I tend to agree with your overall point, but the comparison is not a particularly good one; you are comparing knowledge of a black site decommissioned in the 1960s to one of the most famous events in human history.

I think "most famous events in human history" is probably overstating it, and even then it wouldn't be well known anyways.

Outside of the HN bubble, the average 18 year old person (even in america, as opposed to russians) would not be very informed about Chernobyl. I'd say Chernobyl is a lot less famous than WWII or 9/11 or events of that sort.

And even for big historical events... if you go to a Taylor Swift concert and asked the people there about it, 50% would probably have no clue about most historical events. For example, my 24 year old younger sister doesn't know what a floppy disk is, or what the Berlin wall is. I'd bet you can take any regiment of fresh 18 year old US Marines and tell them they're doing military exercises in Pripyat and they'll mostly ask if there's going to be air conditioning or if there are hot girls around.

Around the time the Shuttle program was ending, I made a casual reference to Soyuz to a Russian national. "Huh? «Union?»" No man. Soyuz, the space rocket. Literally the only way to get to the ISS right now. Your country's manned space program. That Soyuz? "If you say so."

Amazing they even kept it going! We've over here twisting ourselves in knots in embarrassment that we let our only spaceflight system sunset and are reduced to begging rides from Putin, but his citizens don't even notice.

Would they know who Yuri Gagarin was? I would assume they would teach that a Russian was the first person in space while at the same time ignoring embarrassing things like Chernobyl in the classes. Just like I'd assume that they teach defeating Hitler, but ignoring the things Stalin did.

Yes, they definitely know who Gagarin was, but that’s because that knowledge is a useful tool to further entrench a deep sense of chauvinism in russia.

I think what you say is overall plausible, however in western Europe many more people would know what happened in Chernobyl. To be frank I am not sure that would be the case in Russia tho, and even more so in the cohorts of young soldiers that camped close by.

> a black site decommissioned in the 1960s

That's a bit dismissive for possibly the most radioactively contaminated area in the western hemisphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site

https://thatoregonlife.com/2021/10/hanford-washington-nuclea...

A lot of the soldiers are also just barely in their 20's. Many come from very impoverished areas of Russia where access to independent sources of information is very limited (no independent local media, western media hard to access without decent access to the internet) and education has long been eviscerated to serve the needs of the state. Their parents are also not likely to be good sources of information as they are similarly little-informed.

They might literally have never heard of Chernobyl even as a place until they were deployed there.

Much could be said about things that Russia is bad at, but disinformation, propaganda and revisionism are not those things. They're really good at those. And they've been good at those things for a really long time -- multiple generations.

The US National Park Service hosts free tours to the B Reactor at Hanford! https://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/

You could(/can?) also travel the exclusion zone as a tourist. Including to one of the excavator claws where the adventurous couch warriors are able to test their meter and make selfies.

The even dumber are getting smuggled in for illegal tours. Meaning you get somebody who knows the area and run past the patrols and sleep in the ruins. Quite stupid but there is youtube. They are also coming after the people who stole all the scrap metal.

Chernobyl is also not the only place, people also visit abandoned cold war bunkers which can look quite amazing. But are also often heavily contaminated and off limits to the public.

Some examples are at @ExploringtheUnbeatenPath (NATO command bunker) and @shiey (Chernobyl) on youtube. Legal options are already quite nice and dont give you too much cancer. In Russia you will also go to Prison for a very long time when caught climbing a derelict antenna, let alone visiting bunkers. If i recall they got very annoyed when Russian teens climbed all the Stalin towers.

> How many Americans, younger or not, would raise an eyebrow if invited to go camping around Hanford?

You're grossly misrepresenting the facts. The Russians who were digging trenches in Chernobyl were a part of a full blown invasion force directly organized by Russia's regime from the very top. Russia's plan to invade Ukraine and dig in and around Chernobyl was specified from the very top of the chain of command, and enforced throughout the whole chain of command way down into individual orders sent to the Russian grunts in the ground.

These were no average randos who just felt compelled to dig a hole in a camp site.

It's entirely absurd to pretend that Russia's top echelons were oblivious to Chernobyl, and it's outright stupid to misrepresent a full blown invasion force executing battle plans as random people camping somewhere who just felt like digging a hole.