Russian Television

As we are now closing on the dreadful Russian Winter, we are preparing ourselves to a months-long domestic torture, also known as the Russian Television.

For those who have installed satellites and access to non-russian programming has not only eased their homesickness but also given a suicidal blow to their progress in Russian language. As a person ,who never liked the cheesy Turkish television (that rather aired which celebrities are having sexual relationships with who, 24 hours a day) and wanted to improve the command of the mighty Russian language, I have kindly refused my landlord’s over-generous offer for a pre-installed satellite receiver that included more documentary channels that I could ever dream of. All I wanted was to get used to the local language but it wasn't long before I realized that I had made a big mistake.

Let me tell you what Russian channels I have on my TV. First of all, there is the state channel, Rossiya, which acts like a mirrorshow of Mr.Putin himself and Channel 1, which is a bit more social programming but has a grey KGB feel. Of course, there are some juicy capitalist channels like TNT, STS, TV3...but all you can find on prime time are serials with russian gansters kicking butt and living larger than life or badly (very very badly) dubbed american films. Once I was amazed that the (now a B-movie classic) series of American Ninja was aired on three days in a row and presented as a sensation on TV screen. I would really be shocked if I was told 15 years ago that I would watch it in Russian dubbing. We would rent it from VCR stores and watch it for 3 times while trying to impersonate badass black ninjas.

So I have leaned to the pirate DVDs and got an unreasonable collection ranging from Soviet war movies to a lean Kubrick collection…Maybe I should have accepted the offer for a satellite tv.

One of the newest sensations on TV looks so familiar and so agonizingly badly produced. I present you the Bulkin Family of Счастливы вместе (Happy Together), the most viewed serial on TNT channel.

The one and only...

Bulkin Family and the neighbors, Stepanovs

As you may have guessed from the over-familiar couch pose, Happy Together is an adaptation of the classic series Married, with Children (MWC). It is about the shoe salesman Gennadiy Bulkin (Al Bundy), his tartish and uneducated housewife Daria/Dasha (Peggy), daughter Svetlana (Kelly) and son Roman (Bud). They live in a far away Siberian city of Ekaterinburg and live in an (unbelievably) two-story house that is actually a replica of the american set. The only thing genuinely Russian in the series is Gena’s Lada Djiguli.

Gennadiy Bulkin trying to imitate the Bundy looks


Dasha Bulkina...the perfect rolemodel of the Russian housewife


Sveta and Roma...the bright future of Russia


Another happy Russian family...Ura for capitalism!