Reporter | Liu fang
At 1:30 a.m. on April 26, 1986, a piercing fire alarm sounded over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the Soviet Union. The first firefighters rushed to the scene of the explosion after receiving the news.
The young and curious firefighter Misha picked up a piece of graphite from the messy ground and asked, "What is this?" "I don't know misha, don't touch this thing." Another firefighter, Vasily, answered as he watched in horror at the flaming No. 4 nuclear reactor.
Two weeks later, Vasily and Misha died of acute radiation syndrome. During the treatment, Vasily's pregnant wife held his festering hand and insisted on not leaving.
The above plot comes from the Chernobyl miniseries co-produced by HBO and British Sky in the United States, which officially aired on May 6. The series once again pushed the nuclear catastrophe that shocked the world 33 years ago to the center of public opinion. Among them, characters such as Misha and Vasily are portrayed based on real character experiences.
With the popularity of the series, the once desolate and even creepy Chernobyl became one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world this year.
Located near Pripyat, about 110 kilometers north of The Ukrainian capital Kiev, Chernobyl is one of the most polluted places in the world and can only be visited in the company of a licensed guide. The Chernobyl "exclusion zone" covers more than 4,000 square kilometers of the nuclear power plant, and there are several tour companies offering different travel products.
While ensuring the safety of nuclear radiation levels, much of Chernobyl was opened to tourists in 2011. The remains of nuclear reactor No. 4 are currently covered by a giant steel structure, becoming a new safe confinement. Visitors can visit the observation point 1,000 feet away.
Sergii ivanchuk, director of local travel company Soloeast, told The Washington Post that their orders in May were up 30 percent from the same period in 2018, and bookings for the next three months were also up from last year. This was confirmed by another tour company chernobylwel.com.
After the episode hit, companies like Chernobyl-Tour began experimenting with different models from traditional projects, and they quickly launched miniseries-themed tours.
Chernobyl-Tour's website says in English: "HBO's Chernobyl miniseries have generated great interest in Chernobyl-themed tours around the world. With the help of those who experienced the Chernobyl accident first-hand, the travel experts have prepared a special trip for you, revealing the secrets and truths of the incident. ”
In this tour, visitors will visit the basement of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the fire station where vasily and misha were the first firefighters who rushed to the scene, and the medical station that received the first victims of nuclear radiation. Visitors can also ride in armored vehicles to experience how emergency personnel conducted their first radiation detection that year, draw the first radiation pollution map, and even eat a lunch of the employees at the time in the canteen of the nuclear power plant.
But the marketing tactics that turned disasters into mega carnival theme parks have been controversial. Ivanchuk, director of soloeast, said he had a hard time understanding why some competitors had started selling "refrigerator magnets, radioactive ice cream and canned air" near the original site of the nuclear power plant.
More controversially, some of Ukraine's influencers, especially fashion models, suddenly discovered the "traffic effect" of Chernobyl. They posted sexy photos of themselves in the ruins on social media, which attracted many likes from netizens. Veronika Rocheva, a Ukrainian model who posted semi-nude photos of Chernobyl as a backdrop, recently had to apologize publicly, saying that in fact she was not in the "forbidden zone" at all, just editing the picture for popularity.
In response, the show's creator, Craig Mazin, said he thought it was a good thing that the show boosted local tourism, but wanted visitors to remember that tragedy had happened here.
The reason why this series has caused a huge sensation is largely due to its high degree of restoration of visual effects. Business Insider commented that although the plot is not completely in line with historical facts, the scenes, costumes, characters, etc. are strikingly similar to history. And this is thanks to the people who really recorded the Chernobyl disaster in the first place.
On April 26, 1986, 14 hours after the explosion, photographer Igor Kostin captured the first picture of Reactor 4 on a helicopter assessing radiation levels. Due to the radiation at the time, the photos were somewhat blurry. Experts later learned that the radiation at an altitude of two hundred meters above the helicopter at that time reached 1500 rehms. According to the Soviet general Nikolai tarakanov, who directed the entire clean-up work, the maximum acceptable radiation value for the cleaners was 20 rem, which is the maximum radiation acceptable to soldiers during the war. Within three months before and after the accident, 31 people died, and in the next 15 years, 60,000 to 80,000 people died of nuclear radiation.
In another photo taken by Coustin, the cleaners are cleaning up debris from Reactor 3. This is one of the very impressive scenes in the episode. Initially, workers tried to remove radioactive debris with robots from West Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union, but they could not cope with extreme radiation levels, so the authorities decided to use manual operations. The cleaner cannot do more than 40 seconds in a job.
Although the series is highly restored visually, it is not a documentary after all, and the plot it renders has been strongly questioned by people involved in the accident.
Robert Peter Gale, an authoritative physician on blood and oncology in the United States and one of the experts involved in the treatment of Chernobyl victims, recently published a series of signed articles attacking HBO for having many misleading "dangerous mistakes" in scientific knowledge and historical facts.
Gayle said that the day after he offered the Soviet government to help with bone marrow transplants, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly dobrynin, called him and invited him to leave for Moscow immediately. Gayle led two other colleagues from UCLA and an Israeli expert to Chernobyl. Over the next 2 years, they treated 204 radiation victims, 175 of whom survived.
Gayle suggests that as a doctor, he must correct inaccurate depictions of radiation victims in the episodes. For example, the victims themselves are not extremely lethal and therefore simply need normal isolation, and the episodes themselves exaggerate the infectivity of the victims.
For example, the effect of radiation on the fetus is not as extreme as depicted in the play. Gayle said: "According to our estimates, the misunderstanding between radiation and birth defects by local doctors has led to more than 1 million unnecessary abortions in the Soviet Union and Europe. Ignorance is dangerous. ”
Gayle unceremoniously criticized in his letter: "To my surprise, the producers did not get any technical advice from physicists or radiobiologists, but simply completed the script based on a novel (The Voice of Chernobyl)." ”
In addition to scientists, important historical figures involved in the mini-series have also responded to the series recently. In an interview with Russia Today (RT), General Tarakanov, who directed the cleanup at Chernobyl, said that while the actors were excellent, in fact no one had ever ordered fighters to shoot at the cattle, and he had not seen miners working naked.
Gorbachev, then the supreme leader of the Soviet Union, said in an interview that he had not yet watched Chernobyl, but would certainly watch it when he had time. He also said he had not interfered in the career of Valery Legasov, chairman of the accident handling committee at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Legasov was the Soviet Union's chief expert at the IAEA at the time and one of the show's most important characters. In reality, Legasov did choose to commit suicide because he could not tell the truth. The official investigation concluded that Legasov died of depression.
On April 27, 1988, the day after the second anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident and the day before the results of the Chernobyl accident were made public, Legasov hanged himself from his apartment. On June 10 this year, General Tallakanov confirmed the authenticity of the drama's portrayal of Legasov in an interview with Russia Today.
He made it clear that the Soviet government had indeed marginalized Legasov. Yefim P. Slavsky, a senior official in charge of the nuclear weapons program, personally removed Legasov from the list of candidates for the Hero of the Soviet Union. After that, Legasov went to the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency with a report, and when he returned, he established the Nuclear Safety and Security Institute. But the leaders who manage energy and science, like Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov, do everything they can to make things difficult for him. No one dared to join his ranks.
General Tarakanov said Legasov was a brilliant scientist but ended up falling prey to a power struggle. At the critical juncture, he didn't even get enough votes to join the Scientific Council. Legasov had attempted suicide more than once.
The Interface News reporter found through the data that in 1993, the "Bulletin of atomic scientists" published an article entitled "The Long Shadow of Chernobyl". The article quoted declassified documents from the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency, as pointing out that Since 1970, Soviet scientists, including Regasov, have raised concerns about design flaws at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. They argue that nuclear power plants have serious malfunction hazards from combustible asphalt on the roof to control rods. Before the 1986 explosion, Chernobyl had also been unstable. However, these concerns have not attracted the attention and recognition of the authorities.
With the popularity of the series, the discussion it triggered is also fermenting. One thing that is clear is that the series' creator, Craig Mazin, never conflated the work with "truth." In an interview with Vox, Marzin talked about his understanding of "truth": "The so-called truth, even if it is the best version, is not a story, nor does it have the effect of dissemination. All you have to do is draw people to the truth itself through a compelling story. Honestly, everything you see is just a certain degree of truth... The truth needs to be explored by yourselves. ”