[28] Ustynyuk was called to Legasov's office and found him to be "extremely agitated and low-spirited" following the decision. And now Im in charge. He toasts, in what appears to be the middle of the day: To the workers of the world. No. David Remnick speaks with Masha Gessen about the chance that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin, whether it matters, and surprising pockets of resistance in Russia. Sometimes scientists and specialists would spend a few days at our place. It was him who insisted on the evacuation of the neighboring town of Pripyat and his decisions that helped to limit the impact of the catastrophe that threatened Europe. Chernobyl: 7 People Who Played a Crucial Role in the World's - HISTORY Glimmers of this understanding appear in the HBO series, too. In August 1986, he was invited to speak at the IAEA in Vienna, presenting a report to foreign colleagues about the catastrophe and why it happened. In effect, Plokhy argues, it was the Soviet system that created Chernobyl and made the explosion inevitable. [27] His treatment may have been that his independence, his habit of violating the chain of command and his lack of deference to the scientific establishment had irked senior members of the scientific community. Valery Legasov is most famous for being the deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that With hundreds of free documentaries published and categorised every month, there's something for every taste. - Wikipedia Contain the spread of misinformation. Legasov has been made immortal by the TV show, but if you dig long enough, you'll find that he was a very different man in real life. Join. I know that in the miniseries he speaks of the cost of lies, but I know that the miniseries isnt very accurate sometimes. Before I get to what the series got so terribly wrong, I should acknowledge what it got right. The Harvard historian Serhii Plokhys 2018 book on Chernobyl reconstructs the sequence of events and assigns blame. [5] These ideas were quickly quashed by the authorities. [citation needed] He was a member of the Science and Technology Council of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building.