this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
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Inventing Reality
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That's incorrect translation.
He only arrived in Chremkhovo when he was 17.
17 is still a teenager
He still didn't work in the mine until he was 20.
As already said there are multiple contradicting sources. Regardless of if he was working in a mine as an actual teenager or one year out of his teenage years as your source implies: that still proves that his portrayal in the Chernobyl show as an out-of-touch bureaucrat that had never worked in a mine is false.
That along with other changes to reality and outright fabrications of events and and people like 'Ulana Khomyuk' shows that it is not historically accurate(even beyond the 'dramatic license' given to works of entertainment portraying historical events) and is written by biased westerners who go to lengths to portray Soviet officials as more inexperienced, sexist etc than they were in reality
I don't think the translation is incorrect. If you want to doubt something you can only doubt the original source being incorrect
That's a different source which also doesn't say that he worked in mines. It literally just says "started working at 15'. And it overlooks his college period where he was educated to do that work later.
Source your own claim then
Sure why not
https://itexts.net/avtor-mihail-ivanovich-schadov/
Another one, https://www.ugolinfo.ru/Free/spec2007.pdf
There are no sources that claim that he was in mines since teen years. At best he was around mines at 17. No evidence whatsoever that he was a miner, more an engineer.
Translated:
I looked through a couple different sources and a lot of them seem to conflict with each other. There are some that claim he came from a peasant family, when it seems his father was instead a chairman of a kolkhoz, which would be a fairly influential local leader who would work directly with the central party.
There are sources that claim he began his career as a site manager, mechanic, or electrical technician at the age of 15 or 17. He has sources claiming that he graduated in 47, 48, and 53 from two different technical colleges and then getting a degree in economics in 65.
It really is hard to parse out exactly what is what especially since a lot of the different bibliographies have broken original sources or are just missing.
The biography says he started his career at 15? I'm not sure what its trying to say about that
I'm saying that
Is factually incorrect. He only arrived somewhere where there mines to work at at 17.
But 17 is teenage? Or are you saying he was working near a mine at 17 but not at a mine?
Is English your primary language? 17 is spelled out seventeen so teens would be between 13 (thirteen) and 19 (nineteen). I know other languages do other conventions for numbering.
Is English your primary language? 'Arrived in region where there were mines at 17' is very different from 'worked in mines since teen years'. See more direct quote in here, he started working at mine when he was 20, as an engineer and never worked as miner.
Either way the commentary that show was trying to make is pretty impotent and pathetic which is the real motivation behind this post. Let's all have a hearty chuckle at the flaccid attempts the aniti communists are making
The claims are conflicting depending on what sources you are utilizing. It does not look like there are very many primary sources for this time of his life. Most of the information I've seen gloss over his early career and have a lot of conflicting information, tending to focus mostly on his later career.
They are really not when you read original sources. More here.
I don't know if I would really consider the first an original source, especially considering they do not source the information from an interview or a specific biography.
The second one is better and I did see that one before, it just kinda glosses over the time period everyone is arguing about.
I think a lot of the confusion is probably coming down to translation, the first source is kinda structured oddly. And I think other English sources are scraping parts of it and stringing it together incorrectly.
Mainly the bit about him starting his working career is being interpreted as he started work in his field of experience at 15.
"He attended school from 1936, completing seventh grade in 1943. He then worked on the Angarstroy collective farm for one year (until the fall of 1944). In September 1944, he arrived in Cheremkhovo and enrolled in the electromechanical department of the mining technical school (ChGT).
In 1948, he graduated from the Cheryomkhovo Mining College with honors. All his diplomas were awarded with distinction:
He began his working career at the age of 15. After graduating from technical school, he was assigned to a mine and was appointed a mechanic in a mine section, then a section manager in May 1949, then deputy chief mechanic of the mine. After graduating from the Higher Engineering Courses, he became the chief engineer of the mines and, since 1955"