K and I are watching the Polish Netflix series 1983. I started watching it when it came out, but stopped around the second or third episode because I thought K might enjoy it. I was right. It’s an alternative history story set in the early 2000s in which the Soviet Union still exists, and Poland is still within its orbit to a greater or lesser degree. The title references a nationwide, multi-site terrorist attack that occurred in 1983 and resulted in a great sense of national unity and bolstered the Party’s support among the rank and file.

As far as reading goes, I’m almost through with Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy. The common notion is that the disaster in Chernobyl (which I learned means “wormwood” in Ukrainian, although this site takes issue with that) hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. It showed that the Soviets couldn’t keep up with the technology of the West like it claimed it could: the reactor at the power plant was a RBMK type reactor, which was moderated with graphite-typed boron rods, without any sort of containment building. The graphite tips on the control rods were a cheaper solution; the lack of a concrete building meant to contain possible radiation was also due to cost. The graphite tips, when they got stuck, accelerated the reaction, which is the opposite function of control rods. At any rate, the Soviet Union was weakened, which likely lead to Gorbachev’s lack of intervention as the satellite nations fell away: maintaining empire was yet another cost the USSR could not maintain.

Had the Soviet Union not fallen, had Poland remained communist, had the vision of 1983 been reality, and the reality of Chernobyl just a bad dream, I would have never met K. An odd realization, and odd timing with reading and viewing…