best examples of Russian comedy

[Peter Morley]

For Soviet and post-Soviet television comedy, try starting with KVN. The teams of the early 2000s were particularly good, I thought. Most of the recent years are available on DVD. Ignore the stuff that passes for "comedy" in current estrada, though, as it's generally fairly dire.

Soviet film has lots of comedy/satire to choose from - see, for example, "Kavkazskaya plennitsa", or Andrei Mironov films like "Brilliantovaya ruka", one of the versions of "12 stul'ev", the adaptation of Jerome K. Jerome's "3 Men in a Boat", etc. If watching without subtitles, beginners may find "12 stul'ev" difficult linguistically, but the others should be OK - as long as certain
in-jokes and stereotypes are explained. Your friend could even introduce aseasonal element by showing "Ironiya sud'by" around Christmas time.

Best,

Peter Morley


Wednesday, October 12, 2005, 6:50:54 AM, you wrote:

> Let us not forget Ven. Erofeev's _Moskva-Petushki_, translated as _Moscow to
> the End of the Line_. Dark, extremely dark, but also hilarious.

> Cheers,
> David Powelstock

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