For 1,5 hours a dry-faced Russian man with a slating voice stands amid the empty stage, sight-reading episodes of real life mixed with philosophizing. For 1,5 hours the audience laughs, moans, shrieks, gasps with laughter. Somewhere far away a woman drops the dinnermaking to listen to him on the TV channel that her husband has hopped across to stay at.
He has travelled the globe with recitals for Russian people. And got visa refusals from the USA, Egypt, even Ukraine. Though it’s at Russian folks and authorities that he mocks most. Still, some fellow-countrymen despise him for “mass back-patting propaganda”.
The performance culminates. “Hush!” – the teller shouts. – “Wait, don’t laugh yet!” – he plies. – “Brace up!” Another line resounds, to go without ending. The audience explodes, having thought out the meaning by themselves. The gooroo can’t help letting out another light smile at people’s understanding.
He bids his, now traditional, farewell:
“I wish you to be wellthy. In the authentic Russian language, богатый stems from Бог [God], not from “money”. Money is dickens’ dung. Whoever has stored much of Lord within, then he is – lordly. Who is short of God inside, is бедный [needy, mean]: беда [need, misfortune] lurks for him.
“The other olden Russian word, богатырь is likewise made of Бог + тырить = one who “carries” God. It’s been long after, that “to carry” and “to steal” merged in the process in our country! Who carries on God’s might, is a богатырь, a power hero. And who just has pumped up big brawn – is a “pump”.
“So, be fortunate and powerful in the authentic Russian sense! Hurrah!”
He puts his papers aside, to walk-stand in balance on his hands. Like he did since my childhood. Oh, he’ll soon be 60! The constant companion of my fuzzy festive fuss with decorating the New Year firtree, to the background of TV concerts and romantic comedies. Mikhail Zadornov. Born under a ready pen-surname, as it stems from the Russian word “perky“.
His jokes become bywords. “Only OUR man can all-night-long avouch that his is the nittiest country in the world, in front of his foreign drinking buddy, and smash the latter in the face if he finally agrees!” What a piece of a hologram – identical to the entirety! The entirety of Zadornov’s writings and the wild world mirrored in them.
(For a time, Russia’s had the satirist’s full-name-sake Minister of Finance! Isn’t life one big joke?)
He broadcasts examples of people’s top idiocy and top wit. Utter vanity and boundless humility of lifestyle. “Nuke Energy Without Vector”, as he characterizes the Russian character.
I once read that a smile is the primeval reaction to a sudden change from a threat to an explanation. This layer of Russian humor is about the Relief of Rejection (“could that be me or my neighbor? haha, never!”) mixed with the Relaxation of Recognition, even not devoid of underlying Relic(t) Pride.
He’s also notorious for sketches how “Americans are duuuuumb!” Recently he’s dropped that tag, but it’s become his trademark for parodists.
* Hermitage, St.Petersburg. A group of tourists from the US putting down the Russian guide’s stories. One asks, “What museum we’ve been at?” – “Louvre”, - the guide ironizes. - “Here, folks! As I told you – Louvre! And you – “BM, BM…” What British Museum in Russia!?”
But back to that what “Only Our People can…”
* go to the bath in order to sign millions-worth contracts, set a fat [drinking] feast in order to take the bath (right in the bath house), and baptize a feeble German partner into a fellow Oilman with absolute alcohol smoothly wrapped in a driblet of liquid nitrogen (the cocktail branded “Gimlet”);
* answer a question like “Wanna tea?” with a set language form “Yea, no”, and when asked for correction of this mutually exclusive command, add “Yea no, probably not”;
* sink a spitdevil in a toilet bowl for the sole experimental interest if it gives a Plop;
* make a water meter spin reversely, to make the water supplier – debtor;
* at a hotel, install the shower head at thigh height, – for a full shower, one should guess to twist it upwards;
* buy, as if for collection, the pen from a Baltic road policeman, who insists on writing out the ticket instead of taking the bribe (as he should by Russian customs), – and bid it back at a prohibitive price;
* photo-pose with the statue of Venus, lending her the missing hands and head (what the problem that they are male?);
* add hotel swimming pools to the list of Entertainments, such as: (a) business-suit-diving – every night since first receiving “compliments” from Administration in apology for the diver’s alleged “having slipped down”… or (b) buying the kid a “season ticket” to jump “bombie-style” or to pee into the water at convenience, with the National Currency Unit “100 Bucks”;
* pierce the roof of one’s Mercedes with a screwdriver, as a bet with a German, and get a ventipane for the value of the stake won, some margin remaining;
* miss a drivedown from an American highway, shift into reverse gear so as not to take a long detour, and get away clear ’cause the police won’t believe the witnesses;
* let out 3 piglets, paint-marked “1″, “2″ and “4″, – some emigree kids’ prank at an American school, – then watch the town run off their feet in search of Number 3;
* buy Versace ties by whole rails (for all the bro’s), fist-test if a house is not “slimpsy”, and pay down its lump price with cash out of a shabby backsack, the amount rounded up to move the old hosts out at once, as expected;
* wear an evening gown for breakfast, high heels for the beach, and jewellery 24/7;
* on a cruise, drink, dance, play games heating the sky dusk to dawn, and in the very morning, when the vessel is to land by a holy place, stand off-the-peg to disembark: men in white shirts, women in headcloth, with devout iconic eyes!
…Not too funny? ;) Yes, “poetry is what’s lost in translation”…
…Next paragraph, children (Mr Zadornov would have cracked up laughing at this very situation!)
“Westerners can’t fathom Russian ways. Their minds are formatted. I don’t want Western formatting imposed on our youth. I don’t want Leo Tolstoy studied from comic strips. I don’t want to have the World War II won by Bruce Willis.”
“Why can’t we just borrow what “they” really put us to shame at – Normal Work, Arranging Life Conditions?”
“Why won’t we ever be able to live like Americans? That’s because we have different missions. If the Earth is a living body (fevers here, sneezes there), Russia is its brain and spirit; America’s its digesting trunk. Ever seen those walking intestines in their streets?! In danger, salvaged are most precious things – which ones? Just watch the movies. Our people shout, “Save our souls!” Americans: “Let’s get our asses out!”
“Why could no one conquer Russia? Because we’ve been winning our battles with the call “Hoo-Rah!” Ra – the Sun, God. Ra-seya – sunshine sown. Ar – land. “Ar-yans”, our supposed ancestors – ploughers. “У-Pа” – with God’s protection. У-Бог-ий – [seedy] – God’s Fool, poor and blessed.”
“The clever is not one who knows many things. That’s a scholar. Clever is comprehending what one knows. It takes a time of thinking. And how do we call people lost in thought and omission? Right on! “Ду-Ра-к”! In the Russian fairy tales, who beats his smart common-sense brothers, gets the Tzar’s daughter and half the kingdom? The Fool!”
“I suspect Columbus was of Russian stock! Only a Russian man could: set off to look for India in the opposite direction; FIND it there, – to turn out a different continent; let the fame slip to quite another man; die unrewarded, and be happy!”
…Till a new lesson in Russian humor! )
Kind regards,
© Comrade Natalia
(…please link to this page if using some information from it! ;)
February 1, 2007 at 8:07 am
I have done a number of these jokes, and, you are right, Americans or Canadians don’t have the same sense of humor. I really enjoyed this article. Spasibo, Comrade Natalia
January 2, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Wow, I’m speechless. Your article is too good. I thought NOBODY could ever even attempt to translate Zadornov, but that’s what you’ve actually done!! Nothing lost in translation here, on the contrary. Comrade Natalia, you’re brilliant. Not that I’m a big fan of his, I laugh my butt off like everybody else WHILE he speaks but I have to admit he can be terribly prejudiced at times.
But your article is too good to be true. Thanks a lot!
January 4, 2009 at 10:00 am
Thank you! It is the more pleasant to receive such a comment, as Zadornov himself underestimates the expressive capacity of English as opposed to the Russian vocabulary. :)