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If you’ve ever watched the British TV show, Little Britain, then you’ll be familiar with the concept of Nasha Russia, because it’s based on the same award winning formula.
But, instead of just importing the British series and baffling the Russian tv audience, TNT decided to ask the team behind hit sketch show Comedy Club Russia to create a Russian version of Little Britain – and they came up with ‘Comedy Club Nasha Russia’.
Nasha Russia Title Sequence
If you watch the show and speak Russian, you’ll notice that the title sequence is a Russified mirror of the Little Britain title sequence. If you don’t speak Russian, the translation is as follows:
“We live in the best country in the world, and the other countries are jealous of us. Because WE are the first who flew to outer space and we are the first who returned from space to the Earth. WE made the hydrogen bomb, the car “Zhiguli” and many other horrible things. WE have saved the virgin lands of Kazakhstan and thrown out Georgian water “Borjomi”. Because only WE turned back rivers and energy counters. We proudly call our country Rossiya, while envious foreigners call it “Russia”! But still, it is our Russia. It is NASHA RUSSIA!”
Nasha Russia Cast
The show has a whole new cast of regular and semi regular characters. Topping the bill are Ravshan and Jumshud, two guest workers from Central Asia who try (and regularly fail) to repair apartments. Other regular cast members include Ivan Dulin (no longer the only gay in the village, he’s the world’s first gay milling machine operator), the team of FC Gazmyas (who consider a 20-0 defeat to be a good result), and unsuccessful teenage lotharios Slavik and Dimon.
The cast for the show includes some Comedy Club regulars – Garik Martirosyan makes the occasional appearance, and other cast members include Mikhail Galustyan and Sergey Svetlakov.
The Nasha Russia show was first shown in 2006, and has been a great hit with the Russian people – it will soon enter its fifth season, and has completed more than 70 episodes, each of 30 minutes.
Legal issues
The show has run into a few legal issues from time to time. It has a formal licence from the BBC to copy the Little Britain format, so no problems there. But Nasha Russia was recently banned in Tajikistan for its less than flattering portrayal of migrant workers Ravshan and Jamshud. Opinions in Tajikistan seem to be split between those who think it’s just a funny show, and those who take offence – unfortunately, the people who take offence have got control of the courts at the moment.
Nasha Russia: The Movie
In early 2010, TNT released Nasha Russia the Movie (formally titled Nasha Russia: Balls of Fate). It’s reception was disappointing – it currently has an IMDB rating of just 4.6.
