Chernobyl: Utopia in Flames

Miniseries

2023 · 4 episodes · 3h 0m in all

In 1970, near the Ukrainian village of Chernobyl, a utopia was born: the world's largest nuclear power plant. Its inhabitants, chosen for their talent and faith in the future, lived a dream that was shattered on April 26, 1986, when the technologically obsolete plant exploded, causing thousands of victims.

Episodes

1. 

   1. Paradise

   25 Apr 2023 · 45 min

   Since 1971, the young nuclear engineer Nikolai Steinberg has been working on the gigantic construction site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. As a student in Moscow he first heard of the secret RBMK reactor, meant to power the Soviet economy. In the middle of nowhere, the Soviet Union builds a paradise for nuclear engineers and their families: the Chernobyl plant with its four reactor units, and the Ukrainian town of Pripyat.

2. 

   2. Accident

   25 Apr 2023 · 45 min

   On 26 April 1986, at about 1:23 a.m., a reactor explodes at Chernobyl. What begins as a safety test ends in an inferno. It remains the world's worst nuclear disaster to this day.

3. 

   3. Lies

   25 Apr 2023 · 45 min

   Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev receives a secret report of an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. How will the man so many hopes rest on respond to the disaster?

4. 

   4. Legacy

   25 Apr 2023 · 45 min

   After the Chernobyl accident, the world demands answers from the Soviet Union. Moscow makes the plant's staff the scapegoats and keeps quiet about the flaws in Soviet technology.