The price of life: how three brave rescue divers prevented the second explosion at the Chaos. To those who saved the world

On the anniversary of the 30th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, previously unknown facts about the foreshadowing of this catastrophe on a planetary scale are published for the first time. This is the subject of a special chapter from the book "Teraturgima, or Miracles of the New Age", which should soon be published in Kyiv. The book itself contains wonderful stories of our time. Note that some of them were first published by the portal.

The rector of the Chernobyl St. Ilyinsky Church, Archimandrite Sergius (before monasticism, Archpriest Nikolai Yakushin), testifies to the miracles in Chernobyl, who took the tonsure in honor of the Hieromartyr Sergius of Chernobyl, who was killed in the 1930s, during the Nativity Fast of 2015. By the providence of God, the name day of Archimandrite Sergius (Yakushin) is April 26.

Appearance of the Mother of God over Chernobyl

The first great sign of the Chernobyl disaster, from which the whole planet shuddered in 1986, was revealed at the time of the rapid development of nuclear energy in it - long before the explosion of the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Witnesses and eyewitnesses of the event later recalled that it happened exactly ten years before the accident: April 26, 1976 - the same day. That is, 40 years ago, the Lord showed a sign. The Queen of Heaven herself warned of the approaching tragedy. At that time, the local newspaper “Prapor Peremogi” (“Banner of Victory”) even printed an article about this under the title “Inventions of the Churchmen”. It was written that a cloud appeared in the sky unusual shape and churchmen claim that it was the appearance of the Virgin. However, it was not an atmospheric quirk at all.

In the evening, many local residents saw how a cloud descended to the ground so that the outlines of the figure of the Most Holy Theotokos became clearly and clearly visible on it. The face and clothes were visible - all in bright colors. In her hands she held bundles of dry wormwood, which we call Chernobyl. The Mother of God dropped the wormwood over the city. Then the radiance moved towards the forest and stopped over the temple of the holy prophet Elijah. The Mother of God turned to our temple and twice blessed it with both hands. When She appeared, the rain immediately stopped and the weather was warm, calm and clear. The local priest Father Alexander Prokopenko was told about this phenomenon. He then explained that only the Mother of God can bless with both hands, no one else. Bishops also bless with both hands, but this was not a male image.

The phenomenon was interpreted as follows: a lean dry summer should be expected. And only years later, after the accident, it became clear what this sign foreshadowed. Some people found and picked up wormwood that had fallen from the sky. Exactly ten years later, the Chernobyl accident occurred. But then such things happened that it never occurred to anyone that there was a connection between events separated by a decade. It was only much later that people remembered and began to realize that this was a sign from God.

In 2002, with the blessing of His Beatitude Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, an icon was painted depicting the appearance of the Most Holy Theotokos over Chernobyl. It was created by the servant of God John, who painted the temple for us. He is an artist, from Kiev. The main thing is that the person is very religious, pious and serious. Also, an orphan. Starting with the blessing of such an important work, he, as usual, fasted and took communion. The icon depicts our Ilyinsky temple, above which the Queen of Heaven towers in the sky with the archangels Michael and Gabriel on both sides. In Her hands is wormwood grass. To the right and left of the icon are capsules with wormwood collected in the Chernobyl zone. His Beatitude Vladimir blessed this image as our locally venerated Chernobyl icon.

Icon "Chernobyl Spas"
Party organizer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant saw on his deathbed

Another well-known icon of St. Elijah's Church is the "Chernobyl Savior", which also has its own, special history. This icon, one might say, came from the people. People experienced a tragedy like no other in history. They needed support and sympathy. Many were sick, at first there was a huge panic.

It so happened that Yuri Borisovich Andreev, now deceased, party organizer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a communist, and one can imagine what kind of views a person had, became seriously ill after receiving huge doses of radiation. He suffered greatly, was already on his deathbed. They thought his days were numbered. And he constantly dreamed the same dream-vision. The party organizer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant clearly saw this icon. Then he told the icon painter exactly how it should look. He told me, and then I told His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir about it. Being already one foot behind the line, the party organizer kept asking: "Paint this icon ..." Seeing an unprecedented picture opened to his spiritual gaze, he acutely felt that it should be embodied. And His Beatitude blessed.

The icon was painted in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in 2003. And they consecrated it in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on the patronal feast of the Assumption of the Mother of God. When His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir consecrated the Chernobyl Spas icon, three signs appeared in the sky at once: a dove flew right over the icon in front of hundreds of people, a rainbow appeared in the sky, and then a cross, in the center of which the sun shone. And what is interesting - the party organizer Yuri Borisovich recovered after that, the Lord healed him. It is surprising that it was the party organizer of the Chernobyl NPP, later the president of the Chernobyl-Ukraine Union, who was chosen for such a mission - through him the icon "Chernobyl Savior" came into the world, in which since then the Lord has repeatedly healed the suffering and sick.

The icon painter Vladislav Goretsky, a high-class master, worked on the icon. The image is executed subtly and expressively. In its center we see the "wormwood star" flying from the sky above the ominous glow of the explosion and a pine tree in the form of a crucifixion. This phenomenal sign of the coming tragedy was erected by the hand of the Lord on Polesye land decades before the accident: already during the Great Patriotic War it was a big, mature tree. And it turned out that the station was built literally two kilometers from this huge living cross that grew on the edge. When the “red forest” contaminated with radiation was liquidated and the space was cleared, a stunning picture opened up, akin to a spiritual vision: two symbols of a universal catastrophe, connected in one plane, an exploding fourth reactor against the background of a tree-cross.

On both sides of the tree-cross on the icon are the dead and living liquidators. And above all this is the Lord Jesus Christ with the scroll of the Apocalypse, the Most Holy Theotokos and the Archangel Michael. So the party organizer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant saw all this.

The Savior looked at the priest every night
showing where His image is hidden in the zone

There is another extraordinary icon that I have not talked about before. This is the image of the Savior from the temple of Archangel Michael in the village of Krasn O in the exclusion zone.

This wonderful icon truly has the same wonderful story. After the accident from the village of Krasn O everyone was evicted, because a radiation cloud passed through it in the direction of Belarus and there was a very high level radiation. One resident of this village ended up in St. Petersburg, where he stayed. There he was ordained, and since then he has served as a priest in St. Petersburg.

Eleven years ago, he found my number and called me one day. Batiushka introduced himself, told his story full of trials and said: “Father Nikolai, I have a big request to you. I constantly see in a dream the eyes of the Savior from one icon left in the zone. Could you find her? This is a large icon of Christ on the board. I ask: "But how will I find it?" The St. Petersburg priest replies: "I'll tell you where." And he tells in detail in which village, in which hut and in which attic this icon is hidden. In a subtle dream, he saw exactly the place where the wondrous image of the Savior with a lively look is located, and described to me the location of the icon. They just couldn’t find her just like that: you had to be local and be well versed in the area, which, moreover, became a zone contaminated with radiation.

His grandfather served in the church of the Archangel Michael for many years. This unusual ancient icon was once stolen, but the Lord miraculously returned it. After the accident, the wonderful wooden St. Michael's Church, built in 1800, unfortunately, was completely plundered by looters. And this image was hidden by his grandfather, now deceased, and no one knew where the marvelous shrine was located, which, as you can understand, is so dear to the Lord that He Himself gave a sign about it and taught how to find it.

And in St. Petersburg, a priest from the Chernobyl zone began to dream of this icon: the Savior looked at him every night. Father called me. I went to the village, found the abandoned house described - everything is for sure! He removed the icon from the attic and carried it out. When we restored it and put it in order, a priest from St. Petersburg specially flew to bow to the saved shrine - to see it not in a dream, but in reality.

Christ looks from this icon as if alive, such a look is really impossible to forget. Once you see these extraordinary eyes, you will never forget them for as long as you live.

Angelic service in the radioactive zone

The ancient temple of the village of Krasn O long abandoned by humans. But it has not been abandoned by those to whom it is dedicated - Archangel Michael and the disembodied heavenly forces. We have evidence that holy angels perform the service of God there. Several times in different years from 2005 to 2009, Chernobyl police units came to me with unusual messages and the question: “Father, how can I understand this? What does all of this mean?"

After extensive conversations with the police, it turned out the following. Once, a duty squad, patrolling the exclusion zone, was driving along a narrow country road, which was densely surrounded by trees and shrubs on both sides. Approaching the place where the temple stands, the policemen still distinctly heard the sounds of voices from a distance. At first we decided that it seemed. In amazement, they stopped and listened. There could not be people here: no one has lived here for a long time, self-settlers are also excluded. Inside the zone, at the entrance to the infected areas, there is another checkpoint, through which no one has passed for a long time. It is almost impossible to get through the forest - it has turned into a wild and dangerous thicket.

From the abandoned temple came the reverent church singing of unearthly beauty

The patrol car moved on and approached the temple. Reverent church singing of unearthly beauty was heard from there, reflections of light were visible. The guys got out of the car and froze. They suddenly found an unprecedented fear, embraced the sacred horror. I must say that the Chernobyl police battalion are serious people prepared for various extreme situations. But these healthy men got scared like children and, jumping into their jeep, gave a tear. Having driven a few kilometers, they calmed down and, having reasoned among themselves, decided to return to the church again. By the time they got there a second time, it was already quiet. But they still did not dare to enter the temple. The patrolmen immediately reported the noticed unusual phenomenon to the chief. The entire police battalion guarding the Chernobyl zone knew about this incredible story. Then they came to my church and told me about what they heard and saw. They asked me what it could mean. I explained to them that such cases in church history were known before. Angels do not depart from the consecrated throne until the end of time. And they themselves perform the service when the temple is abandoned by people for some reason. Moreover, the temple in Krasn O erected in honor of the head of the heavenly host. In this place, burned by the deadly breath of radiation, holiness and grace nevertheless remain, and therefore angels serve there. The Lord was pleased that people would learn about this by choosing responsible witnesses as heralds of the miracle of God.

Chernobyl tragedy- the hardest test that has fallen to the lot of our country. The first to bear the brunt after the explosion were the liquidators, the heroes who went to certain death in order to own life save thousands of people in the USSR and European countries. The history of the disaster has been restored today literally by the minute, but few people know that the consequences of the accident could have been much worse. They managed to prevent a second explosion, which could wipe out most of the European continent from the face of the earth. three brave rescuers. History has preserved their names - Alexey Ananenko, Valery Bespalov and Boris Baranov.

Few people know about the threat of a second explosion of a nuclear reactor, this information was not replicated for a long time, the possible consequences were too horrifying. New turn The tragedy unfolded on the fifth day after the first explosion, then it became clear: if decisive action is not taken, the catastrophe will claim even more lives and lead to the pollution of large areas in Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

The temperature of the explosion was so high that the reactor (containing 185 tons of nuclear fuel) continued to melt at an incredible rate, getting closer and closer to the water tank that was used as a coolant. It was obvious: if a red-hot reactor comes into contact with water, then a powerful steam explosion will form. Later, investigating the problem, Soviet scientists suggested that the possible area of ​​pollution could reach 200 square meters. km, modern experts tend to argue that it would take about 500 thousand years to eliminate the consequences of radioactive contamination from a potential explosion.

When the rescuers realized the threat of a steam explosion, it was decided to save humanity at any cost. The main task of the liquidators was to drain the water from the tank, drain it faster than the reactor core gets to it. Among the rescuers, volunteers were chosen who were ready to give their lives to save the entire planet, they turned out to be three engineers. Everyone understood: it would not be possible to survive in this radioactive meat grinder, the exposure would be instantaneous, but human strength should have been enough to dive to the depth, find the right valve and, having opened the valves, drain the water. To point the right direction, the shift supervisor used a waterproof flashlight. In its dim light, divers were able to find the valves far from the first attempt. The efforts were not in vain, the goal was achieved, and people were able to return to the surface in complete darkness (by that time the lantern had completely gone out).

Aleksey Ananenko, Valery Bespalov and Boris Baranov had enough strength to get out of the deadly reservoir. The heroes were greeted with applause and shouts of joy, because their inhuman efforts helped save millions of people. Natural drainage of the reservoir continued for a day, after which it became clear that the rescue operation had been carried out flawlessly.

During one of my trips to the city of Chernobyl, I photographed such a monument - it now stands near the Chernobyl fire station, from where, on the night of April 26, 1986, cars drove out to extinguish a nuclear fire. The monument is very modest, made according to sketches and at the expense of the liquidators themselves and, apparently, from the same concrete from which the Sarcophagus was poured. Only the inscription - "To those who saved the world" may seem immodest. Like, what does the world have to do with some kind of local nuclear accident? And meanwhile, in those days of early May, a small group of three people from among the very first liquidators really saved the world - and it is very sad to realize that almost no one has heard of them.

Everyone knows about the feat of 28 firefighters, who almost immediately arrived at the destroyed Fourth power unit of the nuclear power plant and prevented the fire from spreading throughout the plant. Many have heard about the legendary group that worked on cleaning the roofs of the Third Unit and the turbine hall, making it possible to carry out further work to eliminate the consequences of the accident, but almost no one knows about the Chernobyl divers.

To begin with, let's once again recall the chronology of the accident. There was an explosion at the fourth power unit (they call it nuclear). The fire was extinguished with water, covered with sand, lead, dolomites and clay. All this, together with the molten concrete and metal of the power unit structures themselves, turned into a lava-like melt, which slowly burned through the under-reactor rooms and a few days later created the threat of a massive thermal explosion. The biggest danger was that as a result of such an explosion, the remaining three power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant would most likely have suffered - the danger of an explosion of the other three reactors loomed on the horizon, which would be a tragedy for Europe, and Kiev would turn into a second Pripyat.

The only way to prevent such an explosion was to open the safety valves on the gates of the locks so that water would leave the scene of the tragedy. Volunteer divers were needed, who went to certain death, because in the water where they had to go down, there were simply exorbitant levels of radiation that were incompatible with life.

This terrible work volunteered to do three people. Valery Bespalov is the control engineer of the turbine shop unit, Aleksey Ananenko is the senior mechanical engineer of the reactor shop, who knew exactly the location of the lock valves, and worker Boris Baranov - he took over the provision of lighting during the operation. Unlike the firefighters who extinguished Chernobyl, these people knew for sure that they were going to certain death. I do not want to underestimate the feat of the firefighters, but on the night of April 26 there were no dosimetrists on the fire, and the firefighters were not aware that they were working in lethal levels of radiation, linking their poor health and nausea with poisoning by combustion products. And a small group of Chernobyl divers deliberately went to their deaths - all the heroes asked for was to take care of their families after they die.

The operation has begun. All three put on wetsuits and began to descend into the black under-reactor rooms, then walked in pitch darkness along the corridor to the bubbler pool - they walked in the beams of lanterns. There was water in the corridor, where space allowed - they moved in dashes. Boris's lamp went out, but the group managed to find the pipes, through which they reached the valves almost in total darkness and turned the shutters, happily hearing the characteristic noise and splash - the water went! The group successfully completed the task and returned, seemingly completely unharmed, even having time to give a few interviews for the media, but the invisible enemy was already doing its job...

Alexei and Valery died 10 days later in a Moscow hospital. Boris lived a little longer.

In these sunny May days, remember the small group of Chernobyl divers who saved the world thirty years ago.
________________________________________ ______

Only five days after the explosion, on May 1, 1986, the Soviet authorities in Chernobyl made a terrible discovery: the core of the exploded reactor was still melting. The core contained 185 tons of nuclear fuel, and the nuclear reaction continued at a terrifying rate.

Beneath these 185 tons of molten nuclear material was a reservoir of 5 million gallons of water. Water was used in the power plant as a coolant, and the only thing that separated the core of the consumable reactor from the water was a thick concrete slab. The melting core slowly burned through this plate, descending to the water in a smoldering stream of molten radioactive metal.

If this white-hot, melting reactor core were to touch water, it would cause a massive, radiation-contaminated steam explosion. The result could be the radioactive contamination of much of Europe. In terms of the death toll, the first Chernobyl explosion would have looked like a minor incident.

Yes, a journalist Stephen McGinty wrote: “This would entail a nuclear explosion, which, according to the calculations of Soviet physicists, would cause the fuel in three other reactors to evaporate, leveled 200 square kilometers to the ground, destroyed Kiev, polluted the water supply system used by 30 million inhabitants, and for more than a century did northern Ukraine unsuitable for life"("The Scotsman" March 16, 2011).

The School of Russian and Asian Studies in 2009 made an even more grim assessment: if the melting core of the reactor reached water, the ensuing explosion "would destroy half of Europe and make Europe, Ukraine and part of Russia uninhabitable for about 500,000 years."

The experts working on the spot saw that the melting core was devouring that same concrete slab, burning through it, approaching the water every minute.

Engineers immediately developed a plan to prevent possible explosions of the remaining reactors. It was decided that 3 people would go in scuba gear through the flooded chambers of the fourth reactor. When they reach the coolant, they will find a pair of shut-off valves and open them so that the water flows out completely until the reactor core comes into contact with it.

For the millions of inhabitants of the USSR and Europeans, who were waiting for inevitable death, illness and other damage due to the impending explosion, this was an excellent plan.

What could not be said about the divers themselves. There was then no worse place on the planet than a reservoir of water under the slowly melting fourth reactor. Everyone was well aware that anyone who fell into this radioactive brew could live long enough to complete their work, but, perhaps, no more.

The Soviet authorities explained the circumstances of the impending second explosion, the plan to prevent it and the consequences: in fact, it was an imminent death from radiation poisoning.

Three people called.

The three men volunteered to help, knowing that it would probably be the last thing they would do in their lives. They were a senior engineer, a mid-level engineer and a shift supervisor. The task of the shift supervisor was to hold the underwater lamp so that the engineers could identify the valves that needed to be opened.

The next day, the Chernobyl troika put on their gear and plunged into the deadly pool.

The pool was pitch dark, and the light from the shift supervisor's waterproof lantern was reported to be dim and intermittently extinguished.

Moved in the muddy darkness, the search did not bring results. The divers strove to complete the radioactive voyage as soon as possible: in every minute of the dive, the isotopes freely destroyed their bodies. But they still haven't found the drain valves. And so the search continued, even though the light could go out at any moment, and darkness could close over them.

The lantern really burned out, but this happened already after its beam pulled out a pipe from the darkness. The engineers noticed her. They knew that the pipe leads to the same gate valves.

Divers in the dark swam to the place where they saw the pipe. They grabbed her and began to rise, intercepting with their hands. There was no light. There was no protection against radioactive, destructive for human body ionization. But there, in the darkness, there were two valves that could save millions of people.

The divers opened them and water gushed out. The pool began to empty quickly.

When the three men returned to the surface, their job was done. The workers of the nuclear power plant and the soldiers greeted them as heroes, which they really were. People are said to be literally jumping for joy.

Here's the story Alexey Ananenko:

- We thought about everything in advance so as not to linger on the spot and meet the minimum time. They took dosimeters, flashlights. We were informed about the radiation situation both above and in the water. We went along the corridor to the barbater pool. Darkness is total. They walked in the beams of lanterns. There was also water in the hallway. Where space allowed, they moved in dashes. Sometimes the light went out, they acted by touch. And here's a miracle - under the arms of the damper. Tried to turn - gives in. My heart skipped a beat with joy. And you can’t say anything - in a respirator. Showed Valery another. And he succumbed to the valve. A few minutes later, a characteristic noise or splash was heard - the water went.

Returning, Alexei Ananenko gave an interview to the Soviet media. There was not the slightest sign that this man had received a lethal dose of radiation poisoning. But none of the daredevils managed to escape their fate.

Over the next day, all 5 million gallons of radioactive water leaked from under the fourth reactor. By the time the melting core located above the pool made its way to the reservoir, there was no more water in it. The second explosion was avoided.

The results of the analyzes carried out after this dive agreed on one thing: if the trio had not plunged into the pool and drained it, millions of people would have died from a steam explosion that would have changed the course of history.

Over the following days, the three began to show the inevitable and unmistakable symptoms: radiation sickness.

Many heroes went on feats for the sake of others, having only a small chance to survive. But these three men knew they had no chance. They peered into the depths where certain death awaited them. And plunged into them.

They were called Alexey Ananenko, Valery Bespalov And Boris Baranov.

Surprisingly, all three survived. Boris Baranov died in 2005, Alexei Ananenko and Valery Bespalov are still alive.

These three people saved millions. But only a few know their history.

On Friday, the second season of the series “Chernobyl. Exclusion Zone" on TV-3 channel. Recall: the first season of "Chernobyl" was released on TNT in 2014 and since then shares with "Fizruk" the title of the most popular series in the history of the channel (share - 27.1% with an average channel share of 15%, the audience - all of Russia from 14 up to 44).

"Chernobyl" is a story that is innovative for Russian television in many ways: and a vertical display on American model- every Friday in the evening prime two episodes in a row, and posting licensed episodes immediately after the broadcast on the Internet - an attempt to get ahead of the pirates and collect as much money as possible on online shows. Another innovation is the discussion of the series in hot pursuit by a narrow circle of its actors and creators in the society of a potential candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation Ksenia Sobchak - in live TV-3 with broadcast to the social network "VKontakte".

But the most interesting thing is that against the background of TV's diligent avoidance of a serious conversation about the centenary of the October Revolution, Chernobyl-2 became almost the main media "gift" for this date. The USSR, like the revolution, is warmly remembered in the series (unlike the series "Trotsky" on the First and "Demon of the Revolution" on "Russia-2"). Lenin in a cap waves us from video screens in an alternative future where the USSR did not collapse, but the USA is on the verge of extinction.

Against the backdrop of diligent TV avoidance of a serious conversation about the centenary of the October Revolution, Chernobyl-2 became almost the main media “gift” for this date.

The premiere of the first season of Chernobyl was postponed by TNT producers three times, the start was expected back in 2010. And at that time, the channel pushed off from its reinforced concrete positioning - "reality and comedy" - and moved towards experiments. The change of course was not articulated in the promo, but the programming spoke for itself. TNT tried itself in non-format genres - like the thriller “With My Eyes”, filmed by a subjective camera, the frank drama “Treason”, or nightly screenings of such Russian cinema, which was definitely not for “neighing”.

These experiments allowed the producers to significantly overtake the competitors in understanding what a new generation series is. But in the end, this year TNT returned to the old positioning, and everything non-formatted moved to TV-3 - once the “first mystical” and now a channel that shows amazing and strange things.

The first sign was the series “Gogol. Beginning ”- for the time being, however, he only tours cinemas. And now - "Chernobyl", which screenwriters Ilya Kulikov (author of the legendary "Capercaillie" and "The Law of the Stone Jungle") and Evgeny Nikishov (general producer of TV-3) began to write more than 10 years ago, tired of working on the assembly line of standard crime series.

TV-3

There were fears that housewives, accustomed to watching TV-3's clear and simple Blind Woman, would not be able to digest the complex mix of time travel, nuclear post-apocalypse, road movies and coming-of-age stories. But the audience passed the test. The rerun of the first season of Chernobyl - now on TV-3 - gave fantastic numbers for the channel: 9.2% against the average channel share of 4% (audience: all of Russia from 14 to 44).

Why did this series fall in love with viewers who are not prone to longing for the USSR? A group of friends - Pasha, Lesha, Gosha, Nastya and Anya - set off in pursuit of a crazy video blogger who stole 8 million rubles from the main character's apartment. The traces led the teenagers to Pripyat, where they moved to 1986 with the help of a time machine. There, on the spot, friends decided to prevent an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The motive was personal - Ani's family lived in Pripyat. In a fight with a KGB major main character- Pasha - lost all his friends. The accident was averted, but the future - according to the "butterfly effect" - has changed.

Saving the world from disaster was dedicated to the finale of the first season. Prior to this, the genre of the series was more inclined towards a quest with elements fairy tale. In each series, the heroes were tested, approaching the main goal - and the goal, as it turned out, was not to catch the crazy thief, but to understand who and why had been luring them to the Chernobyl zone all this time. They fell into the world of terrible long-range fighters, escaped in the wooden house of "Baba Yaga" with borscht ominously freezing on the table, went to a girl's wedding to give her a gift from a dead groom from Ogarkovo - which, as it turns out later, is not a village, but a cemetery ("So that's why he stank so much!"), and at every step they were followed by a black-black jeep - like in horror stories from childhood.

Lenin in a cap waves us from video screens in an alternative future where the USSR did not collapse, but the USA is on the verge of extinction.

There were, of course, homages to your favorite movie. For example, harsh men who come to the Chernobyl zone to hunt people - hello to the Hostel. Or the secret bunker of scientists underground - a reference to the TV series "Bunker", which was filmed for TNT by its former general producer Alexander Dulerain in 2006. It seems that the main antagonist of "Chernobyl" performed by Yevgeny Stychkin also got into the series in transit from the "Bunker".

The world of 1986 in the first season was recreated quite convincingly - and without strong nods towards the USSR. But with some kind of sixth sense, the producers seem to have already felt the change in the political trend. And the bridge to the second season in the spirit of "Russia is the birthplace of elephants" was thrown by them long before the war in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and a powerful course towards "we can repeat."

At the end of the first season, the surviving hero Pasha returns to the present and is surprised to find that the USSR has not collapsed, but, on the contrary, has become a world superpower. The only pole of power. There must be at least something stable in the world, therefore, in power in the USSR - tadam! - General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Vladimir Putin. According to the rules of the genre, if something didn't happen somewhere, it should happen somewhere else. Therefore, an accident at a nuclear power plant in an alternative reality did occur - but not in the USSR, but in the USA.

TV-3

From this moment, the second, current, season of the series starts - in the genre of retrofuturism, with actors who have matured for seven years. Now in the US, not in Russia, everything is bad. After the accident at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, Maryland, a civil war is raging in America. In the USSR, the former superpower is called the "Disconnected States of America". A new exclusion zone has formed around the explosion site, controlled by desperate bandits. Its capital is the ghost town of Lasby, the American Pripyat. The country's last legally elected president, Donald Trump, is hiding in Hawaii and asking the USSR for help. And we don't mind helping. We have a great army in Anchorage.

In the new history, we in the USSR invented the Internet, which is called "Runet", and made iPhones under the brand "Electronics 8" and "Electronics 8+". In the new world, in principle, everything is fine. True, one cannot freely go abroad - but, on the other hand, what to do there, if prosperity is now only with us? And yet - gays are given five years in prison. But what will you not sacrifice for the common good?

In the alternative Soviet future, the life of the heroes has changed radically - there is no social bottom here. Zadrot-IT specialist Gosha became the son of a big official. The hooligan Lyosha, uninhibited and opening all the doors with his foot, with his criminal uncle is now a Komsomol member in glasses, studying at the institute. They are not up to stupidity and not even to sex: sex is still a bit of a taboo in the puritanical USSR.

We in the USSR invented the Internet, which is called "Runet", and made iPhones under the brand "Electronics 8" and "Electronics 8+".

Anya's father, an engineer at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, who is privy to the secret of heroes, is completely satisfied with the new world. It seems that only Pasha is worried that the Americans have suffered as a result of the change in the past. And he wants to fix it immediately. With the help of an unknown white masked hero (hello Joker?), the heroes hijack a plane and fly to a new exclusion zone. They have a device with them that moves in time.

On the eve of the premiere, the producers sent out the third episode to journalists for viewing, as "it better reflects the spirit of the series." This is actually true: from the third series, the shooting style noticeably changes, color correction appears, which is typical for American films that take place in the desert. The viewer immediately finds himself in a space familiar from American films translated by pirate studios. Somewhere “Sons of Anarchy” is recognized, somewhere “Narkos”, if you wish, you can even make out a hint of “Breaking Bad” and “Staying Alive” (the theme of the missing plane and the disappearance of passengers).

In general, the level of filming and post-production in the third series would have completely satisfied the producers as well. Netflix. The fact is that for this series, Chernobyl-2 has changed its director. Instead of the Swede Anders Banke, who filmed the first season, the director's chair was taken by Pavel Kostomarov, well known to viewers of TV series, feature films, and documentaries. (The producers, however, assure that there were no complaints about the quality of Banke's work, it was just that the work visas in the United States for the film crew took a long time, but he could not wait, he started a new project.)

TV-3

I would like to hope that everything will work out with the history and with the heroes in Chernobyl-2. There may be problems here. If in the first season of Chernobyl the journey was necessary for the internal changes of the characters and the development of their relationships, then in the second season the rules of the game are already predetermined. And everything about the heroes is clear in advance - the insane character of Daniil Spivakovsky speaks correctly: we have before us "The Leader, the Queen, the Rebel, the Fighter and the Coward."

But from the new Soviet Lesha, Gosha, Nastya and Anya, we still need to get those guys from Russia who survived the 90s - free, risky, nervous, ironic, in a good way evil. So far, these alternative sleek Komsomol members for Pasha are rather phantoms of former friends (at this point we understand why that Russia is still better than the prosperous reanimated USSR: at least people are alive, not plastic).

In general, it is interesting how events and characters will develop. I would not want the slogan from the promo to remain the only idea of ​​the season: “The first Russian TV series filmed in Hollywood. We save the world in Russian. In Russian, we save the world anyway - on all other channels, without breaks for sleep and lunch. In this, not an alternate reality.