On June 4, 2019, the last episode of the Chernobyl series, directed by Johan Renck, was released in Russian. The multi-part film realistically describes the events of the disaster that occurred in 1986. Some of the heroes of the plot really existed, and the events took place. Other characters and situations are fictional.
Fictional character
One of the main characters is a nuclear physicist from Minsk named Ulyana Khomyuk. She notices, being in her country, the consequences of the disaster and comes to the place of the tragic event of her own free will. Ulyana finds secret documents in the archives, speaks at meetings with the participation of Gorbachev, speaks out in court over those responsible for the tragedy, visits the victims in the hospital and convinces the main characters to make the right decisions. The heroine is a collective image of people who were eyewitnesses and participants in those events. Its function is to convey important information to viewers through an engaging storyline. Among the heroes of the series there are more men than women. Ulyana also balances the gender composition of the characters.
Other locations
Instead of the real places of action in Pripyat and at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, we see in the series the surroundings of Vilnius and Kaunas, which are located in Lithuania. Some buildings from the times of the USSR are well preserved and proved to be suitable for filming. The Ignalina nuclear power plant is similar in structure to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, so the scenes in the control room of the units were filmed there.
Inaccuracies in chronology
In the fourth episode, a monument was shown at the intersection of Podolsky Spusk and Frunze Street, erected in honor of the liquidators of the disaster. The monument was erected only in 2011, when 25 years have passed since the tragedy.
During the liquidation of the consequences of the accident, a helicopter crashed, which caught its blade on a crane. In the series, the tragic event happened immediately after the accident, and not in the fall of 1986, as it was in reality. The helicopter crew had to fill the roofs of buildings so that radioactive dust no longer spread through the air. Barrels with PVA glue were attached to the external suspension of the helicopter.
Trial over those responsible for the accident
The last episode of the series showed the trial of the chief engineer Nikolai Fomin, the deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov and the director of the nuclear power plant Viktor Bryukhanov. Boris Shcherbina and Valery Legasov did not actually appear in that court. Moreover, Ulyana Khomyuk could not be there. Characters expressed opinions and judgments in order to tell viewers what happened the night the reactor exploded. The real trial was also in Chernobyl. The interior of the premises and the decorations of the house of culture, where everything took place, were recreated from real photographs. The trial actually lasted two whole weeks, and did not end in one sitting, as it was in the final episode of the series.
