Half Lives: Anatoly Dyatlov, The Scapegoat of Chernobyl
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- Опубликовано: 8 дек 2023
- Half Lives is a series dedicated to telling the stories of the people who were involved in history's nuclear accidents, from their birth, to the mishap, and their life following. These lives are often mixed up with lies, rumors and controversies. This is their true story.
Anatoly Dyatlov was the Deputy Chief Engineer for Units Three and Four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and was involved in the April 26th, 1986 disaster, present in the Control Room at the time of the explosion.
There are many fabrications about his actions, and he is generally portrayed as villain, however this episode of Half Lives covers the real story as he and other witnesses tell it, from his birth to his death.
I hope you enjoy the video.
Yes, the microphone is still not the best. I hope to have an actually good one soon. I really didn't expect the Chernobyl Iceberg Explained video to explode in popularity the way it has, and I am grateful to everyone who has watched it, nor did I expect the demand for more Chernobyl content. You wanted it, I hope you enjoy it. :)
-That Chernobyl Guy.
25/09/2022.
This paints the picture of Dyatlov much differently than HBO did. I’m glad I watched this.
This video is an important reminder that the HBO show is a dramatised account of the events. And while it is brilliant television it is not always historically accurate. Anatoly Dyatlov might not have been the most likable person in the world, he certainly wasnt the villain the show portrays him. I think it's important that videos like this remind us of the differences between dramatisations made for entertainment and real historical events. Thank you.
A friend of mine from high school was a nuclear engineer that helped run the reactor on the aircraft carrier Ronald Regan she is a nuclear physicist now and part of her dissertation was on the chernobyl disaster. She did a good amount of research about it and I asked her about this show and she said they really simplified a lot. She said that the RBMK reactors were indeed flawed but she said the odds of the reactor exploding the way it did was very slim and in her words the holes in the Swiss cheese really had lined up perfectly for the this disaster to occur
@@gabegu5102 Thats usually how serious catastrophic failures occur. Its rarely a single point of failure, it's almost always a cascading series of "unlikely events" and questionable decisions converging into a catastrophic failure. Airplane crashes are usually that way as well.
I don't think the show portrays him as "the villain". The look on his face in the courtroom when they're told the reactor had a censored design flaw depicts him as someone who very much thought he was doing the right thing, and realised the gravitas of the flaw that caused everything.
He knew they were pushing it, and his career was riding on its success, but they all were trained to believe the shutdown button was the failsafe and it could never explode.
His denial of the seriousness in episode one makes sense, - if I told you Godzilla caused a car crash, you'd think I was delusional too.
I'd never heard of him writing the families of Toptunov and Akimov before. That was really great of him to do.
Sad that all he’ll be remembered for by thousands is the “not great not terrible” meme.
Glad this goes some way to setting the record straight.
Esp the part where he writes to prosecutors defending his subordinates.
I am honestly very grateful for this video. Like everyone else, I thought that Dyatlov was an incompetent hard-ass boss. But when looking at the facts it's clear that he was a victim of a failing system and a disaster that in my opinion was inevitable. The fact that he hadn't seen certain documents about the reactors until way after the accident is simply unbelievable.
Accidents of this scale cannot be blamed on a single individual. It takes systematic negligence and corner-cutting for such a thing to happen.
I was a bit annoyed, that the HBO series (I loved it), scapegoated him so hard. There was no creative reason for that.
from what Ive read he did make some mistakes, not that I have any idea if they actually had any impact on the disaster though. Working in a facility not too disimilar to a power plant, I know that procedures are not always followed to the dot, when experience and circumstances need a work around unspecific or outdated procedures. Ultimately it seems he made safe decisions based on his knowledge of the equipment he was working with.
This was an ill-motivated, ill-conceived plan that was possibly unnecessary and pushed a reliable reactor to its limits.
Just want to say, rest in peace Paul Ritter. The actor that played Anatoly Dyatlov in the HBO mini series
that was alye
Such a soviet thing to be drinking vodka after receiving potentially lethal doses of radiation
Technically alcohol (doesn't matter what alcohol) can help to scavenge free radicals and do some DNA Protection, but not a lot and certainly not in a useful manner. The russians started it more as a myth during their time their first few generations of nuclear subs were leaking radiation left and right and were swimming coffins, so they told the people "drink vodka, it protects you".
Ahh, I'm into it.
@@gordonjenner2375that's also, why dyatlov survived nice soviet invention
There was a legit belief that alcohol protected against radiation. It’s partially true; Soviet nuclear subs carried rations of red wine, which contained antioxidants to combat the free radicals generated by exposure to ionizing radiation.
I'd also drink a LOT of vodka if I thought I was going to die of radiation poisoning tbh...
I hate the way the HBO show portrays him. It's a great show in many ways, but there was no reason to make him into the villain like they did. A shameful show of disrespect for the deceased.
I guess showrunners simply followed that Medvedev's book "Chernobyl's notebook", which depicted Dyatlov as incompetent villain. The show also contains a scene with jumping up and down metal caps above the reactor, which also first appeared in the same book and most probably never happened in real world
Fantastic series of videos. What most forget is that, despite Sky's Chernobyl being a great bit of TV, it's a dramatisation of events rather than a documentary.
Absolutely. And although Paul Ritter was an excellent actor who stole every scene he played in that series, he was playing a fictional character rather than an accurate portrayal of Anatoly Dyatlov.
From the start of the HBO series I was angry because ever since I was a small boy, I’ve always been huge on finding REAL sources on Chernobyl. By the time the show had come out, I’d been researching Chernobyl, and had plans to visit soon. Unfortunately with Covid, and the breakout of the war, I can’t visit😢. With how much I already knew about the accident because of reliable sources such as this, I knew the show was full of it in a lot of areas because it had nothing to do with the real events of the accident. I wish the show put more effort into truly portraying how the people in the accident really were.
I think the show portrays the bigger picture. It tries to focus on multiple issues both personal, political and the science of the accident. This means it will end up lacking on certain topics. I also definitely felt a bias towards Dyatlov painting him as the villain. But the show covers much more than just dyatlov so I forgive their mistakes. It is after all only a dramatization of the events during and following the accident. Hope you can resonate with what I’m trying to convey.
:))
i avoid those kinds of movies, the few scenes i saw seemed to be littered with drama and propaganda, with a sprinkling of partial truths, but ive only seen about 25 minutes total of the series
You can always come to Lithuanian, Ignalina nuclear power plant is considered the sister power plant of Chernobyl, its already decommissioned, there are tours inside and outside the plant, you can buy tours with groups or alone, HBO series was filmed in there, the difference that Chernobyl had RBMK 1000 reactor while Ignalina had RBMK 1500, besides that everything is identical to Chernobyl.
Thank you. The thing I love about history is learning about how humans react in different situations. A mentor told me long ago not to judge people too harshly, because everyone does the best they can with the information available at the time, because no one screws up on purpose. That sounds like the situation Dyatlov was in, poor man. We're all flawed, but we all try to do what we feel we need to. RIP.
I kind of feel bad for Deatlov. He was stressed and had a strong spirit. If it were me, i would have cracked. I admire him and his courage.
Regardless of opinions on Dyatlov, he was just the tip of the iceberg in a government and system that was seriously flawed, yet went to great lengths to cover them up. Decades of internal decay finally caught up. Everyone pays the negligence piper eventually.
Thank you so much for putting this together. Great and unbiased work!
This is a important remembrance of this event and a clear view of the people involved unobstructed by politics and disinformation.
Noooo the media is a beacon of truth and integrity! (Incert sarcasm)
Good start to a Saturday when a That Chernobyl Guy video drops
He was far more nuanced and relatable compared to how he was portrayed in the HBO serie.
Always great content
Woohoo! thanks for another upload
Waiting for this one
Very educational. Shows that you should always question the media and never believe everything they put out on the screen for you to swallow
Wow......what a difference compared to how he's portrayed in media. Glad I saw this
There was a great documentary series called Zero Hour, which features Chernobyl as pilot episode, it was well made but it painted Dyatlov as the culprit. Thank you for bringing facts that not available normally in mainstream media.
Interestingly facts are available accessibly and where you would think of looking for them via the nebulous faculty of common sense, but you are correct "mainstream media", including silly bigger youtubers, is unable to process them. That is ironic.
Always important to think about who and why someone would be painted in a bad light and be cautious about claims made about a person's character or guilt. Humans love to scapegoat the guilt of horrible events.
There is a book called Midnight in Chernobyl. It talks about how the disaster was destined to happen. The RBMK reactor was built with cost as priority one rather than safety.
@@Rotwold I mean, many survivors of the disaster and colleagues of his did remark that he was a very assertive man that did often have outbursts of anger at his subordinates. Maybe the show exaggerated that, but many point to him still being largely the man depicted in the show.
I read an article Dyatlov himself wrote, as I was curious after watching various documentaries and the HBO series. I don't remember the specifics, really, but it seemed to me at the time that he had been scapegoated for a systemic failure, and that these productions cast him as the "villain" because his personality and status lent itself to that sort of cinematic caricature. Crucially (and I may be mistaken here), he did not even have access to all available information regarding the known vulnerabilities of the reactor. Therefore, it seems disingenuous to lay so much of the blame at his feet, and it is lamentable that, all these years later, Western filmmakers would continue towing the party line. Those in the USSR risked mortifying professional disability (at the least!) for not doing so. What's the filmmakers' excuse?
Thanks for making this very informative and professional video. Dyatlov didn't deserve the reputation that was forced on him.
It would be amazing to see a reconstruction of what we think it really was like. Let's see the power levels update at the rate they were calculated, once per 5 minutes. It's going to be pretty darned boring until BOOM but I think we need it depicted that way, for all to see. I find it incredibly interesting that all depictions of the event seem to show the runaway as being noticed in real time, and of course the AZ5 button being pressed in response to the power spike.
If we believe instead that AZ5 was pressed because it was the last action in the coast down program that changes everything. Same as if we say the only good indication they get of core power is when the computer program finishes every 5 minutes. In that case we're explaining the sudden power drop too. It wasn't sudden. . . it occurred over 5 minutes, but the operator wouldn't know what he'd done until 5 minutes later. When changing control strategies, as they did at that moment, it is important to have real time feedback how the reactor is responding to the control regime change! Compounding that is what we know now, that the reactor becomes unstable at lower power levels, especially when xenon poison comes into play.
Those guys had no chance in saving the reactor or themselves given the cards they were dealt that day. May they Rest In Peace.
The reactor power was updated in real time; the problem with the sudden power drop was that they changed to a system that was faulty (according to regulation), and it led to an automatic insertion of control rods when it shouldn't have. They did their best with what they had.
@@thatchernobylguy2915 I'm confused. I thought it took the computer calculating reactor power 5 minutes to collect all of the data and perform all the calculations for a single power update. How could they know in real time if that was true?
@@abelincoln78 The SKALA computer took several minutes to printout specific reactor data based on, for example, the position of control rods. But the power of the reactor was based upon instruments inserted into the core that would update live based on the conditions inside (for example, detecting the rate of fission).
@@thatchernobylguy2915 thanks for the reply!
Great work again!
Dyatlov will be remembered for thousands of years, more than 50,000. As Legasov said, some bullets will not stop firing for 50,000 thousand years.
I’ve seen a nuclear experiment where there was a nuclear fuel or piece of uranium ore and it was put in a suspension of dust or something.
You could see little trails in the aerosolized dust from all the particles shooting out of the radioactive test object. They looked literally like invisible bullets.
Dyatlov was in charge during that night. He was supervising the test procedure. Decisions he made maximized the design flaws like Graphite displacers or the positive void coefficient.
Finally, by starting the test sequence, he reduced the water flown through an Xenon-Poisened Reactor which nearly none of the control rods inserted - which immediately set the void coefficient in action.
There is no chernobyl desaster without Dyatlov.
Not great, pretty terrible.
Proper, as always. Cheers mate!
tbh i really liked the last interview with him. i also had his view that the reactor was doomed much earlier due to the "2 reactors" effect. it was literally flooded with water, and the void effect can have contributed only when it was too late anyhow.
I think the show was clear on saying that the testimony in Vienna was a lie. And that the pressure to incriminate him (instead of it being an accident due to redacted design flaws) came from the Soviet leadership.
Not sure why everyone says the show was inaccurate. Apart from 'personality' there's no real difference between HBO and this account.
There is 100% a difference. The testimony repeated in the HBO miniseries is the Vienna lie (minus the AZ-5 button, which they get completely wrong by arguing the reactor was already running away when it was pressed like at Vienna, instead of before like in real life). I'd recommend my How Chernobyl Exploded videos ifnyou're interested on what actually happened that night.
Personality makes a big difference. It changes someone from risking their life to save others to sitting in a Control Room in denial. It's a huge disservice to someone who fought so hard to expose the truth :)
I feel like I have done him dirty believing the narrative. Though I’ve always felt the culprits of Chernobyl were the Soviet system and how they did things…. Like building a reactor without containment, etc. some crazy choices. Sad for Anatoly though, I will admit I think his portrayals are propaganda.
Thank you for another "Remastered" video with extra info. These are so well done! And all these pictures you rarely, if ever, see.
The only thing that bothers me a wee bit is the "as the reactor power had no effect on the test itself". That may have been the case with regard to the test, but for the reactor itself, it was a mighty big deal. If there is one thing an RBMK is utterly incapable of, physically, it is running at very low power for prolonged periods of time. It can't do it because of the way it was designed. This very small, but important snippet of info is something a lot of people do not know or understand. It would make a fine addition to any new video so this becomes more known.
A prohibition to run the reactor at such a low power should have been included in the Operating Manuals/ Procedures from the start, and that became glaringly obvious after the accident. The designers of the RBMK have no one to blame but themselves for that glaring omission, and the subsequent dire consequences because of their foolishness. Just like they should have done way more research into the RBMK's behaviour, especially in non-standard operating modes, before putting it out into the world in little more than its bare fuel rods. This prohibition was later added to the Manuals.
But there never was a limit to operating the reactor, which I realise you have said, but from the perspective of Dyatlov, who was not aware of this information, would not have questioned this.
In fact, and I realise I did not include this in the video now, the rundown procedure does require the reactor be held a level of steam production for turbine self sufficiency, which is about 200MW. I do plan on an explanation of the rundown and a "what would you do?" type of video based on in particular the VIINAES report from 1986. It was classified for a while, but it appears to be pretty much a rundown of the operators decisions according to what they said before they died. According to them, they deliberately wanted to lower the power to 200MW to avoid a major steam release during the rundown, and the authors of the VIINAES report, themselves well aware of the nature of the RBMK, agreed that was the right decision.
It's a very interesting thing, given they were using hindsight. According to them, they would not have aborted the rundown until 1AM, referencing data they also admit the operators wouldn't have had access to.
"If there is one thing an RBMK is utterly incapable of, physically, it is running at very low power for prolonged periods of time. It can't do it because of the way it was designed. This very small, but important snippet of info is something a lot of people do not know or understand. It would make a fine addition to any new video so this becomes more known."
I haven't encountered this in any source. It is explicitly stated in INSAG-7 that the existing instructions put no limit on duration. Furthermore, the reactor wasn't being ran at low power for a prolonged period of time but for like an hour. The power level took on extreme significance after Chernobyl, through lies. Next week's video will be on the topic thatchernobylguy touched on in his reply.
"This prohibition was later added to the Manuals."
At 700 MW. This happened only because of their prominent lies regarding the significance of this power figure, which they took from the test program and twisted. Watch next week's video. Remember, according to them the power coefficient of reactivity turns positive below it, which is total nonsense.
@@thatchernobylguy2915 "In fact, and I realise I did not include this in the video now, the rundown procedure does require the reactor be held a level of steam production for turbine self sufficiency, which is about 200MW."
I would be careful about this. I think that could be achieved by using the mysterious steam dumping system. Operators weren't required by the testing program to lower the power level, merely had the option. The idea apparently was that they would shut down the reactor at the beginning of the test, except when we looked at the step Dyatlov points to it doesn't seem to make sense, and I don't think we have found a step spelling out reactor shutdown. The testing program appears somewhat strange, which may have been routine.
@@thatchernobylguy2915
My apologies if I wasn't clear enough in my initial comment. I fully understand that neither the operators, nor Dyatlov knew that running the reactor at such a low power came with some serious instabilities and hazards to the reactor. They didn't know because they were never told. For that, I fully, and only, blame the designers. As such, it was their task to - apart from designing a reactor that would have all it needs in order to be a safe, stable and happy reactor - make sure that the operators got everything they needed in order to do their job safely and efficiently. They failed miserably in that task, with dire consequences for everyone working at Chernobyl NPP.
I'm looking forward to that new video very much. I'm always eager to learn more, and readjust my views when/if new information becomes available. And we may never know all of it courtesy of the KGB et al. VNIIAES had, and has a lot to answer for. They knew, or at least had a pretty good idea, about the nature of the RBMK, but chose to conveniently ignore that nature.
@@markusw7833
You better get some coffee because this is going to be a very technical reply.
I'm not talking about any reports, I'm strictly talking reactor physics here. Yes, I understand that the instructions didn't mention anything about the low power levels, but they should have, and here is why:
Because RBMKs use graphite as a moderator, they can run on very low enriched (1.8% - 2% at the time), to even natural uranium if need be. This is possible because graphite has a very small absorption cross section. Quite a bit smaller than the hydrogen in water actually, that can also be used as a moderator. PWRs/BWRs need to have their fuel enriched to 3% - 5%, or else they would not be able to run. This slight enrichment is to offset the parasitic absorption of neutrons by the water.
By using graphite as a moderator, and water as a coolant, the RBMK has an enormous amount of moderator present in its core. In fact, the RBMK has so much moderator present, that it operates in an over-moderated state. In this state, water ceases to function as a moderator, and only functions as a neutron poison (aka it absorbs neutrons). This is where the dreaded "positive void (reactivity) coefficient" comes in.
When the water in a PWR/BWR goes away for some reason (a pipe break etc), they will shut themselves down automatically because the neutrons are no longer being slowed down enough to sustain a chain reaction. This is called a "negative void coefficient". It is exactly what you want, and it is an inherent safety feature in these reactors. PWRs/BWRs operate in an under-moderated state.
For an RBMK, however, the reverse happens. If for whatever reason it loses its cooling water, the neutron moderation continues because the graphite is still there. And since steam doesn't absorb as many neutrons as water, the chain reaction actually speeds up since now there are more free neutrons available to do the atom splitting. Which means that with a sudden increase in power, an RBMK that is already reactive, will become even more reactive. You effectively end up with a positive feedback loop. More steam means more reactivity means more heat means more steam... Not. Good.
But the positive/negative void coefficient and moderator coefficient aren't the only feedbacks present in a reactor. There is also the fuel temperature coefficient. As fuel heats up, the neutron resonance absorption cross section undergoes Doppler broadening, which means that when the fuel heats up, more neutrons get absorbed. This small change is a key safety mechanism for reactors. It actually works so well that most reactors will shut down on their own when their power increases too rapidly. This is also the mechanism that quenched the first power excursion in Unit 4, barely, but it did.
Under normal operating conditions, RBMKs have a fuel reactivity coefficient that is just negative enough to outweigh the positive void reactivity coefficient. This results in an overall negative feedback coefficient. However, a reactor's stability can also depend on its power. And this is where the "unable to run at very low power for long" comes in:
For an RBMK, both the fuel temperature and void reactivity coefficients become more positive as the reactor's power decreases, and the overall reactivity coefficient becomes positive. This particularly kicks in below 20% of its full power. The RBMK ends up having a dominance ratio very close to one due to its ridiculously large size. If they had built it any bigger, they might as well have given the various sections of the core their own zip codes. Due to its very large size, an RBMK's core can behave like several smaller reactors in that one space. And each of these reactors have a little will of their own. This will increase the reactor's instability at low power even further. So, now you see why an RBMK can't do it? It's reactor physics. And that's not even factoring in things like Xenon poisoning, which only adds to its woes.
And to us, an hour may not seem long, but for a reactor where changes can be measured in a millionth of a second, it might as well be a life time! The same goes for the slow insertion time of the control rods. 18-21 seconds may seem fast to us, but again, when changes are measured in a millionth of a second, these 18-21 seconds might as well be 18-21 days.
Search "who destroyed the mile island"
It's a great talk on how never put the blame on people, but rather on analyzing why did they take the decisions they took.
I always thought it was his fault but after watching this video has changed my mind greatly. I've blamed the director and the people above him for killing all the other people
I may have missed it but what about the fact that he and his bosses had signed off the tests as being successfully carried out when it hadn’t actually been done yet. Fact or fiction?
People need to remember one simple thing. In situations such as Chernobyl and many other such disasters, its almost always the case that individuals are not the ones at fault, systems are.
Where did you get all the leak unit 4 control room clips from?
This is not the way I understood it at all. They disconnected the Automatic control systems, got into an iodine well, and Dyatlov bollocked everyone up hill and down dale to raise power until they had about 5 rods in the thing, which had a neutron hotspot. With practically no boron rods in it, it went prompt, and the graphilte tips of the withdrawn rods, once the AZ5 had been pressed, did the rest.
By my understanding, Dyatlov was responsible (if you forget for a moment that the reactor design was responsible) because of his bullying and the fact that he was the most experienced person in the room so the younger guys didn't dare countermand him when he demanded power be raised after it dropped off to practically nothing.
This is not based on one account, but on everything I have read. That does not mean it's true, but if you look at interviews with the man, his evasive choice of language lends credence to the theory. Just my hapeth.
The problem with this being that these books that paint Dyatlov as a villain do not agree with either the modern scientific and historical interpretation of Chernobyl nor the eye witness testimony of the night. A more complete picture of it and common misconceptions can be found in my three part "How Chernobyl Exploded" video series :)
Thanks for this video clearin up who Dyatlov actually was…I hate shows that are supposed to be based on a true story, but then portray people as they want them to be for better ratings, like HBO’s Chernobyl did.
This channel comprises a very honest and brilliant effort as he showcases the individuals brave enough and talented enough to Ride the Tiger. There is no alternative motivation, it is the unvarnished truth for you to discover and explore. We are deeply indebted to the author as we savor and enjoy his carefully and superbly crafted reporting.
Back in 1993 (already), I read Ablaze by Piers Paul Read.
He discribes the behaviour of Djatlov in the controlroom as authoritarian. To bad people like Akimov didn't live long after the explosion to be able to tell us more about that.
Thankyou for committing all this to the history in our collective consciousnesses.
big system justice. Fantastic work researching and presenting this on utube.
Even during the final closing events in the HBO series he is seen as a broken man.
I am curious, I was taught what happened 30 years ago when I was in nuclear power school for US Navy. It was an abridged version of what happened. At any rate, a number years ago I had read that the coast down test was in anticipation of a NATO strike on the plant to see if the are reactor plant would survive the strike from Turkey and I just wondering if you had ever come across information like that.
Anybody know where I can get a copy of Dyatlov's book?
A translated version is available on library genesis
@thatchernobylguy2915 can you recommend a good book on the disaster?
Legacy of Chernobyl by ZHORES Medvedev(Not the other useless Medvedev) Is great , although it's a bit dry at times.
Dry is good, dry means it has meaningful information and not propaganda to transmit
I agree that Legacy of Chernobyl is a good book. A few others worth keeping an eye out for:
Chernobyl (also goes by Chernobyl: A Documentary Story) by Yurii Shcherbak.
How it Was by Anatoly Dyatlov.
Chernobyl: Past, Present and Future by Nikolai Steinberg and Georgiy Kopchinsky.
The Physics of the Chernobyl Accident by Keith Pearce is a pretty good beginner's guide to the accident if the technicalities of the scientific reports scare you :)
@@thatchernobylguy2915
Apart from the Chernobyl: A documentary story by Shcherbak (still need to find a copy that's affordable), I have all the other ones. They are indeed very good reads. The one I particularly like is the Physics of the Chernobyl Accident from Keith Pearce, but that's because I'm strictly a reactor guy^^
Ablaze from Piers Paul Read most certainly isn't bad, although a bit on the technical and dry side for those not well versed in technical stuff. And there is some outdated stuff in there too.
Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham would be another good one.
And may I suggest "My Chernobyl" from Alexander A. Borovoi?
Thank thy Lord, he was born as a "baby boy" and not a full adult!🙌
Very good video. I do however disagree with your opinion/ conclusion. Evidence suggests that he was substantially responsible for the actions of others including the initial drop of the power to below the formal safe level - which began the sequence of events and mistakes of others which caused the accident. Of course this wouldn’t have led to the disastrous consequences were it not for the design faults- notably the graphite tips of the control rods which caused the opposite effect of increasing the reaction when they were reintroduced instead of lowering the reaction.
The state is never wrong. Top party members are protected.
First rule of being in charge…🙄
Calling him a hero is a bit ... much. He was in charge that night. And the accident, no matter what you say about the design of the reactor, was caused by human carelessness. Sure, helped by faulty reactor design. Gross negligence nonetheless.
I have no doubt that Dyatlov would have been demoted if he had refused the test under the given conditions or stopped early. If people are at risk of being demoted for responsible behavior, then the blame lies with those who create such disincentives. The fish rots from the head.
@@robertmuller1523 And rotten fish is still a rotten fish.
Excellent analysis😎🖖🏼 I thought Dude was 💯 responsible per the HBO Miniseries. Makes me sick the Creators and Producers have shoved misinformation down our throats. Sadly, if like me, folks don’t do a little more research, that’s how they’ll believe the accident happened😤😡🤬🤯
where I am still not clear is; were these guys aware of the possibility of xenon poisoning or not? because I know Dayatlov was new on large reactors but if he AND the reactor operator were unaware of that possibility at lower power settings... then that says something about both their qualification for the job and for the system they were a part of
it is interesting to note that 3MileIsland also involved a guy in charge who was a navy man whose whole prior experience was with much smaller reactors...
isnt most of the US nuclear industry composed of prior navy nukes?@@prismpyre7653
@@nobstompah4850no. Nuclear reactors for the navy are all pressurized water reactors. That’s the same kind of reactor that’s the most common in the USA. Three mile island is a PWR.
My question too.. how could he be a nuclear engineer and not know about Xenon poisoning..or at least voids.
He absolutely knew about xenon poisoning. It is very basic knowledge of how reactors work.
just fyi white text with a black outline can be read on any background
Poor guy
Salute to dyatlov when people had limited knowledge about rbmk reactor. He stood against irony of USSR boldly during interrogation, there you can see, person pleading guilty won't talk like that.
At least he died before the HBO version of himself was born
Dyatlov was just a goat for soviet machine, when things happens nobody will take responsibility they will point at someone else, during soviet time if you want to stay in high position you have to do what is told from higher people no matter what or it will coast your job, you will be blacklisted from during same jobs somewhere else, you will be scraping barrel as poor people, and work in low position job, Dyatlov did what he was told to do, because of higher up decision for this test and rbmk 1000 reactor flaw it blew up, and ofc all blame came to high and other 2 people at Chernobyl but mostly to Dyatlov.
Thank you for this excellent video. This actually makes me sad about the HBO portrayal. They dumbed down the story while they had the chance to set the record straight and show a more nuanced reality.
The fact he wrote to the parents of the deceased crew members says a lot.
Should have suspect after the megaton steam explosion nonsense near the end of the series.
Thank you so so much!
Yes, HBO portrayed Dyatlov terribly. Their primary source for the series, The Truth About Chernobyl, is almost entirely fiction and written by a man who hated Dyatlov, as I believe I say in the video. It's really painful how poorly his legacy remains today when he did so much in the hunt for the truth.
The megaton explosion was no bullshit, that’s actually a figure that was passed on to Gorbachev. It turned out that it was completely wrong, but it wasn’t an invention of the showrunners.
I also understand, why they portrayed Dyatlov the way they did. But same as with Ulana Khomyuk they should have mentioned that they changed him for dramaturgy reasons, or better, replaced him with a fictitious character.
Still the show is a masterpiece of cinematic storytelling and artistry. Sadly it’s only loosely factual.
Krasnoyarsk mentioned
@19:10 lol
Technically anyone can become famous for destroying a nuclear reactor it’s not that hard.
Wow the show really made him look despicable
.... imagine watching a drama series on HBO and thinking that you actually are educated about this situation or about radiation in general🤣☠️
😂 I saw some comments (not here) trying to do so they still think the “350kg” fuel caps (in reality 180kg) jumped up and down or the rods were graphite tipped
So….we should give Dyatlov a pass?
Ha ha ha
I’m only watching this to get the “other” side. You guys are making him to be the victim here.
No, this is just his story according to the testimony of those around him, and books written by independent authors. It wasn't intended to present him as a victim, and I don't see him as such.
@@thatchernobylguy2915I went back and watched Episode 5 this morning a lot closer. Dylatov would’ve gotten Legasov’s job had the test gone well and that was a carrot dangled in front of him. I don’t think it’s until Legasov finishes testifying and he’s in the room that you see how complicit he is as well. You have to wonder if it would’ve been better for him to get promoted and make changes from the inside as a position of authority rather than grandstanding as he did.. it was wasted.
@@JimAllen-Persona Dyatlov was never in line for a promotion; this myth originates from Zero Hour. Bryukhanov fully intended to remain at Chernobyl, Fomin wasn't going anywhere, and Dyatlov was nearing retirement anyway, delegating more of his jobs to others.
wait this is a reupload with addons
have a look at the thumbnail image
That explains everything
Sad, so sad. The HBO stupidity is infuriating.
It's chock full of silly dramatizations to keep the attention of people who spend their time spouting quality memes such as "RBMK reactors don't explode" and "Not good not terrible".
Exactly. Sadly the literary scene isn't much better, just hyper-emotionalized dreck casting about for a boogie man to scapegoat.@@centralintelligenceagency9003
The reason the writer’s changed the things they did was to exaggerate story elements for the show, every show needs an antagonist.
I believe one of the first lines in that series is an artistic justification for their inaccurate protrayal of this man.
It's extremely ironic how a show that spends so much time talking about lies is in itself full of lies
Dyatlov was the Ayatollah of Chernobyloha!
This is messed up that HBO tarnished him.
😐
So the accuracy of the miniseries' portrayal of Dyatlov was not great, not terrible?
Scapegoat? Not really. Despite the reactor flaws at the heart of the disaster, he pressured his crew to do exceedingly stupid things for the sake of pleasing his bosses.
Which is not true and you are following the series We are talking about Anatoly Dyatlov here, and the series is definitely bullshit in context of Dyatlov's story. The show creator did zero research and based the series on very old Soviet fake named Chernobyl Notebook by Grigory Medvedev. Medvedev had personal issues with Dyatlov and used the book to settle old scores. Soviet rulers were frantically trying to hide the truth about the disaster and save their money, so they translated Medvedev's bullshit into English and other "Western" languages as soon as it was published. Sure nobody could imagine that decades after the collapse of Soviet Union some Western idiot will make the TV show with an enormous budget from that ancient fake.
Real-life Dyatlov was experienced and educated nuclear physicist who never forced Toptunov or Akimov to explode the reactor. Probably he wasn't in the control room when Toptunov accidentally lost the power. After the explosion he acted heroically and got radiation burns and severe ARS trying to rescue Khodemchuk from collapsed pump room. He was fighting for the truth and subjected to kangaroo trial which gave him ten years of gulag. The goal of kangaroo trial was to condemn victims instead of real culprits
Conclusion the whole reactor part is pure fiction
Dyatlov shouldn’t be blamed because he was on the toilet at the time. Unless perhaps he flushed at precisely the wrong time therefore further limiting cooling water flow to the core.
Dyatlov did what his superiors expected of him. He didn’t do any research that would have exposed the design flaws of the reactor and held back the safety certification any longer, even though it’s every engineer’s duty to do these things. It would have left career promotion out of the question for him, which was unacceptable to his ego.
What in the world?
Seriously dude? You realize that this was still Soviet union, and that info wasnt just freely available on a wiki...
The hbo series made him out to be a tyrant but it sounds like he was the opposite in real life
His demeanor is hard to tell. He doesn't seem to have been pleasant, but he was highly knowledgeable and respected by the people he worked with. The HBO mini-series is so demonstrably dumb you'd be shocked. Stick around for the next video for a great example.
Don't believe it. Stick to the facts. 90% of those who were there and interviewed, (who finally braved the threat of the KGB) tell the same story. AD was an asshole who routinely yelled at his co-workers to intimidate them into forcing respect and compliance. The simple, undeniable fact is, that had he followed the established guidelines set forth in the checklist of steps to complete the test (the same steps that had previously worked for the certifications of all previous RBMK reactors without incident) the disaster would not have happened. He received the blame because he was to blame for deviating from the norm. This was all established in the investigation and trial as discovered and exposed by Valery Alekseyevich Legasov. I don't care about AD's childhood ... I care about the arrogant man he had become at the time, who more than anyone else was responsible for the nuclear accident that sent massive amounts of radiation across Europe and Scandinavia, forever more poisoning people, animals and land. Fact.
@@taproom113 "This was all established in the investigation and trial as discovered and exposed by Valery Alekseyevich Legasov."
Ouch.
Virtually all the people who survived have gone on to defend Dyatlov. You can read books like Chernousenko's Insight From the Inside or newspaper/radio interviews. They all defend him.
The rundown was never certified at any RBMK. HBO made that up. Leningrad even went as far as to reject the experiment when the same people who would go on to do it at Chernobyl offered to do it for them.
And Legasov didn't really uncover anything. He was one of the major advocates for covering it up in real life.
@@taproom113 Was this revealed to you in a dream, or by your uncle who works at Nintendo?
This is good stuff. That HBO director/producer was soso bad. He based his whole series on the weirdest mixture of kremlin and american propaganda... that being said while Dayatlov wasn't the cartoon villain they tried to make him out to be, I still think he's not a good guy if he can't bring himself to admit any fault at all.
Thank you for the video. I have seen some clips of the HBO miniseries and was quite surprised at the caricature of Anatoly Dyatlov. The acting was good but I don't think it was an accurate depiction of the character or demeanour. Paul Ritter certainly failed to enact any of the restraint typically associated with Soviet-era Russian officials. Soviet professionals, especially in technical fields, were often characterised by a stoic and reserved demeanor. Yes, it universally agreed that Dyatlov was tough. A hard man that had scaled up the Soviet hierarchy from abject poverty to higher status positions through hard work, an arguably harsh no-nonsense approach to personal relationships and a willingness to take risks but he was no psychopath, unlike the character in the TV mini-series. In his last interview I think he was largely telling the truth as he had nothing to hide by then (he died soon after). Chernobyl was the consequence of a criminal system that promised Heaven on Earth and brought Hell instead. In an infantilised system, such as the former USSR, there is no need for singular 'baddies'. Its tragedy was that everyone eventually became victim and perpetrator.
Its kinda ironic the HBO series has more in common with the USSR than the truth about what happened at Chernobyl
He wasn’t the scapegoat, he was highly arrogant and irresponsible and deserved more than ten years in prison.
He was the scape goat if you read anything about him We are talking about Anatoly Dyatlov here, and the series is definitely bullshit in context of Dyatlov's story. The show creator did zero research and based the series on very old Soviet fake named Chernobyl Notebook by Grigory Medvedev. Medvedev had personal issues with Dyatlov and used the book to settle old scores. Soviet rulers were frantically trying to hide the truth about the disaster and save their money, so they translated Medvedev's bullshit into English and other "Western" languages as soon as it was published. Sure nobody could imagine that decades after the collapse of Soviet Union some Western idiot will make the TV show with an enormous budget from that ancient fake.
Real-life Dyatlov was experienced and educated nuclear physicist who never forced Toptunov or Akimov to explode the reactor. Probably he wasn't in the control room when Toptunov accidentally lost the power. After the explosion he acted heroically and got radiation burns and severe ARS trying to rescue Khodemchuk from collapsed pump room. He was fighting for the truth and subjected to kangaroo trial which gave him ten years of gulag. The goal of kangaroo trial was to condemn victims instead of real culprits
If you want to confirm start by reading dyatlov’s own book which is backed by INSAG-7 by iaea ( International Atomic Energy Agency)
The Communist/socialist paradise
American college students: boy this looks great
You guys are keep saying that he was so innocent, what about informing firefighters about the dangers? And all about madness to keep on continuing with the test. Didn't they know about Xenon at that time?
1) He did, when he went outside, he spoke to Pravik before he went on the roof (at which point he had concluded the reactor was destroyed).
2) Xenon didn't play a significant role in the accident, and they were able to hold the reactor steady at 200MW, although they could've gone higher. It was allowed at the time.
Thank you for your reply.
Looking at your other video about Toptonov it looks like they lost control of the reactor dropping below 200MW to a 30 or so removing almost all rods then some how getting to a constant 200MW for approx 20min before deciding on AZ5 button.
But what was Dyatlov doing all this time? Was he not prezent there? Was he not aware? You mentioned they went down to 7.5 rods. Was this not a concern for a such an experienced leading plant engineer?
To me you're painting him as he was letting all reactor fate in the hands of a 20year old guys while he was lot fully present blaming the failsafe mechanisms of the reactor...
@@thatchernobylguy2915I believe Diatlov was a total idiot and your video is misleading letting the control room men operating the reactor pushing it up and down in the matter of hours or sometimes less, the reactors have usually huge cycle times.
You say "there's no Xenon poisoning!" What about after they drop the power to 30?MW and ramping up again removing almost all rods? Was also no Xenon there? Was no violating some protocol removing the rods down to 7 from 200?
I understand nuclear safety was at they're beginnings but to remove all control rods to compensate for the Xenon poisoning is not an option he should not leave them do that as he was in charge there.
He spent his life trying to say he didn't violate safety protocol but what about letting Toptonov and Akimov running around there?
"When I looked they're gone" is that what he has to say?
I'm pretty sure they new the risks of removing from all 200rods down to 7 that was a huge risk.
I'm sure someone insisted to still perform the experiment as HBO suggest.
People always pick on HBO by declaring point by point on Diatlov's interview but that was his version of the story.
@@silviucambesteanu7230 The drop to 30 MW had virtually no impact on xenon poisoning, compared to a steady decrease from 760 MW to 200 MW.
According to the xenon transient curves used to operate reactors, they were not in a state of xenon-precluded startup.
According to their training and the operating instructions, there was no safety risk involved in removing rods. There was no way to track the inserted rod worth in real time, so everyone was accustomed to making short-term changes and waiting for the Skala to inform them of the limit at regular intervals.
But by all means, continue loudly and aggressively trumpeting your ignorance...
@MinSredMash Xenon was a strong neutron absorber, which led to the levels plummeting. Taking out those control rods greatly increased reactivity and caused a runaway feedback loop. All safety precautions said that under no circumstances whatsoever should there ever be less than 20 control rods in a reactor at any given time.
He was an educated nuclear engineer, and was trained to be a manager of an RBMK reactor. He knew the risks.
The real problem was due to what he didn't know. The flaws in design that weren't disclosed as a way to cut costs. He and the operating government at the time both share blame.
I am considered a peasant , as I am indigenous in a multicultural country
We are all peasants