It’s been a couple of months since I reviewed each episode of HBO’s “Chernobyl” on Twitter, and I never thought I’d come back to this topic. It’s not like there is going to be a second season, right? Well, wrong, as it turns out, though Season 2 is being filmed not by HBO but by real life in actual Russia. Which, as it happens, is often more thrilling, depressing and bizarre than most things on your TV screens.
Craig Mazin, the creator of “Chernobyl”, talked about it in the bonus episode of the eponymous podcast (I also got a mention there, which was nice), and it appears that he may have gotten more Russified while making the series than anyone realizes, because his observations on the mentality of the people involved is quite accurate.
For those still unfamiliar with what’s going on, a week ago, there was an explosion near the northern Russian city of Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk Oblast which claimed the lives of five scientists from RosAtom (the Russian nuclear energy agency) and two members of the military. At least, this is what we know at the moment, because Russia didn’t even admit there were any deaths until two days later and didn’t confirm the blast was nuclear in nature until three more days passed. Even the Soviets were a bit more open with Chernobyl.
By now it is known that the explosion was likely an accident involving Burevestnik (“Storm Petrel”), the new Russian nuclear-powered missile. Nothing else is confirmed at this point and isn’t likely to be in the forseeable future. RosAtom, which has the freaking “ATOM” in its freaking name, wouldn’t even use the word “nuclear” when describing the missile, preferring instead the scientific euphemism “a missile with an isotope power source.” One can easily imagine Russian housewives breathing a sigh of relief: “Ah, well, that doesn’t sound so bad. It wasn’t a nuclear explosion, just an isotope one.”
As for the reasons? Rest easy, comrades, it was a “concatenation of circumstances”, nothing more. You have to forgive Russians here. Our language is very poetic and flowery, and it’s not easy to come up with something as concise and straightforward as “a fuckup”, but even to us, used to the Orwellian opaqueness of Sovietspeak, this type of understatement seemed quite humorous in a dark sort of way.
It goes without saying that determining the environmental impact of the “concatenation” is impossible. There were reports of Severodvinsk residents being issued iodine pills, which, as we all now know thanks to “Chernobyl”, helps against small doses of radiation. Evacuation is also reportedly underway. Seriously, you could just watch the second episode of the show to get an idea of what may be going on. Not that much has changed in the philosophy and mentality of the Russian powers-that-be in 30+ years.
Lying, deflecting and obfuscating coming as a first response to a catastrophe is a well-established trait of the Russian government. It’s not exclusive to Russia, of course (since 2017, in fact, it has become a rather defining characteristic of the American one as well), but in Russia it’s pretty impossible to imagine any other reaction. There is never even so much as a question of whether the folks in charge would prioritize public health and safety over secrecy and saving face.
This is a byproduct not even so much of the 70 years of the Communist dictatorship as of almost a millennium of Russian history, ever since it was conquered by the Mongols and took an Asiatic turn in its development as a state. Subjugating the needs of an individual to the benefit of the Motherland (which more often than not means “people running the Motherland”) has since become an ingrained trait of any system of government running the show.
The Russian language doesn’t even have a word for “whistleblower”, at least not one with a positive connotation. Informants are usually labeled with the word “stukach” (which literally means “a snitch”), but someone who informs on the misbehavior or crimes of the people in power? There is no term for them, except, maybe, for “a person who has mysteriously gone missing for some reason.”
But, in reality, you don’t really need a threat of being shot. You don’t need the KGB guy yelling at you in that creepy tiled room from Episode 5. You don’t need Putin riding shirtless into your bedroom and threatening to pump your tea full of polonium. Russians are conditioned for silence, for avoidance, for coverups. A lot of it has to do with a warped sense of patriotism as any action that might conceivably cause embarrassment to the Motherland, even if it saves lives or discloses crimes, is seen as shameful and disloyal.
This is why, for example, the actions of Grigory Rodchenkov who uncovered a massive government-run doping program in Russian Olympic sports are universally reviled back home. People aren’t mad at the cheaters and at the government that risked young people’s health in pursuit of politically beneficial sporting successes. They are mad at the person who shed light on it because it embarrassed Russia and deprived her of future athletic glory, no matter how ill-gotten.
“I think that even Trump may know more about what’s happening in Severodvinsk than any of us”, said my friend and former colleague who was once a highly-placed officer in the Russian missile defense force. “Lies are the foundation of everything they have built”, said my step-father, a retired lieutenant-colonel of the Soviet artillery who was a part of the Chernobyl liquidation efforts.
“The price of lies” is the theme of Craig Mazin’s show, a lesson Russia still manages to ignore after so many centuries of its painful history. A lesson that America may be learning the hard way in the not-too-distant future.
