Review of Chernobyl

The first of what we hope will be many collusions with Russia, our review of HBO's Chernobyl:

Chernobyl is many things: a disaster movie, a meditation on power, a warning against secrecy, a thriller – a race against time. Chernobyl is also a horror movie where the monster is radiation, unseen yet everywhere. But ,unlike the zombies of our imagination, this monster is real. Chernobyl shows us the full horrors of radiation exposure. We see station personnel in hospital days after the explosion, their skin bloody and black with death, their faces melted off. These scenes are gut wrenching, difficult to watch and necessary.

Chernobyl has triggered in us an interest in things Russian. After finishing the series we read Midnight at Chernobyl. This triggered an interest in the fall of the Soviet Union so we read Moscow December 25th, 1991: The last day of the Soviet Union. Now we're reading about Ivan the Terrible* and next The Romanovs.

We're hoping to do a series of book reviews.

This line of inquiry will make for a better Final Storm, which will be severely Soviet centric.

*Yikes.