I was lucky to catch comedian Mikhail Zadornov’s performance in Irkutsk during his Siberian tour. He proved himself to be just as funny as he is on his radio programs, and even more charismatic. Zadornov performed, alone, for nearly four hours (with one 30-minute intermission), and kept the audience in stitches until the end.
Zadornov is famous for poking fun at national stereotypes, including and especially targeting Americans (amerikosy). He began his set with some gentle jabs at the USA, relating historical facts “they don’t teach Americans,” such as that Catherine the Great helped colonists during the Revolutionary War. Much of this is, of course, artifice: set-up for his humor.
Zadornov lingered on U.S. – Russia comparisons, noting, “Unlike in America, in Russia we have both a rodina (homeland) and the gosudarstvo (government). And there is a big difference between them. For example–we love the rodina.” (laughter) “With the gosudarstvo we have problems.” (restrained laugher) He continued, “Americans don’t know what rodina is. This is why Western countries can’t defeat us. They don’t know that we have rodina in addition to gosudarstvo. They try to fight only the gosudarstvo, and they lose. Napoleon came, the Germans came. But they didn’t know about the rodina.”
