A Greek Building Site | Chernobyl (Part 2/3)

This episode of Fin vs History is brought to you by Surfshark. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code FVH for an extra 4 months at ⁠https://surfshark.com/fvh⁠ Grab your ball ice, we’re going to the gym. Chernobyl (Part Two) The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.  For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon ⁠patreon.com/fintaylor Chapters: 00:00 - Monsters Inc SWAT Team 06:02 - Dead Again 09:41 - ARS 14:07 - Ball Ice 19:18 - Charlie’s Pan 24:03 - Yoghurt Mogging 30:58 - The Bridge Of Death 33:24 - Egg On Your Head 38:42 - The Paralympic Tragedy 41:20 - The Liquidators 47:15 - Greek Building Site Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:12Speaker 02

  Welcome back to part two of our Chernobyl series. It's Finn vs. History. I'm joined by Horatio Gould.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  Ah, fuck! Ah!

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Fuck out. A lovely soundscape there of what must have been heard down the corridor. Oh, fuck it! Oh, no!

• 1:28Speaker 03

  Ow!

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Out!

• 1:29Speaker 03

  Ow!

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot! We think. Is it hot? I don't really understand. It is hot.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  It does, yeah.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  It's very hot.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  It's an awful, awful way to go.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  I think it's up there with the worst.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. Your skin sort of boils and flays.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Your DNA separates.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  But we're getting ahead of ourselves. This is part two.

• 1:48Speaker 03

  So do you change race, then?

• 1:50Speaker 02

  We'll get to that. I think, yes, I'm not sure.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  Is it a mix and match? You're like glitching, you're like Asian, you're like black, you're gay.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  P O C, people of Chernobyl.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  At 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, a nerd is trying to woo a lady. Warning: My reactor's power supply is dangerously low.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  This is Charlie flushing the toilet at this point.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, just absolutely. Freddy getting the toilet flush going, no, no, no, no, no, no, please, please, please, please.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  No, don't stick out the haws. Ah!

• 2:23Speaker 02

  So, we dealt with the science of Chernobyl in our last episode comprehensively. No one can say they don't know what's happening. Now, the power surge, the power level in RBMK reactor four.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  Talk to me now.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  In the Chernobyl power plant in Pripyat, it surges to 100,000% of the original design.

• 2:44Speaker 03

  That's way too much.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Far too much. I don't know, how is it able to? It's like, why do cars go up to 250 miles an hour? What's the point?

• 2:54Speaker 03

  What, yeah?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  I'm not allowed to drive that fast.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, but on the autobahn you can, right?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Have you been on an autobahn?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Is it crazy?

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Fuck, yeah, it's mental. Two lanes. There's a lane where for trucks and 30 miles an hour, and then a do you feel lucky lane?

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. And does it feel scary?

• 3:10Speaker 02

  It's terrifying.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Because you scare people are going to crash into you?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I was, I literally, we drove through Germany when I was maybe 20, 21, in like my mate's Renault.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Tiny little thing, and you're constantly looking out, and it's just.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Really?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  And you're stuck behind a lorry, so you're going 50, right, and then you like quickly get into the overtaking lane.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  Feel lucky.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  And then you've got Mercedes and BMWs.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  Furious behind you.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Like that, behind you. And you're like, fuck! And then you're looking for any gap to try and pull back. It's like a computer game. It's terrifying.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  But the amount of ground you can cover if you use it right, though. Like how quickly you can get across the country, just walking.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Well, listen, the infrastructure's terrific. One of the legacies of the Nazis is they left a terrific road infrastructure. And, you know, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Yes, but you seem to be drowning the baby in the bathwater.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Let's not throw the bathwater out with that baby. There was some great warm bath water that the Nazis created.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Let's not throw any of that out.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  No, let's just keep it all in the bath, shall we? There's a baby in a bath and that's lovely. It's lovely. Bath time.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Let's put some more babies in this bath.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Let's fill up, fill up the bath with babies and water. Why do we have to throw anything out? Anyway, uh, we're talking about Chernobyl and it's the evening of April 26th and, uh, but people are stressed.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  High cortisol. They've got a lot going on.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Stress, it's important to say, stress ages you, uh, and it takes.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  So does nuclear exposure.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  That's true, but it could have been the stress.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  It's a double team, isn't it? Um, yes, their hair, they've got grey hairs and also their face is falling off. And who knows what, what causes what. So we've got a picture up now.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Kind of immaculate vibes though. Like you could see like a, a listening bar. Do you know what a listening bar is?

• 4:55Speaker 02

  I do.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, a listening bar designed like the.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  I think it's bollocks, I'll say.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  I actually have never been to one.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  No, me neither. Wouldn't be seen dead in one.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  You could make a nice one if it was built like the control room in Chernobyl.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  A listening bar. I go to a bar to spout opinions. I don't want to listen to other people. I don't want a listening to bar. That's my pub.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  People listen to you.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  Cause you don't get listened to at home.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  No, or at work. No one's listening.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  But like, that is a vibe. Click on some of those pics.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is a vibe. And also we haven't talked about how.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Low-fi Chernobyl beats to.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Low-fi beats to melt, face melt here. Um, what we haven't talked about has how everyone who works at Chernobyl is dressed like a dinner lady. They're all wearing white coats and little white hats. Why are the white hats?

• 5:40Speaker 03

  Uh, let's do nuclear power plant, uh, UK. Is it, is it just everyone where, dressed like a?

• 5:45Speaker 02

  At Hinkley Point, are they dressing like?

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Workers, workers.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  What are they? What? Not core, cause obviously you can't type, I know, but a nuclear power plant core is a core of a reactor.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Workers.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it's also the aesthetic.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I know, but it would not.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Workers, workers, workers.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Workers' uniforms.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Obviously idiot, stupid guy.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're all, all in blue and high vis.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Guy's dumb.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Oh no, hang on, they're in white.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Eighties, now do eighties. Let's just see if it's.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  It's pretty lit going like the Monsters Inc SWAT team.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Swat team.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  Okay, so no, that is what.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  No, but that's all our, our MBK. We want Britain.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  Interesting. So maybe, maybe it is just the standard nuclear.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  But it's weird.

• 6:22Speaker 03

  So I wonder if it's a Soviet thing as well.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Well, they just look like sort of, um, they look like chefs.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  And what they're cooking doesn't taste good. I'm sending this food.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  Maybe the worst tasting thing, maybe the worst meal of all time.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is the worst meal of all time.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  What, I die and all my kids die. It's like generational death.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What, so everyone has to leave. All animals have to be destroyed. No one's allowed anywhere near this for 20,000 years.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  And any babies that are in the womb will grow up with no legs.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  But they may win Paralympics. So every mushroom cloud.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  Every mushroom cloud.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Now, after the power surge, two explosions follow in rapid succession. It's the Soviet nine 11. First the steam and seconds later a more destructive hydrogen based explosion.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Another one.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Another, another. Um, these blasts destroy the reactor building's roof, which triggers a major graphite fire. Oh, the force of the explosion destroys the core and opens the interior of reactor four to the atmosphere.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  And oxygen's rushing in, which I imagine does something.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  And also, also bad stuff's going out crucially as well.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Valerie, Valerie Kodemchuk, he's a worker in the plant. He's immediately killed and buried under debris and his body is never recovered.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Now.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  He must be fucked.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  I, I would love to have a look at them. Cause one thing that Chernobyl.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  That's Charlie coming in after a big weekend.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  If we do, this is, this is why it's good that we do this. We record these on Tuesdays, not Mondays.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Cause otherwise it'd be like the guy buried under.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Your body can never be recovered on a Monday. It's on a Tuesday morning.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  It's underneath radioactive rubble.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. You're hauling yourself out from whatever sex club you died in on a weekend. I know this is very well done in the city, the opening of the Chernobyl mini series is where you go to the control room and they're like, the at love's like, fuck it, call it, fucking what's happening? Start the test.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  DJ, DJ.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  Twist it, bop it.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  This is the original Fred again. It's like they're going, oh no, oh fuck. And, um.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  Dead again.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Dead again.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  The immediate response to the explosion is complete disbelief and denial. Valery Berdevozchenko runs to assess the damage and returns having witnessed what he thinks is impossible, which is the reactor is exposed and the core's exposed.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  It's exposing itself. It's a paedophile in the playground.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  With a big coat.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  It's a peeping tom. They've opened up the reactor and I can see your core.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Get that core away from those kids. Now, there are gra- there's fragments of graphite scattered all over the site.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  There are flames rising from the wreckage. He tells Diatlov and the boys this and they're like, nah.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Nah.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Bollocks.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  No, I don't want it to be true, therefore it isn't.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  This is not true. That's, that has to be bollocks because if it's not, we're all completely fucked.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  So I'm just gonna say.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  So it's not true.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  So it's not true.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  Because they go, our BMK reactors don't explode in that way. Jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams. Graphite, reactor cores don't explode.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  So what you saw is a lie.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  This is the, we're getting into the Soviet culture.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  And they call disinformation, which is interesting. They always say that you're, this is disinformation.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Disinformation is misinformation.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's a direct.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  I don't think that's news to anyone. I think that's a take.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  They mean the same thing.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, do you think you're the first person to make that connection?

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Disinformation is misinformation.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yes, they mean the same thing.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Hmm. No. Yeah, they do. Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Thank you very much.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Porridge is oatmeal.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  In many ways.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Mind blowing.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  Is it?

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 10:05Speaker 04

  Okay, well then you're not.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Neither was your thing.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Well, you're wrong then.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  What do you mean I'm wrong?

• 10:10Speaker 04

  Porridge is not, porridge is porridge. Disinformation is misinformation.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Porridge is oatmeal.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  Is it?

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  Always.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Well, there is a difference between disinformation and misinformation.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  What about instant porridge?

• 10:23Speaker 02

  It's instant oatmeal. Is it? Yeah, it's a different word for porridge. Different word for porridge. Straight out of the ground. What do you mean? What's oatmeal? Oh, God. I never, I never, I never seem to learn. Yeah. Forget about porridge, Charlie. Porridge is not involved in this story. I love porridge. I know. Now, the easier explanation that Brukharnov and his boys think is that there'd been a huge hydrogen explosion or a steam rupture, which would be serious but contained. So they don't appreciate quite how bad it is. So they get these, they have these, um, they're not called Geiger counters, they're called decimeters. Decimeters, yeah. And, um, uh. So the little things that go. And they tell you the radiation, right?

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Um, and they show, uh, 3.6 runtgens. How am I, how do I say that?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  There's a lot of vowels there. Runchens. What's a South African word? Runchens. Runchens. Are you, it sounds like a South African slur. Renjen. Renjen. Renjen or runchen. It's a bloody renjen. 3.6 renchens per hour, which is the equivalent to 360 chest, chest x-rays. Right. In, in one go. But the decimeter only went to 3.6. So they wrote it down to 360, they said, that's bad, but not terrible. Actually that bad. Yeah. Considering the thing's blown up. Yeah. That's actually fine. That's all right. Brilliant. Send that off to the Politburo. We're giving, we're giving the immediate surroundings a big chest x-ray. Yeah. Fine. Uh, in fact, the real figure was something like 15,000 renchens,

• 12:00Speaker 02

  which is the equivalent to 1.5 million x-rays per hour. Yeah. So about 25,000 a minute. Yeah. Or 400 x-rays every second. Which is bad. Yeah, you don't want that. You know how you go for an x-ray and they put like a steel thing over your balls? Yeah. Imagine there's 400 X-rays.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  All pointed at your balls. So Anatoly Sitnikov. Anatola. Not the Anatola. Is an engineer. He's sent to go and have a look. And he's like, why me, though? Do I have to do it? Why do I have to go and have a nosy at this? And he goes to look at the reactor area and he is severely irradiated.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Which is, which is bad.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it sounds probably better than it is.

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• 15:10Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  We should talk about, so yeah, the big risk of radiation exposure is that you get something which is, this is even-

• 15:46Speaker 03

  You get Thomas Muller in between the lines.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  In all your cells.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Of your cells. You know, to add insult to injury, it's called acute radiation syndrome, arse. So not only-

• 15:57Speaker 03

  And they've not been through enough.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  I know. Not only these men's skin falling off and their faces melting, but they, the cause of death is arse. Which is very, very, very sad.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Akimov and Toptenov, they are like, right, let's open the water valves to pour water in, because Dyatlov's like, I'll fucking cool it down, pour water over it. And, and he's like, well, the reactor can still be stabilized, but the core has been destroyed. The core's gone.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Core blimey.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Core blimey. So both those men, Akimov and Toptenov, they get lethal doses of arse.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  I've had worse Mondays. Hey? I've had worse Mondays.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  These guys hadn't had worse Mondays.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  This is the worst Monday these guys have ever had.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's one of the worst Mondays anyone's ever had.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  I think it is the worst Monday.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  If you go into work, this is as bad as Mondays get.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, no one in the, in the, in the control room is going, bloody hell, I had worse Mondays. My face has melted.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  Some of them are saying, I've had better Mondays.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Last Monday was better than this Monday.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  Do you remember last Monday, we, um?

• 17:00Speaker 03

  Oh, we took last Monday for granted.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was bank holiday, actually. We had the day off, went to the pub, it was brilliant. This Monday's fucking awful.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  My skin's fallen off. Yeah? And it's a bit stingy. Akimov dies on the 10th of May, so two weeks later, and Topatnov dies on the 14th of May. Now, we should get into arse, acute radi- don't look at me like that.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  Easy now.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Acute radiation syndrome, because this is what the Chernobyl series apparently gets wrong.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Or in the, rather than, so they, they paint a picture of like, Charlie, Google the photos of, um, the Chernobyl mini-series, acute radiation sickness. Like their skin melts, they potentially rot while they're alive, and, um...

• 17:48Speaker 03

  But the brutal thing is they always get, they get better.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yes, there's a latency, yeah, that, look, that, that one there, yeah, get that up. So this is, um, from the mini-series, and this is-

• 17:58Speaker 03

  What they get wrong?

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Is that what happens? No, so, so that is what happens, however, that takes like weeks and months, and it's not over hours.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Right, that's me after the sauna.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  You've got to cold plunge, Akimov. You need to sauna then cold plunge, okay?

• 18:18Speaker 02

  You're 15 minutes. Brian Johnson's selling branded ice packs for your balls to keep your fertility markers up, yeah? Saunas get rid of your microplastics in your ejaculate, did you know that?

• 18:29Speaker 03

  So that's good.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  But then, why do you have to ice it? Because I'm, I'm sauntering all the time, but I'm not taking my ball ice to the gym.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  You're not taking your ball ice to the gym? Where are you leaving your ball ice?

• 18:39Speaker 03

  That's at home.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Your ball ice should be on you at all times, at all times. It should be a key ring. You know how you can get those, um, pocket-sized Sriracha bottles that you go on a key ring?

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Your ball ice?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  You have ball ice.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  So you can just go like that?

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Sriracha, ball ice.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  So yeah, so, because, um, Brian Johnson, he measures his come after the thing, and he says that's the-

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, because he's a cool guy.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  I saunter and then I measure my cum.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  Any further questions?

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Your honour, is that a crime? No.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  It's not a crime.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Is it an ick? Maybe. Not to me, it's not.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  That's personal preference.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  It's pretty mad for him to just slidling up to a woman in a bar going, "Yeah, I've got 18 rows of erections and no microplastics in my ejaculate. Wanna come over here?"

• 19:22Speaker 03

  And if you want to see the paperwork, here it is.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, here it is. Yeah, yeah.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  So he gets rid of microplastics in your cum, but then why does he have to ice his balls?

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Because the one downside of saunering, as much as he says he's...

• 19:33Speaker 03

  I defer to the cum specialist.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Thank you. No, I'm a sauna specialist, I'm not a cum specialist. That's Charlie. The one downside of saunering...

• 19:40Speaker 03

  He's cum special needs, that's what he is.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, sorry, he's got special needs cum. No, Brian Johnson says that saunering, whatever amount of times a week, is overall markers for whatever he's measuring is very good. The one downside is that your fertility markers get quite bad. Your sperm count is bad.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  So to counteract that, he sells Brian Johnson branded ice ball packs and like trunks that you put an ice pack in. In order to, so that offsets the negative so that it's a wholly good experience.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Going to sauna without it is not the end of the world.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  I don't think so, but he probably would say...

• 20:14Speaker 03

  He probably thinks so.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, he thinks so, yeah. But he's not, you've got to cold plunge afterwards. Hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold. Okay? He's fucked it, that guy.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  What ARS does, what R S does, is over the course of like weeks, it complete immune system collapse. So it's like, I guess it's like super aids, almost?

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Super aids.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Super aids?

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  I think.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Get a picture of Freddie Mercury in the bed with 50 guys.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  This is the scientist at Chernobyl, is it?

• 20:44Speaker 03

  I'm just trying to paint a vivid picture for the listener.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  So, sorry, it's Freddie, we're looking at a photo here of Freddie Mercury. To be fair, looks like one of the best nights ever. Freddie Mercury is in a, you'd have to say that's a super, a super king bed.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Velvet. There's maybe 10 guys, all, all with massive tashes and muscles. So you're saying Freddie Mercury is the Chernobyl core and his, the boys are the sides.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  That's super Aids, right?

• 21:10Speaker 02

  That's super Aids, right. So fast forward a week and they all look like Akimov.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  So, uh, what it does is it dissolves, it basically, it essentially liquefies your organs over the course of weeks. Cause your cell, it destroys the things in you that make new cells. Extreme herpes. Yes, or super Aids, extreme herpes. So you, your cells can't divide anymore. So your skin, uh, melt, like sort of dissolve and then can't, isn't replaced. So there's no blood clad, no more blood clots.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  And then your organs liquefy, become sort of a soup.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Kill me. Yeah, well, that's, yeah, I mean, you are dying. Kill me immediately. Yeah. I, I genuinely think that we should have been a case for just like, okay, just bullet in the heads, just bolt.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Definitely. If you're shooting all the dogs, shoot the fucking.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  They're not shoot, this is a point where they have to destroy animals.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  You're not putting them down, you're destroying them.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Fucking what? Microwave? Well, no, that's the opposite. The whole place is a microwave.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  No, you're like just in an oven, just Holocaust.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Done.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Just destroy the animals. So.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  But then they get better, right?

• 22:16Speaker 02

  In the first few minutes and hours after acute exposure, exposure to acute radiation, there'll be nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fatigue. And I, I mean, that's just, you know, that's a Wednesday for me, right? Um, I've got diarrhea and I'm tired. Brilliant. Well, yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  You've got ass.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Whatever. I've got, I've got ass. Yeah. Now then there is a latency period of about three days where you think it's fine. But this is where the radiation is like in between the lines.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Pep Guardiola and your bone marrow.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  It's bending the run.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. So after a temporary symptom-free latency period, severe symptoms emerge, including fever, dehydration, neurological dysfunction. This is where your hair then manifest illness stage. Symptoms based on the specific type of syndrome, so bone marrow infections, hair loss, severe skin burns, internal bleeding and dehydration. So gastrointestinal syndrome, neurovascular syndrome, confusion, immediate loss of consciousness, death within days.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  When they say confusion, is it like I'm confused? I feel like my organs are turning into a cup of soup.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Confused.com, confused.com, cup of soup organs. What's going on in here? I'm in a bit of a muddle back here.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean confusion, yeah, you would be a little bit confused.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Excuse me, what's going on here then?

• 23:36Speaker 03

  What's all this then?

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Hello, hello, hello. My liver seems to be pouring out my arse. Oh, I don't really know what's going on.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Confused.com.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Confused.com would be a brilliant advert. The Chernobyl guys.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Liver's pouring out my arse. Is there anyone else's liver pouring out their arse?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Pretty sure my liver was solid a minute ago and now it's literally on the floor.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  Confusing.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Now, there's a guy called Vasili Ignatenko, who's one of the main characters in the Chernobyl mini-series, who's a firefighter.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  And we'll get to the first one shortly.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  And his wife's played by Jesse Buckley, I believe.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Yes, lovely bit of business, lovely bit of dogs for the rabbits to see. I think it's him, or maybe it's another firefighter, Charlie, you're gonna hate this, I want you to look at me when I tell you this, he was discovered, the autopsy after he died, he had a third degree burn blisters on his heart.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  How?

• 24:34Speaker 02

  You know, if you touch a hot pan, which I imagine you do quite a lot.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  I've done it.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  And you get like, what?

• 24:39Speaker 03

  There's this red mark on my head.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  How have you put a pan on your head?

• 24:42Speaker 03

  I tried to go.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  How have you put a hot pan on your head?

• 24:44Speaker 03

  I was trying to find the thing this morning and I went up and I was cooking eggs and I hit my head on the pan. It was this morning?

• 24:49Speaker 02

  You poured a hot egg pan.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  You were saying that as sort of a general joke, it happened this morning?

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Why is it always so recent?

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Two hours ago.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Fuck, I can see that, yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 04

  It really hurts.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. So what, you poured a boiling hot pan of eggs on your head this morning?

• 25:06Speaker 04

  No, I hit my head into a boiling pan of eggs. The egg didn't fall on my head.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  Was it the handle?

• 25:10Speaker 04

  It was the, it was the rim of the pan.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  The rim of the pan? How are you getting anywhere near the rim of the pan?

• 25:15Speaker 04

  I needed to get.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  Were you going for a header from a corner?

• 25:17Speaker 04

  I was going for some stuff from the cupboard and then came up and smacked it. First thing that happened today.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Fucking hell. First thing that happened today?

• 25:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 25:24Speaker 04

  Um, it hurt, yeah. Then I, and then I've smashed a glass and I've got this massive juice stain on the floor in my room, like, you know that thick juice, the healthy thick juice?

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Naked smoothie or something?

• 25:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, got that all over my carpet. I need to bor- borrow some of that vanish, if that's all right.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Is that all right?

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, fine. Any, any other business before we could?

• 25:42Speaker 04

  That's it, please continue.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can borrow the vanish.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  Um, thank you.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Anyway, he, he, he had burnt, he had a burnt, he had a burnt heart. He died of a broken heart.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Sort of, sort of, sort of.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  A bit literal.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, also his heart exploded from getting too hot.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  He's had a Gaviscon.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  So firefighters immediately arrive at the scene, right? And the tragedy is that they think they're just dealing with a conventional fire.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  Soviet nine eleven, isn't it?

• 26:09Speaker 02

  This is the Soviet nine eleven.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Um, so they climb on to.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  First responders.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  They are the first responders. Uh, they climb onto the roof and they're like, well, let's just get rid of this burning fragments, not knowing that that's graphite.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, touch that. Yeah.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  Um, worst thing you could touch in the world. Nothing worse to touch.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's going to the toilet, Charlie's saying, and just touch it. Oh, you're cleaning this, are we? Okay, fine. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, the, we should give a similar amount of respect to the cleaners who had to deal with your Airbnb.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  What first?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  The first responders to Charlie's, Charlie's holiday poo.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  We will, we will remember them.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  We will remember them, yeah. There'll be a sta- there'll be a, a statue in their honour.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  They should build a, a memorial.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  A monument, yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Where, yeah, it's just like the, the flush from the system going down, much like the nine eleven memorial.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  So the firefighters arrive, they enter this lethal environment, they don't know that all this thick smoke has got radioactive particles. They all begin to be able to start tasting metal.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Which is, um.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  So this is sort of like, so read these, these three bullet points. This is sort of like going, going down on a woman, right?

• 27:17Speaker 02

  You taste metal, your skin turns red and hot, and you, many begin vomiting and collapsing within the hour. Yeah. It's me going down on a woman. My god. I did not know I was entering a lethal environment. I thought this was just a normal industrial fire.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  And then you, you vomit, you have diarrhea, you're nauseous, your skin peels, and then you think you're better.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  That's the tragedy. You go, yeah, I'll go back for seconds. And then my skin falls off. Yeah. So Vasily dies 18 days later, having suffered skin necrosis. Google that. Let's have a look at skin necrosis and organ failure because of arse. I mean, it's so, why is it called arse? Why is it called arse?

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Give them some dignity.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Like, it's the worst death ever, and it's called arse. Like, at least call it SRS, severe respiratory, like, severe radiation, so, let's have a look at some photos. So this is skin necrosis. It looks like my bearded dragon's poo. Can you say full body skin necrosis? Oh. God. I'm gonna ignore the thing you just said about your bearded dragon's poo. I don't, I don't know what that's a euphemism for, I don't want to know. It's not, he's called Roger. Right, again. Oh, look at that on the face, yeah, there, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If, if you like this kind of stuff, switch the video, fuck me.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  We must warn, do not go down on a woman.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  This is why Jamaicans don't go down on women.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Who was it? Michael Douglas, where was it?

• 28:45Speaker 02

  That's Michael Douglas there. Him, that's Michael Douglas after going down a catheter, Jones. And he's, and he's there going, I'd do it again, I'd do it again.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  He loves it.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  I loved it, I can't get enough.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  This is what a feminist looks like.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  They get transferred to Moscow and again, because of this latency period, there's three days where they think they're improving because the radiation damage is still unfolding at the cellular level in the bone marrow and the gut.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Um, now, again, this is pre Yakult. We should place this.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  1986.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Is it pre Yakult?

• 29:30Speaker 02

  It's surely pre Yakult. Surely. 1986. Is 1986 pre Yakult, Charlie?

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Not even close.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Are you joking?

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Alright, so this is after Yakult and before Actamel.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  No, surely not. Actamel. If Yakult's 1935.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  When's Actamel?

• 29:52Speaker 02

  And it's Japanese. Yakult's pre Hiroshima. Why is this stuff not, why is this stuff not getting involved? What is it?

• 29:58Speaker 04

  That's post Yakult, pre the last British energy blackout, which is 2019.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Well, the last is not, you know, let's do, do.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  You were trying, you were trying to rhyme. You're, you're got too hot in these rhymes is the problem.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  He had a great first one, now he's gonna.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Yakult Blackalt. Doesn't quite work.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Uh, find Actamel. When was Actamel founded? When was the Actamel drinking yogurt made? Cause I don't wanna know the.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  1994.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  So it is.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  By Denon.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  So it is. It's between the two drinking yogurts.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Well, that's, that's, that's actually a lovely placement then, I suppose.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  Look at that. There's a picture of Yakult and Actamel next to each other.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Are you like an Actamel botherer or something? Are you looking for a sponsorship?

• 30:39Speaker 03

  Why?

• 30:39Speaker 02

  You're just so, you're just, the tone of your voice.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  What?

• 30:42Speaker 02

  No, it is. No, it is where Actamel's founded, actually. Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  That's a lovely placement, I think.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it is a lovely placement, but are you, have you, do you really like Actamel?

• 30:49Speaker 03

  I don't hate Actamel.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, cause you, you've got, beneath you, there is some, there's a bubbling food neuroses.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's something going on.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  The other day you were like, if you're trying to cut down on salt, you could use lemon juice. And you just said that. You said that unironically.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Because if you're just putting lemon juice on pepper on steak, crazy.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  These are good, um, it's good though.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Um, so the firefighters' bodies, so yeah, so they arrive and, uh, they don't know, quite quickly, some of them start vomiting.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Uh, and, and shitting themselves and everyone's like, bloody hell, cowards.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  Keep it in.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Come on, you're meant to be trained for this.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  But the, uh, they, they end up, the first responders, their bodies are so radioactive that they have to be buried in coffins made of lead and zinc, welded shut and then covered in concrete.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  To prevent the corpse from contaminating the area. Um, so his body, Vasily Ignatsko, his body is so deformed and swollen that his shoes and clothes don't fit. And then during the autopsy, uh, oh yeah, that's when they find they had burn bruises on his heart. So imagine being buried, like buried in a fucking zinc coffin and then just concrete poured on.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  It's like a fucking superhero villain.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  To make sure you never wreak havoc on the earth again.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  As the scale of the accident starts to become clearer, the crisis starts to reach the actual, uh, upper echelons of the Soviet state. So the deputy minister of energy, uh, stresses that measures are being taken by this staff to cool down the active zone of the reactor.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  Okay, fine. Sounds like they've got it under control.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Um, uh, health officials say the adoption of special measures, including evacuating the population from the city is totally unnecessary.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Uh, everyone remain calm. So.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  And the KGP is stopping any of the information getting out.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yes, because again, we should, we should talk about how this is 1986 in the Soviet Union. This is to, this is, you know, Gorbachev, who's in power now, the ugliest, uh, leader.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, egghead.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Egghead, he's got an egg on his head.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  Sorry, yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Um, pre Chernobyl.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  It would make sense if he had been born after Chernobyl.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Because he's got an egghead.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  And he did a lot of press pics with victims of Chernobyl because it was the best he ever looked.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Well, they, the best they ever looked at, well, they felt better.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Uh, Gorbachev has initiated this policy of glasnost, which means openness.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  Um, so he's gone, we've been too.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  He's the great modernizer.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Quite controversial though, because a lot of people don't view him as a good president. It's very.

• 33:10Speaker 00

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• 33:41Speaker 01

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• 34:42Speaker 02

  Well, Russians are like, why the fuck are you being open?

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  We're a deeply closeted country.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  I mean, it must be said as well that, obviously, as we discussed in our Russian Revolution series, Russians, and I'd say Ukrainians as well, not to parrot Putin, but they're quite similar, they love suffering. So Chernobyl's for them-

• 35:02Speaker 03

  As much as they love cabbage.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  They love it.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Cabbage and suffering.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  Fish and chips. Strawberries and cream. Cabbage and face melting from nuclear exposure. They love it. So this is actually great stuff for them.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  So Gorbachev has initiated this policy of glasnost, which means openness. He's saying, oh, the Soviet Union's been too secretive and this has held us back. And Chernobyl really stress tests that because he goes, actually, no, we're not fucking saying, we can't say, we can't be open about everything.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  A man's got to have secrets.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Um. So in the initial hours after what's going on.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  What happened in the group chat? Well, that's private.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  It's for me to know and you to never find out. Um. So what happens is this vacuum massive beam of light is sh- shot out of this exposed core. So everyone in Pripyat's like, ooh, they think it's like fireworks.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Um. So life carries on. People hear this big noise and they see this sort of strange glow over the power plant. But the city remains calm because they don't tell other. Children are playing outside. People are walking to get a good view of the glow.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  It's all on a much smaller scale Boris Johnson as soon as the Covid hit shaking everyone's, making a big thing of shaking everyone's hand.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  As it's been like announced.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  It's sort of.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Sneeze, sneeze in my mouth.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, come on. Windows are left open because it's a lovely spring evening. Um. Normal life continues for more than a day, right? Some residents think that the bluish hue in the air is beautiful. Now, there's this story about the Bridge of Death, which I think is maybe apocryphal, but the story is that there's a railway bridge where residents are gathering to watch the burning reactor. Um, and everyone who stands, stands on that bridge ends up dying from radiation exposure. And, uh, the bridge is real and apparently people went and had a look, but there's no evidence that everyone, uh, died from it. Citizens start to have this sense that maybe something's a bit wrong because they hear, uh, in, on the Kiev loudspeakers. Uh, the, the regular programming stops and classical music starts.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Is it just like, we don't know what to say. Let's just play a record.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Apparently that's a familiar signal that bad news is being managed, which is now, I have a similar thing in my house when I put classic FM on in the car or in the house because this bad, the, the kids are being a nightmare.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Auschwitz guard, right?

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Auschwitz guard. I've said this before. I am an Auschwitz guard. The screams and I just put the classical music on slightly louder than the screams.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Chopping carrots.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Chopping carrots, like an Auschwitz guard. Just drowning the screams out.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  With some nice Brahms.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  Do you think that's more sinister than if it was like, if you put on like death metal? Is that?

• 37:42Speaker 02

  But that, that's not helping.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  There's not a contradiction there. I guess the classical music is the whole point. It's like a serial killer drinking milk. It's like.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  Are you saying that there's an Auschwitz guard and while he's hearing the screams, he's like. Ah!

• 37:58Speaker 02

  I mean, that is fucked.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Well, it's hardly, yeah, it is fucked.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  But then at least he's enjoying it.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  I don't know if it's sinister, because sinister implies I've got a bad feeling about this. It's just openly sort of evil, I guess.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's...

• 38:07Speaker 04

  No disguise on it.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  There's something, something gives me the creeps about this Auschwitz.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know what's creepier, actually. I think if I was, if I was a prisoner in Auschwitz and then I saw people being ushered out of ovens and there's just classical music, I'd be like, God, this is awful.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  This is civilized people that are doing this, the barbarity. But if it was just a fucking troll, be like, ah!

• 38:39Speaker 03

  It's just fucking hell.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  You'd be like, fuck me, yeah, this is, yeah, this is, well, this tracks. Of course you're burning people, you're into death metal.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  Anyway, so an evacuation order finally arrives on the 27th of April, 36 hours after the explosion. Hundreds of buses roll in, loudspeakers announce the evacuation. Residents are told, now, residents are told they're only leaving for like, you know, a couple of days, whatever.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  That's why when I went there, there's still, everything's left completely as it was.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  So they just take food and, um, they're basically, the main worry at this point is people are not allowed to take their dogs or their cats, which is very sad. And so they're going, oh, fuck, will the dog, the dog be all right without anyone for two days? That's what they're thinking.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, it won't.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  No, everyone's fucked.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  So people lock their doors, they leave food out for their pets, laundry is left on the lines, and tens of thousands of people are moved out in a matter of hours. So they disperse into nearby towns and villages and then they become permanently resettled later, when the contamination becomes pretty much undeniable. So, uh, what's Moscow doing? At an extraordinary Politburo session on the 28th of April, the Soviet leadership start worrying about information control. Gorbachev tries, you know, and everyone's like, um, you've got a, you've got a, he's like, no, it's just, it's there. They're like, no, but there's an egg on your head.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  No, I know, but I was born with a birth.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  You've got no authority, because there's an egg on your head. I can't, I can't concentrate.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Can you flip it? I want mine sunny side up.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Anyway, so there's concern about who should know, and there is a radioactive cloud drifting across Soviet territory and beyond. And yet, they're debating the wording of a statement so as not to cause excessive panic.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Was it sort of like notes that apology?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  You're sort of drafting it, about finding the right words.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Um, so he, Gorbachev wants to get ahead of it, because he's aware that other, what?

• 40:34Speaker 04

  I was drafting your notes the other day and I accidentally sent, I accidentally sent on a, I've only just got a hinge, and I accidentally sent her two versions of the same message, uh, in draft. Like, I drafted two, like, what are you, what are you doing next week? But there were two separate ways of asking it, but clearly drafted, and then I sent them as one message. She hasn't replied.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  So what was, what was the double message then?

• 40:56Speaker 04

  What are you, what are you doing? What, you wanna hang out next week? And then like, um, what are you, you wanna hang out next week? What you do? I think it was just like a flip.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  What are you doing next week? What are you doing next week? Do you wanna hang out?

• 41:06Speaker 03

  Do you wanna hang out? Do you wanna hang out? Please, please.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Oi, do you wanna go hang out? Do you wanna hang out? Go on.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it doesn't sound desperate at all. What are you doing next week? Do you wanna hang out? Do you wanna hang out? What are you doing next week?

• 41:15Speaker 04

  I chased it by saying, sorry, I got excited because you seem cool and gorgeous.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  Oh, fuck.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  She didn't reply. I thought she'd like it. I thought she'd think it was kind of, um.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Well, this is, this is what the Politburo are doing.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  You seem cool and gorgeous. Christ. Um, so Gorbachev wants to get ahead of it, right? He's aware that foreign countries are going to detect this release. Um, Diplomat noted, the Americans will notice the fact of the explosion and the spread of the radioactive cloud anyway. So we, so, but Gorbachev's like, we can't give up on nuclear power, because the Soviet economy is tied to it. So they have to keep Chernobyl running to run the grid.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  Right? So, um, there are 18 nuclear power plants at the time. 14 of them have these RBMK reactors.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  So they can't afford to undermine the confidence in them, because the grid would collapse.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  Uh, so.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Sort of like when Grenfell, when everyone was like, oh, my fucking building's made of this shit as well.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  It's the same sort of thing.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Um, so the challenge is not to confront the accident without allowing it to discredit the entire system, right? But, uh, on the morning of 28th of April, so, yeah, 36, 48 hours afterwards, a, in a nuclear plant in Sweden, radiation alarms trigger an alert. So the Star thing gets local.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  But then it's clear that the radiation's coming from outside. There are similar readings elsewhere in Scandinavia. And so within hours, it becomes clear, they follow the wind. And he goes, well, this must be the Soviet Union, because it's the south, coming from the southwest. South, east, southeast.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  Southeast.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  So the explosion had sent a plume of radioactive particles equivalent to 400 Hiroshima bombs. More than seven kilometres into the atmosphere and due east.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  This was Charlie on the ski trip.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  A toxic plume.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  So, obviously, Western intelligence is scrambling to interpret this. Food imports are monitored. And, you know, within like, in Germany, West Germany as it is then, children are told to stay inside, they close playgrounds, they shut schools.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  There's an abortion spike across Europe because of radiophobia.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, but maybe this is why they don't have as many good Paralympians, you know, so it's sort of, you have to weigh it up.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  This is a tragedy for the Paralympics. This really is.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  The amount of Paralympians we were starved of.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  This is a Holocaust for Paralympians.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Genuinely.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. In Germany as well, probably.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Hey?

• 43:42Speaker 03

  In Germany again.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  In Germany, again, they won't stop doing it.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  So, radiophobia and sensationalist media information about the accident means that everyone's terrified. As a result of all this, the Kremlin is forced to issue a statement on the 28th of April. Bear in mind how bad we know this is, this is one of the great understatements of the age. "An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl Atomic Power Station. One of the nuclear reactors has been damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to the victims. A government commission has been established."

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Fine.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Fine.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  Okay, cool. We've gone under control.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  There's been a commission. Brilliant. Another fucking meeting. Great. So, the Council of Ministers, Jackie Weaver, they form a commission to plan the cleanup. Right. And it's chaired by Boris Shabina, Stellen Skarsgård and the Miniseries. He's a party man, as they all are. And there's not a party boy. Very different.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Party man.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  They're very.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Opposites almost. Charlie's a party boy, uh, the Corbin drop's a party man.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Sure. He's a great character in the mini series, I think.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  He is brilliant.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  I find his arc is amazing.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then there's the key science guy is Valerie Legasov, who is played by Jared Harris.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, so one.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Phenomenal actor, Jared Harris.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Brilliant. Um, I'm just watching a Mad Men as well.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  He appears in there as well. Um, I, I think one of the main historical inaccuracies that they had to do for narrative.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Was the fact that they distilled a team of about 30 people into two people.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  One woman.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  One woman and him.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  So that completely changes it. Cause it, they sell it as narrative of these two, two people screaming, but it was actually this massive team, but they just.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Just squished it all down.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  No, it's not as good though.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  So, um, Legasov is the one who's like, this is really bad.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  He's going, guys, guys, I've got a bad, this is, this is fucked.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  And everyone's like, ah, it's alright. So it's not that bad.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  Chill out, mate.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Chill out, Valerie. Um.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Boring.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  Boring. Um. We're, we're alright. It's not as if our president's got an egg on his head or anything. Anyway, so the state assembles this vast workforce who is tasked to contain the disaster.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  And led by Legasov and, uh, yeah, 30 people. Um, they're called, they're called the liquidators. Uh, which means a liquidator in Russian or ligvidator means to eliminate the consequences of an accident.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Just very Soviet.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Very Soviets.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  So their job is to stop reactor four getting worse because it's beyond repair, limit radioactive emissions and keep Chernobyl's other reactors from being pulled into the catastrophe. Cause there are three other ones still going at this point. Um, so, uh, the first thing is to put out the fire. Because the fire is giving off twice the radiation released by Hiroshima every hour.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Which really does make me think, the Hiroshima.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Were they overreacting?

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Is it that bad? Yes, I think so.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  They're making a mountain of a molehill.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  A mountain out of a mushroom cloud.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it wasn't fucking Chernobyl. Chill out. You know what I mean? Um, it puts it into perspective, I guess.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Anyway, so, uh, 2000 degrees was how hot the fire was. Uh, can you just give us a sense of like, can you Google how hot other fires are?

• 46:59Speaker 04

  Boiling.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  No, I mean, Google it, Charlie. You say boil, you can mean another word for it.

• 47:04Speaker 04

  How hot is that? You could probably cook a pizza. How long will it take to cook a pizza?

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Pizza's 200 degrees, right? Pizza, well, pizza's 400, you can get up to 400.

• 47:12Speaker 04

  In 2000 degrees.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 04

  So easy.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Instant, like, if you put a Dr. Ruck pizza in at 2000 degrees.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  30 seconds.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Wow. That still, that still seems very long.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  Oh no, 2000 Fahrenheit.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  So it'd be 20, 15 seconds.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  It'd be about 15 seconds.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  However, at this temperature, the pizza would move instantly from raw to completely saturated. So it wouldn't cook. No.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Well, it would for, for like a millisecond.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  So you'd have to just do that, right?

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I think that might actually be quite delicious if you did it like that.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  And also how quick the production line would be. And they do look like, they do look like pizza chefs. Yeah. It's a little bit. They're halfway there. Ah, yeah. Um, so again, you know, pizza ovens is another way of making steam. I don't know why we're bothering with this nuclear stuff. I could also, pizza ovens, you can make pizza. It's two birds, one stone.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  A government, I'm available. Very available. A white paper on why we should appoint, we should replace Hinkley Point C with a massive pizza oven. Anyway, uh, it's so hot that if you poured water on it, it would just instantly vaporize. They start getting helicopters to fly over the, the crater and drop sand, clay, lead and boron in order to smother the fire and absorb the neutrons and to reduce the emissions, right? Which is one of the first, the only things they can do in the first few days because nobody can get safe, nobody can get close to it.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  So pilots flying into highly contaminated air, they can't actually get over the core. Yeah. Because of the thing. So they, they, all the sand they drop misses. And then there is this footage of a helicopter that can't see where it's going and flies into a crane and then crashes, killing the pilot. Yeah, look at this. So this is, and it flies too close to a crane and then, oh dear. You can see someone going, fuck. Whoops. Oh shit. Ah, yeah.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Smoking.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Fuck, yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Fuck.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  Fuck me, whoa. Can't part there, mate.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, so.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Cigs have never been more like.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Smoked.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  Necessary.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  Definitely you're trying to work out Chernobyl.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  It's very hard to make the case that you should stop smoking.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  When you're being.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  When you're working at Chernobyl.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  You're getting fifteen thousand x-rays a fucking second.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  So, uh, all, pretty much all the sand like misses and the flight bars are crowded with cranes and rigging and they were trying to build stuff around. I mean, they don't know what to do at this point.

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Um, so doesn't, that doesn't really work. Then there's this whole thing with the miners. So Legasov's big fear, this is Charlie, this is miners as in coal miners, not, um, I'm a pedophile miners.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, Legasov's big fear is that the, the molten core will burn through the ground and, uh, interact with the water in the Pripyat River.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  Contaminate all the water.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  China Syndrome. You wear China Syndrome?

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Is that not just Down Syndrome?

• 50:08Speaker 02

  It's not Down Syndrome, that's very offensive to Chinese people. Take that back, I want you to retract that.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Doesn't that sound like an uncle?

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Oh, what's he got, China Syndrome, I see? It's a theoretical scenario where the molten core of a nuclear reactor penetrates through the earth and reaches the other side of the earth. So it's from an American perspective, which is why it's called China Syndrome.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  Right. That's a very American name.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. China, China Syndrome.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  So you, the idea of just having a hole burrowed through the entirety of the earth.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  And comes out the other side. So I mean, it's the idea is that what happens here can affect China.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  So, uh, he thinks it's going to melt down and contaminate the groundwater. So they go to the Donbass and they get four hundred miners who are brought in to dig underneath the reactor to create space for like a protective concrete barrier to stabilize the ground and prevent heat from.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Moving into a new place. Now, I don't understand, and we'll get into this in the next episode, final episode. If, you know, if you're building a steel cover for it and you're building concrete, why don't you just build the fucking plant out of that in the first place?

• 51:12Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 51:13Speaker 02

  Like. If concrete is gonna stop all this, why isn't there already a concrete platform there?

• 51:19Speaker 03

  That's true. Has it not been destroyed in explosion or anything?

• 51:23Speaker 02

  Well, if it has, then it's, there's no point putting another one here because it's melting.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  What? But do you think they even bothered with like, because it's so fucked if anything happens? Is there even any point in protecting yourself anyway? Because it's just fucked.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  Well, this is, they do this very well in the series is that this is, you know.

• 51:41Speaker 03

  It's psychological more than anything.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  It's the Soviets are going, listen, this country is about suffering. Everyone in this country ultimately dies for nothing, but we're aware of it and we quite like that.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  The meaning of life is suffering. You know, St. Pega's bum, all that.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Who wants to do that?

• 51:57Speaker 02

  Yes, please. Yeah, yeah. Does anyone want their skin to fall off in order to build a concrete barrier? Yeah, I'd love to have some. It's the only thing I believe in is my own death for the greater good. Yes, please. They're, they're dying to die, right? So they get these miners in and they offer them these, in this mini-series at least, they offer them these like shit Covid masks. And he's like, if, these don't fucking work, do they? If they be, if they were working, you'd be fucking wearing them.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Fuck off.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's amazing.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  He's amazing. He looks like Red Richardson as well. Anyway. They're, they're working in punishing conditions and the tunnel is dug in very claustrophobic surroundings. And there's this constant pressure to go faster. And the radiation down there is lower than on the roof. But that doesn't mean it's safe.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  And so they're breathing in radioactive dust. But the wor- the worst, the actual worst job is the roof crews.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  And they do this really well in the documentaries because they just have one unbroken take. So you have an idea of the length of time they're up there for.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there's all this debris on the roof around reactor four, which is the actual graphite, the actual core is on the roof, right? So this has to be removed before you can actually contain the disaster.

• 53:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Now, the scientists give the roofs female names, like Masha, Katya and Nina, which is a bit like when they give, it's like storms, all those named after women, aren't they?

• 53:20Speaker 03

  Right. Is it to make the men more likely to do the job?

• 53:23Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I think it's just because it's like, you know, it's angry and irrational.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Okay. So we're watching footage now of, yeah, so these are the men, what do they call these men? I've forgotten what the nickname for these men are, but. They're on the roof.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  And they're only allowed to be on there for.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Like a minute. And they're basically like, they're in shit fancy dress.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  They're wearing lead aprons.

• 53:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  They initially tried these, um, West German robots, was it? Or East German, the East German robots, I guess.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, that could just flick them.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  Um, where they were trying to, sort of like, like bomb clearing.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  Uh, they're trying to get the graphite off.

• 54:01Speaker 03

  I think the radiation disrupted them.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they, they all broke.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  Um, Masha was the most dangerous roof. If you were standing on Masha for 40 seconds, uh, that could be enough to kill you.

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  Going down on Masha.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  It's like Michael Douglas going down on Catherine Jones. So they tried these remote controlled machines, but they failed under radiation. Uh, and the terrain was all strewn with rubble.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, they, they, they're treated, they, they've been told you're probably gonna die. Or have they been told they're probably gonna die? They don't know how, just how dangerous this, but it's like, you have a good chance of dying. And they're literally just shifts. Everyone's up there doing it for 30 seconds.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the, the thing is, is that no, very few people actually die in the immediate aftermath.

• 54:44Speaker 03

  Are they sort of working like, sort of like Greeks? But Greeks do that without the radiation, right?

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a, just, this is Greek building site that we're watching now.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  30 seconds of work and then break.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Okay, now, now, please, no.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  I will die.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  I will die. I can't, I will die.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  Any longer than 90 second, I die.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  I will die.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't. Um, so, yeah.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  Chernobyl's made Russians, Greeks.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  That's, which is why it's such a disaster.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  How have you made the hardest people the laziest? Um, so they're, they're wearing this improvised protective kit, a mask.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  If Chernobyl happened in Greece, can you imagine?

• 55:25Speaker 02

  Well, we.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  Thank fuck it happened in Russia, is all I'm saying.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  We would not be here.

• 55:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. Thank fuck. Thank fuck it happened in a country where they have no regard for human life.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  Cause we would have fought in nearly every other country.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  Well, that's what I meant to say last episode is that the, the flip side of the disaster is that they did save the world.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  And if it happened in Greece, there'd be a bunch of babies born with plastic chairs welded onto their back. Like turtles.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  So each man is limited to a short run between forty and ninety seconds before being pulled back. So nearly four thousand men do this to get rid of all the graphite on the roof.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  You couldn't get Brits to do this, I don't think. I just don't know, like, four thousand men to just commit suicide like this. Japan is the only other country which you could do that.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 03

  It's where the two big ones happen.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is. It is very creepily ironic that the only two countries where this has happened.

• 56:18Speaker 03

  Are the two most prepared for it culturally.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Every single member of the cleanup operation gets these radioactive exposures. Now, the short term ARS, acute radiation sickness, is for those close to the reactor. But longer term cancer risks and chronic health problems for anyone else. So lethal dose of radiation is around four hundred to four hundred and fifty rontgen's. At Chernobyl, the roof was emitting twenty thousand rontgen's an hour. Close to the core, it was thirty thousand.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  So, sorry, how many died of the four thousand who were doing the shift?

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Well, so they think the only about.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  And why do they have these stats? I don't know why they're confused stats. Because it's Soviet?

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Could be, but they think that only thirty eight people were recorded dead in the immediate aftermath, right? But they think about nine or ten thousand their cancers were attributed to happen. But because it's cancer, and everyone gets cancer anyway, it's quite hard to say.

• 57:10Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  In the core, if you were in the core, you would have had to be there for seconds and then you'd basically just sort of instant death. So they didn't really have decimeters that could read big enough readings. The workers were sent into places that should have been treated as untouchable. And many liquidators were personnel who just could not refuse the job, even if they wanted to. But.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  What do you mean, conscripts?

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they also, they probably fucking loved it. They loved it.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  So in a matter of hours, Pripyat is emptied and React IV is still badly damaged. And the Soviets have had to issue a response because, you know, fucking West German kids are being aborted. And they're like, fucking, well, don't blame us for that. So, we're gonna leave this episode here. In the next episode, we will get to the aftermath, the Soviet effort to contain the reactor, and the long-term consequences of Chernobyl. Does it ultimately bring down the Soviet Union? And what's it like today? See, then that episode's already on the Patreon, where for £3 a month,

• 58:26Speaker 02

  you can join a community of people who-

• 58:30Speaker 03

  Terrifyingly like-minded people.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  Yep, terrifyingly. It's a marketplace for lots of memorabilia and ideas. You get it ad-free, you get bonus episodes, we've got a whole fucking sunken Zenon pit of bonus content, hours of the stuff.

• 58:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's lethal.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  It is lethal. Too much. If you listen to too many of the Patreon episodes, you will end up looking like Michael Douglas.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  You will have to start taking shifts to finish a Patreon episode, 4,000 of you. I can only do 30 seconds at a time.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Yep, if you were to play every Patreon episode at the same time, simultaneously, it would take you seconds before your face would melt off. That's on the Patreon, and if not, we'll see you next time for the conclusion of our epic Chernobyl series. Until then, goodbye.

• 59:15Speaker 03

  Goodbye.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.