of the disaster at the IAEA expert conference in Vienna, Valery Legasov found the strength to tell about them when everyone around had already stopped waiting.

It turned out that the root of all evil is a fatal flaw in the AZ-5 button, which is responsible for the emergency shutdown of the reactor. This mistake was deliberately made during the design in order to reduce the cost of building the station.

High-ranking officials and scientists knew about this. But as the KGB officer from the show said: "Why worry about something that will never happen?"

The station workers were unaware of anything. And as a result, the emergency shutdown button, which was pressed by the head of the night shift, Alexander Akimov, served as a detonator. The real culprits of the tragedy were not people, but the ubiquitous lies of the Soviet system. Is the Deputy Chief Engineer Dyatlov to blame for this? Of course, after all, he violated all possible rules for operating a nuclear power plant. But still, he is nothing more than a part of the state system that gave birth to him.

The country still had to admit the problems in the design of the RBMK. But this happened only after Legasov's suicide. Shortly before his death, the scientist recorded his monologue about the causes of the accident on a tape recorder. Thanks to this evidence that could not be ignored, nuclear reactors across the country were finally refined.

We will hardly ever know how many people died due to Chernobyl: the range varies from 4,000 to 93,000 deaths. The series ends with a story about real prototypes of heroes. The end credits go to the eerie crackle of Geiger counters.

How the stories of the heroes ended in reality

Back in the first episode, we learned that on the second anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Valery Legasov was found hanged in his Moscow apartment. And so it was in reality. True, the real Legasov still had a family: a wife and a daughter. According to screenwriter Craig Mazin, Valery is not a daredevil or a hero, but an ordinary person with his weaknesses. Before the Chernobyl disaster, he was an active member of the party. However, what happened forced him to reconsider many of his beliefs. In 1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin posthumously awarded Valery Legasov the title of Hero of Russia.

Boris Shcherbina worked a lot at the scene of the accident and gave the fateful order for the evacuation. Gradually, Shcherbina realized that the Chernobyl disaster was due to the shortcomings of the Soviet system itself, of which he himself had been for many years. Although this realization was not easy for him, he did everything to some extent to atone for his guilt. It is believed that it was the numerous business trips to the liquidation zone that undermined his health. Boris Shcherbina died in August 1990.

The fictional character Ulyana Khomyuk is a collective image of dozens of scientists who tirelessly worked alongside Legasov. Among them were those who spoke out against the official version of the authorities, who tried to blame the disaster on the negligence of employees. These people were hunted down. Many of them were arrested. And the character of Ulyana was created to honor their dedication and loyalty to the truth.

Convicted Anatoly Dyatlov and Viktor Bryukhanov were sentenced to ten years in prison for criminal negligence. Four years later, after numerous letters in his defense, including from Academician Andrei Sakharov, Dyatlov was released early due to illness. In 1995, he died of a heart attack without admitting his guilt. The former director of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Bryukhanov, was also released ahead of schedule due to health problems. He died in 2018 at the age of 83.

Chief engineer Nikolai Fomin was sentenced to ten years in prison. Two years in custody severely damaged his mental health, after which the former engineer was transferred from the prison hospital to a psychiatric clinic. After his release, Fomin returned to work - he was taken to the Kalinin nuclear power plant. Now he lives with his family in the town of Udomlya.

Separately, in the final credits, engineer Valery Khodemchuk is mentioned - the first victim of Chernobyl. He was never able to get out of the fourth power unit. Death overtook the engineer under one hundred and thirty tons of concrete debris.

Divers Aleksey Ananenko, Valery Bespalov and Boris Baranov, who were not afraid to dive into radioactive water when it was required to manually open the reservoir, deserve mention. There was information that they died heroically while completing the assignment. But in fact, the divers survived. Baranov died only in 2005 from a heart attack. Ananenko and Bespalov are alive and continue to work.

The daughter of Lyudmila and Vasily Ignatenko, whom they managed to call Natasha, died of congenital heart disease almost immediately after birth. Subsequently, Lyudmila still decided to give birth to her second child. Since childhood, the boy suffered from liver problems and severe asthma. Inspired by the story of this woman, Swedish documentary filmmaker Gunnar Bergdahl made the film The Voice of Ludmila in 2001.

How viewers rated the ending

Seriously… if you haven't watched #Chernobyl yet… you have to watch it. Incredible series, but episode 5 was especially powerful.

Absolutely amazing performance by @JaredHarris on #Chernobyl. Every episode was incredible but his performance in episode 5 hit me hard.

Episode 5 of #Chernobyl wow. Just WOW. #ChernobylHBO is inarguably one of the best mini series EVER.

Thank you to @clmazin & @hbo and the actors and crew for a truly important five-part film. Finishing #Chernobyl episode 5, my family sat stunned. It felt like a prayer from another world: Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.

What should we take out of all this

In a sense, the tragedy of Chernobyl is an alternative level of evil. As Svetlana Aleksievich wrote: “The military atom is Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the peaceful atom is an electric light bulb in every home. No one had ever guessed that the military and peaceful atom are twins. And indeed. War, despite all the horrors associated with it, is a thing that anyone can understand. But radiation turned out to be a completely different enemy. Invisible and therefore especially creepy.

It's really scary when the familiar friendly world - sky, sun, clouds, grass - changes. And no one, including the viewer, can see these changes. But the series copes with an impossible task and transfers an incorporeal, inaccessible nightmare to the screens through sounds, brilliant visuals, and a heartfelt story.

But the main thing for which I would like to thank HBO is for respect for those people whose destinies were broken by Chernobyl. This is evidenced even by the painstaking attention of the creators to the little things and the desire to perfectly reproduce every insignificant everyday detail. Writer Craig Mazin and director Johan Renck have created a shocking but very important project that must be watched not only because of the 9.7 rating on IMDb, but also because it concerns each of us.