molnarbelgium's Check-Ins

Incredibly beautiful, brutal and devastating impact - yeah, of the truth. The reality of the Chernobyl catastrophe I was aware of before, yet was left shocked after watching this flawless tv show and began to bring back my personal memories. I visited then Soviet Ucraine in 1989, spent there two months as a young university student, during the last two years of a falling, brutal empire. Everything reflected in the mini series was so realistic. I saw the inhuman Soviet blocks of flats, people joining the queue in front of miserable grocery stores, hoping to buy some food, which was never certain. Saw the clothes of the masses of poor people, saw the hopelessness, widespread alcoholism. Eeverything depicted in the show was really close to reality I saw then. Of course our official university hosts lied to us about Chernobyl, or changed the subject when we asked anything about it. Privately people were more open, but still tried to talk to us silently more. I found them, (Soviet) Ucranians nice, friendly and kind, despite everything. I wanted to visit Chernobyl, I was twenty and a young 'crazy' man, but we were told we cannot even visit Kijev without official permission and a road pass. So we went where we could, from the Crimea to Lviv, but none of us was allowed to the Chernobyl-Pripjat region, we took a train which was crossing the countryside like 100 kilometers away from the Exclusion Zone. Ucraine gained independence since then and got some freedom after 70 years, the Soviet Union collapsed, yet Russia (official successor of the Soviet Union), an Puti are still refusing to admit everything. The KGB (only its name was changed) regained power, and the atmosphere is getting closer to the Soviet times. That power, based on lies still exists and posing a threat to the free world.