In the afternoon on Saturday, April 26, 1986, around 16 hours after an explosion at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station in Ukraine, Senior Lieutenant Alexander Logachev leads a reconnaissance mission to measure the radiation levels around the grounds of the plant. As his armored vehicle draws nearer to the plant, the radiation readings rise dramatically: 100 roentgen per hour, 250 roentgen per hour, before maxing out at 2,080 roentgen per hour. Logachev yells to his driver, “We’ll all be corpses in fifteen minutes!” (4).

On February 20, 1970, construction begins on the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station, 14 miles outside the tiny peasant village of Chernobyl, Ukraine. The man responsible for its construction is 34-year-old Viktor Brukhanov, who will also serve as the plant’s Director. An electrical engineer, Brukhanov has little experience with nuclear power. “But at the Ministry of Energy in Moscow, knowledge and experience were regarded as less important qualifications for top management than loyalty and an ability to get things done” (9).

As Brukhanov struggles to meet impossible deadlines handed down by the Soviet Ministry of Energy, he must cope with the economic and infrastructural challenges that come to define the Soviet Union’s Era of Stagnation.