Chernobyl is also a monument to the extinction of Soviet civilisation. As Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, reflected years later, the meltdown, “even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.” It was a catalyst for glasnost, the opening-up of the Soviet media, which exposed the flaws of the Soviet system and set off the chain reaction that led to its ultimate destruction.