Vichnaya Pamyat

Chernobyl 1×5

State Prosecutor: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. has determined that justice be carried out on behalf of the People in accordance with the general goal of our Party as determined by its 20th, 21st, and 22nd Congresses, which is a Leninist goal. It was, is, and will be the only immutable goal in the Soviet state. The path of Leninist principles shall be consistently and undeviatingly followed as it expresses the vital interests of the Soviet People, its hopes and aspirations as we guide the life of the Party and the State. This session of court is now open...

Boris Shcherbina: The science is strong, but a test is only as good as the men carrying it out. Now, the first time they tried, they failed. The second time they tried, they failed. The third time they tried, they failed. The fourth time they tried was April 26th, 1986...

Valery Legasov: You don't need to be a nuclear scientist to understand what happened at Chernobyl. You only need to know this: there are essentially two things that happen inside a nuclear reactor. The reactivity which generates power either goes up, or it goes down. That's it. All the operators do is maintain balance.

Boris Shcherbina: I'm an inconsequential man, Valera. That's all I've ever been. I hoped that one day I would matter, but I didn't. I just stood next to people who did.
Valery Legasov: There are other scientists like me. Any one of them could have done what I did. But you... Everything we asked for, everything we needed. Men, material, lunar rovers... Who else could have done these things? They heard me, but they listened to you. Of all the ministers and all the deputies... entire congregation of obedient fools... they mistakenly sent the one good man. For God's sake, Boris, you were the one who mattered most.

---

Valery Legasov: We do not know how high the power went. We only know the final reading. Reactor 4, designed to operate at 3200 megawatts, went beyond 33,000.

Valery Legasov: Why? For the same reason our reactors do not have containment buildings around them, like those in the West. For the same reason we don't use properly enriched fuel in our cores. For the same reason we are the only nation that builds water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors with a positive void coefficient. It's cheaper.

Valery Legasov: I've already trod on dangerous ground. We're on dangerous ground right now, because of our secrets and our lies. They're practically what define us. When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there. But it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies.

KGB Chairman Charkov: Scientists... and your idiot obsessions with reasons. When the bullet hits your skull, what will it matter why?

Valery Legasov: To be a scientist is to be naive. We are so focused on our search for truth, we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there, whether we see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants. It doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl.
    Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask: What is the cost of lies?

--
+ Quotes on the IMDb
+ Soundtracks

+ The Chernobyl Podcast!