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Moloda Gvardiya / MICHAELA VONDRUSKA / UK SKY LTD / HBO
The Chernobyl engineer Oleksiy Breus, yesterday and today, next to the televised picture of the disaster
Hours after the worst nuclear accident in the world, engineer Oleksiy Breus entered the control room of reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
A staff member of the factory from 1982, he immediately testified the next morning, April 26, 1986.
The story of the catastrophic reactor explosion, told in an HBO / Sky miniseries, received the highest score of all time for a TV show on the IMDB film website. The Russians and Ukrainians watched it via the internet, and the Kinopoisk Russian film site got a favorable rating.
Mr. Breus worked with many people represented and delivered his verdict.
Warning: this story contains details of the plot of the miniseries
How much has been done and fiction?
"I was surprised that they even brought us there," said Mr. Breus about his arrival at work the day after the blast. "The reactor looked so damaged, it seemed like there was nothing else to do there."
Some of the events that he witnessed that morning were described realistically in the series, but others that he described as fiction.
"The Chernobyl disaster is described in a very powerful way, as a global disaster that has absorbed a considerable number of people, and the emotions and moods of that time are being shown very accurately both and the authorities.
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OLEKSANDR KUPNYI
Mr. Breus revisited the control room of the reactor 20 years after the disaster
"However, the technological aspects have some differences … that may not be exactly [be] lies, but simply fiction, "he adds.
What about the main characters?
The roles of three key personalities are at the heart of the story: the director of the factory, Viktor) Bryukhanov, the chief engineer Nikolai Fomin and the deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov. And Oleksiy Breus sees in their description "not a fiction, but a flagrant lie".
"Their characters are distorted and misrepresented, as if they were bad guys, they were nothing like that."
"Anatoly Dyatlov may have become the main anti-hero of the series because it was so that he was perceived by the workers of the power plant, his subordinates and the management, at the origin This perception then changed. "
The three men were sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp for their role in the disaster and the creator of the series, Craig Mazin, argues that Dyatlov was in particular a "real tyrant", who then made statements that Were not credible.
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Viktor Bryukhanov (left), deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov (center) and chief engineer Nikolai Fomin were tried for the accident.
"The operators were afraid of him," agrees Mr. Breus. "When he was present at the block, it created a tension for everyone, but no matter how tough he was, he was still a top professional."
What was the precision of the representation of the radiation?
Mr. Breus said that the creators of the series had shown the effects of radiation on the human body.
In the hours following the explosion, he spoke with Oleksandr Akimov, the leader of the No. 4 reactor team, and the operator Leonid Toptunov, both very active in Series.
"They did not look good, it's the least we can say," he says. "It was clear that they felt sick, they were very pale, and Toptunov had literally turned white."
In less than two weeks, MM. Akimov and Toptunov died in a Moscow hospital suffering from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).
"I saw other colleagues who were working that night, their skin was bright red, they died later in the Moscow hospital."
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SKY UK LTD / HBO
The British actor Adam Nagaitis played Vasily Ignatenko, one of the first firefighters at the scene of the incident
"Many people have talked about radiation exposure, red skin, radiation burns and water vapor, but this has never been shown as well. I finished my job, my skin was brown, as if I had an adequate tan all over my body, the body parts not covered with clothes – like the hands, face and neck – were red.
In the weeks following the blast, 29 workers and firefighters of power plants died from an SRA, caused by exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation, according to Soviet officials.
Two other workers died as a result of injuries. The body of one of them, Valery Khodemchuk, has never been recovered from the reactor debris.
What was the size of the fire?
Vasily Ignatenko, represented in the series, was one of the first firefighters to address the fire.
Firefighters sent from neighboring Pripyat were not exposed to radiation and Ignatenko died of acute radiation syndrome on May 13, 1986.
Arrived at work that morning, Mr. Breus said he saw no fire.
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The view of the damaged building from the roof of reactor n ° 3
"I saw the damage on the reactor No. 4. You could see the equipment and the pumps exposed.There was no smoke or fire, just fumes emanating from the party damaged. "
Most firefighters poured water on the damaged reactor, he said. "Firefighters poured a thin stream that probably evaporated before even reaching the reactor."
Firefighters were also asked to help remove radioactive debris from the roof after the fire went out.
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Firefighters photographed in 1986 before cleaning the debris from the roof of the No. 4 reactor
What was the precision of worker representation?
One of the most dramatic scenes of the miniseries shows three power plant workers who volunteered to enter an underground tunnel located under the damaged reactor in order to open a vital drainage valve.
It was feared that the "lava" from the molten reactor would reach the water, triggering a new, potentially much more powerful explosion.
Contrary to reports that the three divers died of radiation sickness, they all survive.
Team leader Shory Borys Baranov died in 2005, while Valery Bespalov and Oleksiy Ananenko, both chief engineers of one of the reactor sections, are still alive and live in the capital, Kiev.
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ANANENKO OLEKSIY / BBC / SKY UK LTD / HBO
Oleksiy Ananenko (yesterday and today) with a scene from the TV series showing the three workers wearing a respirator
"It was our job," says Oleksiy Ananenko, who was working at the time, while the others had been ordered by their manager. They knew where the faucets were and so they were the right men.
"If I did not do it, they could just fire me – how could I find another job after that?"
He points out some inaccuracies in the television portrait.
Their face was not covered by a respirator, so they could talk to each other, no reward was offered to them and they were not applauded when they returned successfully.
"It was just our job." Who would applaud that?
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SKY UK LTD / HBO
The television series describes how 400 miners participated in the construction of the tunnel under the damaged reactor
The miners were forced to tunnel under the reactor to create space for a heat exchanger, to prevent the molten core from melting through the concrete slab and contaminating the groundwater, threatening millions of lives.
The temperatures below the reactor were high and the series shows them undressing.
"They undressed, but not as if it had been shown in the film, not for nothing," insisted Mr. Breus, pointing out that their role was ultimately not significant for the story.
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The miners finished their work earlier than expected, but the molten core had cooled down.
"The miners are portrayed as tough guys who are not afraid of anything, but not power plant workers."
How deadly was the bridge of death?
In the series, the inhabitants of Pripyat rush to a railway bridge to better see the fire, unaware of the exposure. Children play in radioactive dust falling from the sky like snow.
This bridge later became known as the "Bridge of Death" after people who remained on the spot died of radiation sickness.
But Mr Breus thinks most of the people of Pripyat would have slept during the explosion and he only became aware of the accident when he arrived at work the next morning.
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SKY UK LTD / HBO
The TV series shows the people of Pripyat watching events unfold on what has been dubbed the "bridge of death"
"I've never heard that there was a crowd of people who went to watch the fire at night," he says.
"In the hospital, I was treated with a guy who visited this bridge on the morning of April 26 in the morning. He had an acute benign type of radiation, said a doctor.
"Another friend treated at the same time said that he had an appointment with his girlfriend near the bridge that night, and he had health problems afterwards."
- People who moved to the Chernobyl exclusion zone
- Chernobyl: The end of a three-decade experiment
How was the Soviet Union portrayed?
Oleksiy Breus said that the accident had revealed the substantial flaws of the Soviet system.
"For example, this useless secret, which became one of the reasons for the Chernobyl disaster.When operators pressed the red button, the reactor did not stop, but exploded."
But while many have praised the attention to detail by the series, he thinks it's also one of the drawbacks of the television series.
"Many stereotypes are shown, typical of Western representation of the Soviet Union," says Oleksiy Breus. "Great cup, vodka, KGB everywhere."
In the end, however, he is pleased that the show has refocused its attention on the disaster and the extent of the damage done.
"Its high ranking shows that people are still interested in Chernobyl – it's not just a local interest, for a small group of people, but it's still global."
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UKRINFORM
Damage caused to the facility by the largest nuclear disaster in history
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