this movie looks a lot more intriguing if you are aware of the actual reality of the setting.

I have been living here my entire life.  

you would be surprised.

just in case you wondered what was that beautiful old town they were shouting at a poor sod in — it is downtown Kyiv, and the production company (the filming, the props, all that) is Ukrainian-based, too.

thank you.

if you want to know more about the human side of the Chornobyl’s story you might want to check out the book by Svetlana Alexievich, last year’s Nobel laureate in literature from Belarus — The Chernobyl Prayer. it is devastatingly deep, humane, and soul-wrenching. i don’t know whether it has been already translated…

oh, those brave Brits. going to where no man’s foot has been, right?

it is Ukraine, not the Ukraine, and has been for the last 26 years.

and what has Russia to do with it?

and a lot of people paid with their lives and health to have it build so quickly.

it must be nice to be this naive and this ignorant, right?

they did not ignore them, they were unable to influence the situation. they warned the Moscow higher ups that the experiment was extremely unsafe but were forced to go on with it, nonetheless.

I am в Україні. so I don’t have to go anywhere.

I don’t lie. I am way too lazy for that.

and it is Belarus, you imperialistic ignoramus.

so, a Russian and a heartless jerk. what else is new?

have no idea.

well, the guy who sat next to me in class lost 60% of his eyesight in those weeks.

Christopher Lee.

her writing is so simple and so open-hearted and human. and what she describes is so cruel beyond any limits — especially the sections about women in the camps and their babies. I am a young mom myself, and I cannot bring myself to read it again, it hurts so much.