Chernobyl (TV Mini Series)
Vichnaya Pamyat (2019)
Stellan Skarsgård: Boris Shcherbina
Photos
Quotes
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Boris Shcherbina : Do you remember that morning when I first called you? How unconcerned I was? I don't believe much that comes out of the Kremlin, but they told me they were putting me in charge of the cleanup. When they said it wasn't serious, I believed them. Do you know why?
Valery Legasov : Because they put you in charge.
Boris Shcherbina : I'm an inconsequential man, Valery. 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 sakes Boris, you were the one who mattered the most.
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Boris Shcherbina : Do you know anything about this town, Chernobyl?
Valery Legasov : Not really, no.
Boris Shcherbina : They were mostly Jews and Poles. The Jews were killed in pogroms and Stalin forced the Poles out. Then the Nazis came, killed whoever was left. After the war, people came to live here anyway. They knew the ground under their feet was soaked in blood but they didn't care. Dead Jews, dead Poles, but not them. No one ever thinks it's going to happen to them. And here we are.
[shows Legasov the blood on the handkerchief into which he has been coughing]
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Boris Shcherbina : [giving testimony at the Chernobyl trial] A nuclear reactor generates heat in the core-- here.
[he points to a section of an elaborate cut-out model of reactor]
Boris Shcherbina : A series of pumps here send a constant flow of cooling water through the core. The core's heat turns the water to steam, the steam spins a turbine here, and the result is electricity. But what if a power plant has no power? What if the power feeding the plant itself is disrupted? A blackout, equipment failure... an attack by a foreign enemy?
[he points to the pumps]
Boris Shcherbina : If there is no power, the pumps cannot move water through the core. Without water, the core overheats, and the fuel melts down. In short-a nuclear disaster. The solution? Three diesel fuel backup generators here. So. Problem solved? No. Bryukhanov knew the problem was not solved at all. The backup generators took approximately one minute to reach the speed required to power the pumps and prevent a meltdown. By that point, it would be too late. And so-- we arrive at the safety test. The theory was this: if the facility lost power, the turbine-- which had been spinning-- would take some time to slow down and stop. What if you could take the electricity it was still generating, and transfer it to the pumps? What if the dying turbine could keep the pumps working long enough to bridge the sixty-second gap until the generators came on? To test this theory, the reactor is placed in a reduced power mode - 700 megawatts - to simulate a blackout condition. Then the turbines are shut off, and as they slowly spin down, their electrical output is measured to see if it is sufficient to power the pumps. The science is strong, but a test is only as good as the men carrying it out. 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 on April 26th, 1986.
