I'm struggling to understand the consensus that this show is so authentic and credible when these major Russian figures are depicted by British and Swedish actors, speaking English, but inexplicably reading Russian documents. That really undermines the integrity of it as a historical narrative. The first episode is pretty slow, I thought, based a lot around repetitive interactions between the bosses denying what the workers on the ground are saying. From what I have seen the survivors aren't as unanimously celebratory of this series, probably because they have a much more informed perspective... it might cut through the Hollywood melodrama, but small-nation and low budget dramas have been doing that for decades.