The death toll as a result of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant does not match the figure mentioned on the Chernobyl HBO television series. This was stated by deputy head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mikhail Chudakov.

“In Chernobyl, 28 people died - operational personnel and firefighters, a few dozen more are debatable. And not the thousands that are shown to us in the Hollywood movie about Chernobyl, ”RIA Novosti quoted Chudakova as saying.

At the same time, according to the creators of the series, the exact number of victims of a man-made disaster is impossible: the spread varies from 4 to 93 thousand people.

The HBO project has been repeatedly criticized for distorting the facts, including the liquidators of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. So, eyewitnesses indicated that the series did not accurately reflect the events of the first day after the accident, when the authorities cordoned off Pripyat and did not evacuate the townspeople.

“People left Pripyat on foot. Nobody detained them, ”said the liquidator Yevgeny Shevchenko in an interview with 360.

They called fiction drunkenness among the liquidators, dialogues between miners, and an episode on a visit by the Minister of Coal Industry to a mine in the Tula Region accompanied by machine gunners. The chairman of the Chernobyl city union, Vladimir Naumov, who worked at the Nikulinskaya mine in the Tula region, noted that in the series “there is no truth.”

“Listen, what kind of machine gunners. It’s ridiculous. These conversations - “Shut the bread” - are some kind of cowboy, so the miners don’t say so. In general, there is too much about power, the KGB. I didn’t like it, ”he added.

  • © Shot from the series “Chernobyl” (2019)

Despite the above inaccuracies, some participants in the liquidation of the accident noted that Chernobyl deserves spectator attention. So, according to the chairman of the Chernobyl Union in the Southern Federal District, Alexander Filipenko, the episode reliably reflects "everyday moments."

“The film tells about the heroes. They say that we saved not only the Soviet Union, but the whole world. Such a film should be shown to the whole world, ”RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

The producer of "Chernobyl" Craig Meisin claims that he did not claim unquestioning accuracy: in order to accommodate two-year events in a five-hour series, it was necessary to move away from the real chronology of events. Meyzin explained that he learned about the naked miners from the book of Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Aleksievich. At the same time, the producer believes that he exaggerated the scale of the second explosion, which could have happened if the reactor fuel got into the water tank.

Compatriots and eyewitnesses

Soon two projects on the Chernobyl disaster will appear on Russian television.

So, in 2018, NTV announced the start of filming of the series under the same name - Chernobyl. Its director was Aleksey Muradov, previously managing the projects “Vlasik. Shadow of Stalin ”and“ Tula Tokarev ”.

Starring Igor Petrenko and Nadezhda Mikhalkova. The shooting took place in Belarus.

According to the plot, the KGB finds out that the CIA is interested in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Agent Albert Lenz arrives in Pripyat. In his search for the station sent the Soviet counterintelligence Andrei Nikolaev.

The idea to shoot a series about Chernobyl, according to Muradov, appeared back in 2013. The release is scheduled for the current year, but the exact date of the premiere is not yet known. At the end of July, a tape trailer appeared on the network, but Muradov said that he had not been warned about the publication, and neither the series nor the trailer were ready yet.

The British actor Jared Harris (performer of the role of Valery Legasov in the HBO film), in an interview with RT, commented on plans to create a series about the Chernobyl accident in Russia.

“The situation is a bit strange. I don’t understand why Russia was offended by the series, because it’s the same as if the current South African government was offended by statements related to the leadership of the country of apartheid times. In modern Russia, power is democratic, that is, it has nothing to do with the Soviet Union, ”Harrris said in an interview with RT.

However, the president of the Chernobyl Russia Union, the liquidator Vyacheslav Grishin, noted that he had read the materials of the Russian series and considered the project more believable than the predecessor series, since the creators of the domestic production tape used reliable sources.

The shooting of another project about the events of 1986 - “When the Storks Fell” - ended last week. The film is supervised by producer Alexander Rodnyansky. In the director's chair and in the title role - Danila Kozlovsky.

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As always, I am late, but still .. A few days ago we finished making a film about the Chernobyl disaster under the working title “When the Storks Fell”. It was one of the most special, and at the same time difficult and painful periods in life. There is still much to be done and as if it weren’t even halfway through, but at the moment it’s not the main thing. As if you could pause and look back. I now feel tremendous gratitude and love for the people who have done everything possible for us to realize what we wanted. These are my partners, producers Alexander Rodnyansky and Sergey Melkumov, I need a special courage of the imagination and production courage to come up with a movie about this event in our time, which is not the easiest for this topic. And sequentially, at each stage, to implement it. Long before the release of the famous series. This is an INCREDIBLE film crew! Now I understand perfectly well that with this team of obsessed romantics / professionals you can solve any art and production tasks that for six months were not afraid to spend your heart and soul to create life in the frame. ARTISTS. I really hope that I will still have the opportunity in the public space to talk about you for a long time and in detail. I am truly stunned by your talent and devotion to our film. And a lot of people who still want to say thank you. You are truly the best team in the world! Thank you for being with me now. I love you all!

Posted by Danilakozlovsky (@danilakozlovsky) Aug 16, 2019 at 5:41 am PDT

Oksana Akinshina, Ravshana Kurkova, Philip Avdeev and others also starred in the film.

Filming, which began on May 18, lasted a little less than three months. They took place at the Kursk NPP in the city of Kurchatov, as well as in Moscow and Budapest. The plot focuses on the prevention of a second catastrophe, which could occur two weeks after the accident. The premiere is scheduled for October 8, 2020.