I swear I was only looking for Valoris reference pics...
I was doing a google image search for a better quality version of a Valery pic, and not only did I find it in high res, I found a BUNCH of pics I had never seen before. *___*
There's one more publicity shot from their first Kremlin scene but I've never seen this one before. Look at Boris' deadly glare, tilting his head to the side as if he's about to chew off Valery's face. And those massive fingers. <3
Boris Shcherbina towering over incompetent fools.
Is Valery tied up? Or maybe Boris sees him that way...
First night together. 💗 As Pikalov put it, "There's a hotel... 😉".
That Boris profile. ❤💗
Seeing them from the back during the rooftop scene.
Suspenders porn. Is Valery sneaking glances at Boris while revealing just a few tantalizing inches of his suspender? "I swear it was completely by chance."
...And that explains what Boris' massive hands are doing there. 👇
Boris has no choice but to spring to his feet and get a closer look at those naughty suspenders.
Sad Boris is sad. TT__TT
...but at least now he has someone to look up to.
Look at Boris' compassionate look as he gazes at his Valery who is burdened with a horrible dilemma. 😭
A clearer, more detailed photo than the other Valery/Ulana publicity shot we have and guess what, the deputy director of the Kurchatov institute loves him some Шекспир. 😁 Makes me wonder which play of The Bard is his favourite one.
The day of reckoning...
But before their world falls apart, before they lose each other forever, they have one last moment, they have The Bench.
They will always have The Bench.
💔
Btw why is that guard smiling wtf. Does he ship them too??
P.S.: It does make you wonder though just how MANY other Chernobyl publicity shots are out there and we haven't found them yet.
Victor Bryukhanov, the former director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
Born in Soviet Uzbekistan to Russian parents, Bryukhanov had studied electrical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Tashkent.
He was chosen by the USSR’s Minister of Energy to construct the Ukrainian SSR’s first nuclear power station in late 1969. Chosen more for his loyalty to the Communist Party and ability to (on paper) get things done, the Director was nevertheless a dedicated and competent engineer.
He quite literally raised the Chernobyl plant from nothing, staring in early 1970. The area where the plant came to be was initially dense forest in Northern Ukraine, nowhere near any industrial base that could be used to construct the monstrous structures of the plant. He was eventually able to construct not only the first two reactors of the plant, but also concrete plants, roads, bridges, power lines, and an entire city to house 50,000 people, initially almost entirely by himself.
It was not easy. Construction materials provided by the planned economy of the Soviet Union were shoddy, workmen sloppy, and overall equipment and personnel were both lacking. The pressure of both the Ministry of Energy and the Communist Party to bring the plant online was unrelenting. It was so intense that he even attempted to resign his post in 1972, despite the prestige that would come with success. His resignation was quite literally torn up and thrown away, and he reluctantly went back to work.
In 1977, the plant finally came online. Over the next few years, Bryukhanov would make it the poster child of the Soviet nuclear industry. The first two units were joined by two additional ones, completed in 1984. The Director enjoyed immense prestige and personal accolades from both the USSR and the Communist Party. Two more reactors were planned, which would have made Chernobyl the largest nuclear power plant in Europe in terms of both electrical generation capacity and number of reactors.
Unfortunately for Bryukhanov, the good times were not to last. The explosion on April 26th, 1986 destroyed not only the fourth reactor but also the prestige of the power plant and its Director. The Director was one of the five men tried by the USSR for causing the accident, and he was sentenced to ten years of hard labor in a prison camp in the Donetsk region. He was not even awake when the accident occurred.
Released early on good behavior in 1991, the Director got a job at the Ukrainian government agency responsible for the ongoing liquidation efforts in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. He worked there for twenty years, until poor health forced him to retire. He died on the 12th of October, 2021, in Kyiv.
I’m watching hbo chernobyl and experiencing truly so much stress anyways con o’neill just rocked up and i’m laughing at the guy i made up in my head imagining someone being like aw are you sad abt the death in ofmd well here is another hbo period piece where he plays a real person <3
so I'm home for Rosh Hashanah and I text the link to the trailer to my parents and me and my dad watch it together on his phone on the couch and afterwards my dad was like "I've seen him in something since then" ("then" = when they watched ofmd) and I was like "who" and he said "the right hand man" so I go to con o'neill's imdb and start listing shows and eventually get to Chernobyl which they recognize and I show my dad his character's name and picture and my dad goes "oh! he was the asshole!" and I burst out laughing ajvehktbjrlysknt;urly'ietuoryip;out
Interesting passing reference to Con in this fab Vulture piece (which you should totally read) on ep3 of The Last of Us (which you absolutely should watch):
The production team originally approached Con O’Neill, who played engineer Viktor Bryukhanov in Mazin’s previous series, Chernobyl, for the role. “I was pretty invested in the notion that if we’re gonna be telling the story of two middle-aged gay men, then it would probably be good to have two middle-aged gay actors doing it,” says Mazin, who notes many creatives involved in the adaptation were middle-aged, married gay men. “I was maybe slightly more insistent about that than a lot of the people around me.”
Theres this unfinished painting of a HBO's Chernobyl scene I have had in my room for months and honestly dont have any intention of working on it anymore at all but it sits in a corner of my room and everytime I look at it I feel some strange sense of companionship. No matter how life hard is, I know Viktor Bryukhanov interpreted by Con O'Neill has my back. The dread is mutual.