QUIZ: Can you get Russian humor?

[BitnikGr]

Hello, everyone!
Maybe some of you know, but sure most of you don't know, that I have a channel on YT dedicated to translated Russian documentaries. Mostly military stuff...

It's already a New Year Eve here in Greece... 02:32 to be exact.
I wanted to close the year with a positive note, so I uploaded a short stand-up comedy monologue of one of the best Russian satirical writers Mikhail Zadornov. In 17 minutes he said about 45 jokes. About 30 of them are related to internal businesses of Russia, as politics, sports, demography, law enforcement forces, army reforms and many other... And about 15 jokes are about other countries or relations of Russia with those countries, starting from dwarf-countries like Tuvalu and Andorra and ending with super-powers as the USA and China.

So, if you are interested, you can see if you can get all the subjects he covers, or if you don't have idea about internal life of citizens of Russian Federation and thus his jokes are totally non comprehended for you.

If you want and if you care, you can write in comments which jokes you didn't understand and I am sure, members of this forum, who know Russian, will happily respond to you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Predictions for 2013 and comments on the milestone events in Russia in previous year! Mikhail Zadornov. Enjoy!

[FlintHillBilly]

The only Russian humor I understand is that Russian Humor Understands You - otherwise I'm lost.

Anyways happy new years.

[Einhander]

Ah, Zadornov, the one who feeds off of nationalists and generally narrowminded people.

[Maximmmm]

Ah, Zadornov, the one who feeds off of nationalists and generally narrowminded people.

I liked his old stuff. That used to be pretty funny.

[calimero2]

I like Maxim Galkin. Is he still performing?

[BitnikGr]

Ah, Zadornov, the one who feeds off of nationalists and generally narrowminded people.

That's not true. Narrominded people wouldn't ever understand him. His (and Zhvanetskiy) humor is highly intellectual. A person must be quite well educated in many spheres in order to understand what they say.

If nationalists get inspired from his jokes, is that because they are indeed narrowminded and can't separate the humor from the science.

[Az_esm]

That's not true. Narrominded people wouldn't ever understand him. His (and Zhvanetskiy) humor is highly intellectual. A person must be quite well educated in many spheres in order to understand what they say.

If nationalists get inspired from his jokes, is that because they are indeed narrowminded and can't separate the humor from the science.

Science like raping the Russian language?) At first it was joke - but then he pretend all those AR-RA crap to be for realz.
And no - his and Zhvanetskiy humor is not so intellectual.
However there is some real fun stuff you could find from Zadornov, but he did his best for like ten years ago.

[Nyusu]

This is my favorite video of him.

[BitnikGr]

Science like raping the Russian language?) At first it was joke - but then he pretend all those AR-RA crap to be for realz.
And no - his and Zhvanetskiy humor is not so intellectual.
However there is some real fun stuff you could find from Zadornov, but he did his best for like ten years ago.

That AR-RA craps is so real just like the Greek father of the bride in "My big fat Greek wedding" who was trying to prove that everything comes from the Greek language. And it's a comedy.
From the other hand, as saying goes "there is only a part of joke in every joke. Everything else is true." The fact that many basic words are the same in so many different languages today just speaks for itself that those languages came out from the proto-language long before any writing existed anywhere.

I can't say anything for the "AR-RA crap", but it happens that I speak modern Greek, Russian and a dialect of Ancient Greek language and through years I've located some words in indigenous Russian (not adopted foreign words), which are same with some very old and actually dying dialects of the Greek language. It's just no way that Russians adopted them from Greek. It's more probable that such words were also parts of Greek proto-language since times when writing still didn't exist, and they came their by spread of Indo-European family from places where Russian steppes are located today.


And if Zhvanetskiy's humor is not intellectual, then who's is? Petrosyan?

[Az_esm]

That AR-RA craps is so real just like the Greek father of the bride in "My big fat Greek wedding" who was trying to prove that everything comes from the Greek language. And it's a comedy.

Nope. There were even debates on tv: Zadornov vs philologists. I guess you could find some on youtube from Gordon's tv-show.
And not a long time ago he create a historical movie about Riurik. Blashing "those stupid corrupted archeologists and historicals", pretending to be more cleverer than ppl who are all their life in this theme.
With so amount of mistakes-that even normal antinormannists didn't approve this work.

From the other hand, as saying goes "there is only a part of joke in every joke. Everything else is true." The fact that many basic words are the same in so many different languages today just speaks for itself that those languages came out from the proto-language long before any writing existed anywhere.

I can't say anything for the "AR-RA crap", but it happens that I speak modern Greek, Russian and a dialect of Ancient Greek language and through years I've located some words in indigenous Russian (not adopted foreign words), which are same with some very old and actually dying dialects of the Greek language. It's just no way that Russians adopted them from Greek. It's more probable that such words were also parts of Greek proto-language since times when writing still didn't exist, and they came their by spread of Indo-European family from places where Russian steppes are located today.

I know. But there are slightly different way you could give such info. In case of Zadornov it's making more harm(at first there were no any, while he was not pretending to be serious).
It's just such situation we have in historical interests of society - everyone are trying to make some money on public interest in history. You could see a lot of "arian-slavic-vedism" and etc and etc in book stores.

And if Zhvanetskiy's humor is not intellectual, then who's is? Petrosyan?

There is in fact almost no any. Workers-peasant country - workers-peasant humor. In case of Shvanetskiy it's just some a bit exotic Odessith's stuff added.

[Xaito]

Ah, Zadornov, the one who feeds off of nationalists and generally narrowminded people.

huh? He's doing satire mostly. In no way for nationalists or narrow minded people at that.