Sievert became the standard unit before the disaster, but after the powerplant was built. I’d doubt they would replace functional equipment just because some international unit changed. I heard rem is still used to this day, it’s not exactly law or something to use the standardized units.
I had assumed the unit of measurement would be REM as well, as it’s still the most used by the majority of nuke workers on a daily basis. However, I’d bet the detectors in the control room was calibrated to measure in milirem; that meter would be measuring in dose/ hour, and 3.5 mrem/ hour, while a hell of a lot higher then most regularly accessible parts of an operating nuclear pretty plant, it won’t do any real damage. Now, take that up to the 15,000 scale, and 15 REM/ hour means in that hour, you just got triple the annual dose allowed by international convention as allowed by the IAEA.
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Very true, but if I remember correctly what I once read, the control room operators didn’t even think to check the detector for quite a while- they were obviously pretty busy, after all. 
Also, while a Geiger-Müeller detector is good for detecting rises above background in ionizing radiation, the scale on which they can measure is usually pretty limited, any I don’t know if Russian detectors had the local ability to power compensate the gain setting; that’s part of why “accident dosimeters” have to be separate devices. And yes, those are exactly what they sound like.
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By pure chance and coincidence, was on one of the Internet music rooms tonight playing some songs, got a request for Pink Floyd and different from them, so plucked out Marooned.
This is Gilmour at his best of course, but the Video is obviously Chernobyl themed too, had totally forgotten about that when I chose it.
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