When the Russian version of “Sesame Street” (“Ulitsa Sezam”) first aired in Russia in October 1996, there was a premiere event at a Moscow theater. The star muppet got here out — Zeliboba, an 8ft hound-like animal tree spirit who could smell music and was even taller than Big Bird, his American counterpart. “The children went wild,” remembers executive producer Natasha Lance Rogoff.
Rogoff’s recent book, “Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia” (Rowman & Littlefield) recounts the 5-year journey of bringing “Sesame Street” to post-Soviet Russia, and adapting it to a Russian audience.
“There have been so many challenges. The worst of it was at first when our first investor’s automobile was blown up and I had been in that automobile 3 weeks before,” says Rogoff. “Over the subsequent 12 months, our broadcast partners were assassinated one after the opposite. I had turn out to be close to those people.”
Over time, Rogoff assembled a team of over 400 Moscow-based artists: filmmakers, writers, puppeteers, set designers, and musicians. “The people I worked with were captivated with their desire to enhance the lives of youngsters through the television show,” says Rogoff.
Still, there have been the culture clashes around show programming and content.
“We were all throwing around ideas about what the show should teach post-Soviet children about tolerance, and find out how to survive of their budding free market. I suggested a scene through which children run a lemonade stand,” she says. “This suggestion was met with horror. One man said, ‘It will be shameful to indicate children selling goods on the road!’ One other said, ‘Only criminals do this!’ One physicist said, ‘You might be tasking us with coming up with a curriculum for a show that may help our youngsters thrive in an open society. But we don’t know what an open society looks like. At the tip of the conference he said, ‘I believed this was hopeless, but I didn’t realize that by bringing together all these different points of view, we were in a position to give you a curriculum that suited our values and history.”
“Ulitsa Sezam” went off the air sooner or later within the mid-2000s, as Vladimir Putin increased control over independent television.
“I’m really happy with my team and every thing we achieved,” says Rogoff. “It’s unimaginable now to have Sesame Street in Russia, but I hope someday that we get the possibility to do this again.”
When the Russian version of “Sesame Street” (“Ulitsa Sezam”) first aired in Russia in October 1996, there was a premiere event at a Moscow theater. The star muppet got here out — Zeliboba, an 8ft hound-like animal tree spirit who could smell music and was even taller than Big Bird, his American counterpart. “The children went wild,” remembers executive producer Natasha Lance Rogoff.
Rogoff’s recent book, “Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia” (Rowman & Littlefield) recounts the 5-year journey of bringing “Sesame Street” to post-Soviet Russia, and adapting it to a Russian audience.
“There have been so many challenges. The worst of it was at first when our first investor’s automobile was blown up and I had been in that automobile 3 weeks before,” says Rogoff. “Over the subsequent 12 months, our broadcast partners were assassinated one after the opposite. I had turn out to be close to those people.”
Over time, Rogoff assembled a team of over 400 Moscow-based artists: filmmakers, writers, puppeteers, set designers, and musicians. “The people I worked with were captivated with their desire to enhance the lives of youngsters through the television show,” says Rogoff.
Still, there have been the culture clashes around show programming and content.
“We were all throwing around ideas about what the show should teach post-Soviet children about tolerance, and find out how to survive of their budding free market. I suggested a scene through which children run a lemonade stand,” she says. “This suggestion was met with horror. One man said, ‘It will be shameful to indicate children selling goods on the road!’ One other said, ‘Only criminals do this!’ One physicist said, ‘You might be tasking us with coming up with a curriculum for a show that may help our youngsters thrive in an open society. But we don’t know what an open society looks like. At the tip of the conference he said, ‘I believed this was hopeless, but I didn’t realize that by bringing together all these different points of view, we were in a position to give you a curriculum that suited our values and history.”
“Ulitsa Sezam” went off the air sooner or later within the mid-2000s, as Vladimir Putin increased control over independent television.
“I’m really happy with my team and every thing we achieved,” says Rogoff. “It’s unimaginable now to have Sesame Street in Russia, but I hope someday that we get the possibility to do this again.”
