TRASHFUTURE - 'Disinformatskaya'

Episode Date: June 29, 2018

In a special edition of Trashfuture recorded in early May, Riley (@raaleh) and Milo (@Milo_Edwards) hung out in Moscow with Russian comedian Yevgeniy Chebatkov and discussed the Russian comedy scene, why you can’t make jokes about Putin on TV, Tsarist-nostalgia restaurants, and Milo’s controversial opinion that maybe Stalinism was a bit much. Hussein (@HKesvani) was unable to make the trip to Russia as he ‘works’ a ‘job.’ You can commodify your dissent with a t-shirt from http://www.lilcomrade.com/, and particularly you should buy this tote bag because it’s basically our show’s ethos: http://www.lilcomrade.com/product/tech-won-t-save-us-tote-bag Nate (@inthesedeserts) produced this from Brooklyn, where the trains don't work but where artisanal roasters make the highest-quality coffee (soup).  

Milo and I have returned to Russia, having used Hussein Kesvani, our useful idiot, because we were actually Russian bots the whole time while we were under the pay of the Kremlin. Nice job, guys. Thank you. Slowly, slowly, the trash future name plaque rotates to reveal the letters KGB. It's like we were fucking with you guys all along. It's a Soviet Union. I thought you guys broke up. Yes, that is what we wanted you to think. It's been a really long term Jake Paul style YouTube prank. Well, we're like, hey, the British left pranked. We were Putin all along. Well, it's like we we were hired, of course, by Putin to undermine his most dangerous foes in

the West, which is like 40 year old Lib Dem voters with 10 hashtags in their name and their fearless leader, A.C. Grayling. Hell, yeah. Have you ever heard of the Liberal Democrats? Yeah, I heard about them, but I never saw them in Russia because I live in Russia. I mean, so we shall introduce our guest. It's a big good moment to also explain the show to our guest because we're we're currently making a lot of references, which to be honest, most people who even listen to this show won't get a brief explanation of the show will not. Well, I mean, this is this one for the heads, the real Russia heads and the real us heads.

The original Russia boys. Yeah, exactly. No, I hello. I Riley am in Russia now, so we have decided to record Trash Future, the podcast for the future. If we do not implement fully automated luxury gay space communism is and will be trash. I got to write that time. I very rarely do. It's kind of a tongue twister. Yeah. And I am in Russia, like I said before, with our co-host this time, not on the ball, known in the ball, ball free zone, ball free. Yeah, it's me, Milo Edwards. You can find me on Twitter at Milo underscore Edwards. I've been in Russia a long time, but now I've brought Riley here to my bosom to suckle also the tea of the KGB as we are nurtured by our true our true

financiers, the Russian government. Yeah. Well, and I am Evgeniy Chebotkov, and I'm truly Russian, and I'm here with you from KGB straight. So everything's going to be under control. It's fine. Also, Zhenya, what do you what do you what do you occupy your time with here in Russia? Oh, well, I'm a stand up comedian, and I am radio host on the comedy radio. So just always in the mic. That's my job. The funnest radio station of all. What was it? It's a it's making it making a lot of great jokes about Soviet Union, surprisingly unfair. Oh, yes. Oh, excellent. Um, yeah. So we don't we decided to just not really have much of an episode planned today. Instead, just fight through the terrifying hangover

that we have we received, of course, as a reward for successfully undermining or depending on who you ask upholding British democracy. Yeah, we're actually paid in vodka. That's how that's how it works. Those who are not familiar with Russia, you just you just get at the currency is vodka. That's how you get paid. Everyone has terrible hangover all the time. Yeah, I was I was locked out of my Twitter account when we got when we got here, because they finally correctly figured out that I am a planted Russian agent designed to do political subversion. Yeah, right. Riley's got the shakes. He couldn't tweet for 24 hours. It's terrible. I hated it. Very serious. Well, what of course, what this shows is that the hypocritical and bigoted anti Russian bought

attitude of the so called liberal media in the United Kingdom is actually just pushing moderates to become Russian bots. Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's the Brendan O'Neill take. Riley is now not only pro Russia, but also a bot. Yeah. And how do you feel being Russian bot? Has your life changed? Well, if a lot of the machinery I've seen here is anything to go by, I am I am the point of a great deal of pride, but I do not work very well. Ah, Jane, have you been to the Museum of Soviet arcade games? Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. So we took Riley there today. And I think I think it was safe to say Riley was disappointed. No, are you kidding? I was absolutely not disappointed. If I'd

sat down and like, I was just like, yeah, it's like a Sega Mega Drive or whatever from 1991. I'd be like, yeah, fine, whatever. But instead, there's like a cutting edge game from like 1990. And it is it appears to be based on magnets where you use a little stick to move a plastic tank around a field and you have to run over certain things. And again, I have to highlight it's based on moving magnets around. I love that. I really, really, really like that. And I want that. I want that to continue that. And also the numerous, numerous cabinet based games that involve like moving that involves sort of pulling some levers that appear completely unconnected to

what's going on on the screen. And then like a spaceship moves around and does appear to crash into a bridge. But because it's a mirror based game, it's just like again, mechanically projecting itself into your field of view. Then just nothing happens. You get a certain number of points and no tickets. It's really a perfect allegory for I get for late stage, Soviet communism. This is a Russian, my friend. There are levers, but you pull them. Nothing happens. Your life remains exactly the same. Just relax. Everything's gonna be okay. The illusion of control. I mean, again, I still think we can safely say that it's better than what came after, which is like someone just comes and takes the machine away and then sells it.

And then you're left with nothing, not even the machine. Oh, hell yeah. Modern, modern Russia. I thought we should, I thought you should do some, we should do some modern, some modern Russian news. Do you have any, do you have any news you can surprise us with? If not, I can find something. Well, I actually, today we discuss on radio one topic about the Russian Great Britain. And the, the topic was that the Russian government is put a meme of a joke from the movie three billboards on three billboards outside every Missouri. Yeah. With a message to Theresa May. Yeah. And they put it on the site of Russian government in, in English. And they put there

like three months after the Salisbury and still no, no, no. And still you can't prove that Russia stands behind that. Okay. So what happened, May? What's the problem? Yeah. And after that, on the, on the side of the Russian government, they, they wrote that now the relations between Russia and Britain is the worst ever, like never been worse. I mean, in the 19th century, when Russia and Britain were actively competing for like control of the Khanate of Kiva, I think it was probably worse. Yeah. No one remembers that shit. No, I mean, I don't know. There's, there's, there's sort of like certain. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't think it's surely it's better now than it was in the middle of the charge

of the light brigade in Crimea. Probably. Yeah, maybe, but who knows? Maybe. Yeah, we're in the war, but you're okay. Yeah. It's like a friendly. Yeah. It's a war of, it's a war of words, just in this case, the words are several feet high and put on billboards. Do you ever have a war like that? Just a friendly war, like a warm up war, like already like like pre the sort of war world cup, like a big world where you just have a little cheeky war, like a little border skirmish, you know, with like, perhaps, perhaps a sort of a country without such a strong military, just to kind of get your eye back in, you know, like, just had a little, little to and fro with the Ethiopians. Nothing, nothing major, just, we just, we're just warming up for something more serious

with the Yemen. Actually, though, that's like, that's quite funny that like the Russian government is making memes. Yeah. That's a new language of Russian rocks. Yeah, genuine, that genuinely does rule that, you know, that there is, it's, it's very much, it is a bit like a snobs and slobs fraternity movie situation where there is someone like, like sort of like, well, I guess I was about to say, yeah, but the British foreign secretary all prim and proper and all this, but no, it's, he's not, he's, he's also a buffoonish claw. It's both a slob and a slob. Yeah, it's, it really isn't, it really is incredible. I sort of like, like a version of the queen that can't use a knife and fork. It's that kind of a, but the weird thing about the memes thing though, right, is that

it's like, okay, now, obviously we all know that the Russian government is completely innocent, and they would never do anything like this. But let's imagine a scenario in which, yeah, in which like, you know, this completely innocent Russian government, right, what they want to do is they want to convince everyone that they definitely did not do this thing. And they're sat in a meeting and they were like, okay, there are two options either. We really earnestly say, this wasn't us, we would never do something like this and offer up some kind of evidence to suggest that we didn't do it. Or alternatively, we rampantly take the piss of everyone suggesting that we did do it by being like, oh, looks like you don't have much evidence in a way that will

definitely make us look extremely innocent. But the problem is, is like, it's, that's the best thing. It's right. It's like, you know, there are these like alt-right discord channels where like, people will try to work on, will try to like, but will frantically collaborate to create memes in order to respond to breaking news in a way that will sort of try to trigger the libs. Even I don't know what that is. Don't worry. Okay. How do you not know anything? I do. I live here. What do you expect from me? Well, it's that these guys are basically 4chan. It's what if 4chan ran a country? Ah, okay. That sounds worrying. But it's true. Have you ever been to 4chan Topia? The streets are paved with child porn. It's great. It's their whole foreign policy is now just posting in someone's

replies, you mad, bro. Which is, I mean, that's excellent. That is kind of what Putin does, isn't it? He's just like, he does something and he's like, you mad, bro? How are you mad? I just want to know. Are you mad online, perhaps? No, because that's the thing. What could, I mean, what could Britain legitimately do legitimately or otherwise? What could they do? Nothing. Yeah, exactly. They're not exactly going to like fly a military mission into Russia anytime soon, even if they're like, yeah, we did it. Got that'll be wild. Yeah, like especially while I'm still living here, the ultimate end to this podcast is Britain decides to invade Russia while I'm still living here and I end up in an internment camp for like suspicious foreigners.

You end up in a Google unpaid internment camp. Yeah. Like the British foreign office is like, well, we've done research on invasions into Russia in the last 15 years and it seems to be fine. Not a single one has gone wrong. Yeah. There is like, I have met people here who are genuinely paranoid that like someone is going to invade Russia. Yeah. And it's like, it's not, I mean, it's not been tried in a while for good reasons. It's never gone well. There's no one, I doubt anyone is sitting there going like, oh, Russia, like, because I heard someone say like, oh, yeah, people want to invade Russia for the oil. And it's like, there's so many places with like more oil that are way easier to invade. Like, is it like no one's no one's looking at like,

well, we could invade Saudi Arabia. No, that's invade Russia. They're pussies. But that's how the system in Russia works. I mean, that's the whole government based on that because every government channel is keep saying that Russia is any moment can be attacked by like by NATO, by United States, by Britain, but by Japan, because we're still in war with Japan, by the way, from the war to the Sakhalin Islands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they always keep saying like, we need a strong president to be protected. So you know who's the strongest guy in Russia, right? Yeah, exactly. Dolph Lundgren. Yeah, that's why he's our president.

That would be dope. If I was Russian, I would vote for Dolph Lundgren to be president. It doesn't even matter that he's Swedish. No. I mean, I mean, Gerard Depardieu is Russian now. They can thank Dolph Lundgren or Russian. Stephen Segal, I think is Russian as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, except, I mean, what president Stephen Segal of Russia? You kidding? Yeah, my, oh God, my fellow, you know, immigrants to the great country of Russia, Stephen Segal and Gerard Depardieu. Yeah, famously, famously stand up. Well, I was gonna say they're famously stand up guys, but Stephen Segal is a sit down guy. Yeah, I've not seen any of his stand up. I haven't. I don't think anyone's seen him stand up in years.

You know, when you're trying to do karate and you try and lift up your leg, but it won't lift. You know that he's able to, he has permanently channeled all of his leg strength into his arms. You can see that because, you know, he touches someone on the wrist and they jump across the room. It's insane. Jenny, have you ever seen any excellence, Stephen Segal films? Well, I saw, I think all he's the main movies. Yeah, no, no, no, no. We're not talking about the main ones. We're talking about the 2010 to 2018. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And there are about 14 movies in that while really a lot of films. Wow. Most of them, I've noticed he reuses costumes between them and they're always set in whatever Eastern European country will let him film for

like $20. And in every single instance, he wears like an A frame house size leather coat. So you can't see the fact that he is genuinely obese, but he's still an action hero who talks like in who talks like he did in Glimmer Man. We still got this smoky voice and the shooting goggles. It is a wonder to behold all of his castmates not just ret from being around him, because I can only imagine that his roles now smell like good cheese. We've got it. We've got to save. Let me check my notes to do Kosovo from the Kosovan special forces. But anyway, he's Russian. So be careful. You're in Russian though. He's Russian. He actually became scarier by becoming Russian. Absolutely. No one fucks

with him now. Like there are like there are laws against insulting the king of Russia. Stephen Seagal, the boy king of Russia. I don't know why he's not Kazakh by the way, because Kazakhs is like, you know, Kazakhs. It's like that. I've seen Borat. All right. No, no, Kazakh is like the Kazakhstan, but Kazakhs is, I mean, Cossacks. Sorry, sorry, Cossacks. I mean, yeah, I still don't know why Stephen Seagal is not Cossack because even Donald Trump is Cossack. I mean, really? Yeah, they gave him this when he was just become president in Russia. That was a big, big holiday. And did you see him? Did you see him wash his hands before getting the award? And Cossacks in Russia, they decided to just like invite him in the group. So they sent him the

invitation to be like part of their Kazakh army in rocks. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, need as many details on this. And few months ago, they said he's not Kazakh anymore because the politics of United States is not reliable for Kazakhs. Because at the time, how could anyone have known that Donald Trump wasn't a great guy? You know, yeah, no, there was nothing to suggest that. They were like, clearly this dude is great. And then suddenly a few months in people are like, Oh my God, this guy's a dumb ass. Nobody knew. I mean, I just love the I just love that this proves that the problem of like fake people who will lie to you will say one thing to your face and one thing behind your back and who aren't true friends also extends to nomadic pastoralists.

Yeah. Do you think do you think the Cossacks after they after they like got rid of Donald Trump, they like went to Steven Seagal like we are sorry, we chose the Trump. Will you be will you be Kazakh now with us? Please? So wait, are you suggesting a version? I'm too busy saving a Bulgaria. Are you Romanian? Are you suggesting a version of she's all that where it turns out that Steven Seagal was right under the Cossacks noses the whole time. Steven Seagal was like the nerdy the nerdy action hero that like no one wanted to take to the prom because you know there was like the hot cool girl Donald Trump. Oh my God in that and instead of the staircase scene where the nerdy girl reinvented comes down ready to go and it turns out she's a stunner.

Steven Seagal is in like one of those old people mobility chairs just genuine. Have you seen the film? She's all that. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I'm glad that's penetrated the former Soviet Union. Yeah, but it's the newest release just came out last week. It's actually the only American film you can see in Russia. It's like there's like a short list of like permitted like she's all that's a good film. It's an important message for deal. So it was like weirdly edited to have like certain themes. Yeah. Come on, Clarissa, we got to go to the oil field. Yeah, they translated the name of the movie in Russian in very bad word. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If I'm

not mistaken, they called Contranet, you know, Contranet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I feel like it's like you feel like Contranet. It's like, oh, it's like a bad person. Like how you how you say in English? I just don't know the meaning. I don't know. Well, like what's it? I don't know. I'd like Canets, which means end, but it's like different kind of. Yeah. Was it like some kind of like gancha? Yeah, it's like it's like calling something like a giz stain. Yeah. So wait, they did like she's all that but starring Rocco Safredi. She comes down the stairs just covered and come. Sorry, this guy wanted directions. He's like, you've never looked so beautiful. So it's so it's Steven Segal getting banged

by Rocco Safredi going down the stairs and a mob on like a mobility chair in order to go to the prom with a group of Cossacks who have since been rejected by Donald Trump. Sounds like an incredible film. Yeah. Rocco Safredi's most difficult scene yet. Doggy, doggy styling Steven Segal for the Russian version of she's all that. Oh man. If they did, I would move to this country. Yeah. Actually, if you literally translated the title of that film into Russian, it would be really weird. Yeah. And that's it. Yes. That's why they took this one. Yes. She is the entire quantity. She has all of her limbs in teeth. Yeah. It's sort of like it sounds really dismissive in Russian. It's like, oh,

she's all that stuff. Yeah, she's into that. I want to I want I want to hear you were telling me about your trip to Belarus earlier and what happened there about how they feel about about language, but how they feel about language about. Oh yeah. So I was telling Riley about when Slava and I went to Belarus and we did a show in Gomel first, which is like a town in Eastern Belarus, and then we did a show in Minsk. And I did like 20 minutes as the warm-up acts in Gomel. I came off stage and I reckon I I swore I swore like three times probably in the time of this. Like, anyway, and afterwards after the show, Slava comes up to me and he's like, Milo, can I ask you like when we do the show in Minsk, like not to swear? Like, and I was like,

I'll slow or I'll barely swore. I mean, I did 20 minutes and I swore like three times. It's like nothing. And he's like, no, I'm like, you don't understand. Like in Belarus, like you can't you can't swear on stage that you can't do it. And I'm like, the dude was like three times like, what the hell? And he's like, no, I'm not you're not you're not understood what I'm saying to you. He's like, in the history of that theater in Gomel, the word like, well, like the Russian, the Russian word is huy, which means like dick. But it's more in terms of rudeness, it's more equivalent to the English word cunt. Like, is like, they've only ever said the word huy three times on that stage in the history of that theater. And all three of those times were you.

I mean, yeah, because that's that's kind of, I mean, aside from the fact that we just we have done like a full half just of just nonsense. I actually do kind of like the Russian comedy scene is fascinating to me. Yeah. Well, that's how that's how genuine I met, right? We were doing doing TV together for TNT, which is a weird place to work. It's like, yeah, doing stand up here is very weird, because you're largely doing stand up for people who have not watched much stand up. Definitely not much Western stand up. And like whenever you do a gig, it's often the case that like 50% of people in the room have literally never been to a live stand up show before. And so what you need to make it really obvious what

you're doing at all times, otherwise, like you can quite easily confuse people, because you like you take it for granted if you're doing a show in London that like everyone there has seen enough stand ups that they'll just go with they're like, assume that whatever you're doing is a premise that is going somewhere. But in Russia, people are like more suspicious of stuff. So like, you get this thing where like, you're like doing a joke, which is like kind of has a long build up, but there's a payoff at the end. They'll start thinking like, Oh, no, he just does not know what he's doing. This is like, even though you're like a TV comedian, they'll just start assuming like, no, no, he's forgotten how to do stand up. It's like, yeah, there is no joke here.

Yeah, people in Russia, they I don't know how it works, but when you perform, they they always trying to, to like, yeah, to judge you. I mean, not like in a hard way, but anyway, they after your show, they're coming to you say like, well, you were not so good as you could be, but but fine. And you were like bad and you okay. And it was like, I was not asking you. I mean, I was just performing. Oh, man, I get it all the time. Yeah, you have that like where you get someone comes, you know, like, yeah, one thing, you know, I didn't really like this joke. Maybe you should tell it like this. I just imagine like doing the same thing like, like a fucking athletics event and going up to the guy after like losing 100 meters and being like, have you tried running

faster? Like, I don't know. I'm not a, I'm not a runner, but like, have you considered just you just move your legs faster? You know, but there are some odd characters on this. So like, I went to go see you do a show last night for an English speaking show where one of the comedians was sort of struggling through his set, getting no laughs, nothing, just spacing his stony silent room. And then he just gave up and switched to Russian and started doing okay. Oh, yeah. That was that. That was my image. Oh, yeah. That's that's his style. Yeah. So his whole thing is like being when he does English. He's a pretty successful comedian in Russian. And his whole thing when he does English stand up is that like his English is so

bad that it's like part of the joke because he does this like very weird humor. So most of the time it actually works quite well for him because he's saying this incredibly weird stuff and coming with like a really thick Russian accent and like bad grammar. It kind of works. But last night that was like a yeah, he I think he had a few jokes which his girlfriend translated to him in English and just he put it down and he remembered the word by word and he said I just even don't know millions of the words. So just like I kind of I kind of figured that it's crazy. Yeah. Like but it that the audience is basically not not that great at English either. And yeah, because usually a lot of them go there to like practice English.

Right. Yeah, it's great for them. It's very frustrating for the comedians. And so what you get is you get people who are you get people who have sort of memorized some English jokes telling them to people who don't fully understand what they're hearing. The whole thing is super like like you could put that into into like a 20th century Russian writer's book. Yeah, because because we don't have a Russian stand up yet. I mean the stand up in the understanding of like in the global meaning but we have the I think Russian stand up is like a child like a small one but the English stand up in Russia is like ridiculously small like we don't have it. Yeah. And that's that's a problem because we have a child that should have been aborted.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe yes. We have a few foreigners who who perform here like Milo and Steve Foreman and a few guys more. And was that the emcee from last night? Yeah, I was. But when you got a fine, I think the sweet spot. I didn't get there. So just some people that I know in London comedy who are like this, right? Like basically the in London comedy, you've got like the open mic delusional psychopaths like dangerous tea and John Sharp, right? And these are guys this is a guy who I don't actually feel much animosity for because these people are genuinely like old and lonely and not all there. But they do and they will come to they will they'll they'll come back when I used to be doing mics a couple years ago.

They would come to a show. They would do like what it like they would do like five minutes in the five minutes would be five minutes of setup for what turns out to be a gentle pun. Yeah, they would never even got through with that in Russia. They would have been brewed off the stage by the time this but I don't I don't really like their their whole situation is their whole situation. They're not there. They're there. I have no beef with them. It's like there is a certain kind of London. There's a certain creature of the London comedy scene that is a working stand up comedian, but that also is conceivably like one of some of the worst stand up comedian. Some of the I think probably the worst working stand up

comedians in the UK. It's a treat to see. Yeah, it's amazing. Like when you come across people who are like working stand up comedians who genuinely make a living doing it, but who are just terrible at stand up like what Alex Martini must have a second job. This is a guy who does stand up in London who sort of yeah, he said he spends a lot of time on social media complaining about stuff, not even on Twitter, on Facebook. Yeah, on Facebook, like Facebook. He's not funny. I mean, he's not. I mean, he's funny. Yeah, just not not in the way he thinks he is. That's the thing is like he is he is much, much more funny than someone who is genuinely trying

to be or that was genuinely trying to be like clever and funny. It is it is absolutely incredible. Are you getting out some choice material? I am. I'm on his Facebook. Yes. Because it's this wonderful combination of genuine like insanity. And at the same time, like social conservatism. Yeah, because there's this there's this feature of the London stand up scene, which the Moscow stand up scene doesn't have yet, which is that in London, there's this massive Facebook group called the Comedy Collective. It's got like 15,000 members and like people it's basically the graph works like this. The less you know about stand up, the more you post in that group as knowledge of stand up increases like the amount you post in

that group goes down. And so like every like there are like several posts a day in that group, usually by someone starting doing stand up, he's asking like a fairly dumb question, but they're starting out doing something like whatever it's like, would you recommend any comedy courses or like whatever? But then all the people who like reply to them giving advice are all like the shittest comedians, you know, who just have time to like sit on that basic group and reply to people being like, well, I think, you know, the key to success is this and it's like, if you knew what the key to success was, do you not think you would be successful? Why have you not applied this gold star advice to your own career? Just before we

go into this, he, his couple of his last posts, one was actually I'm surprised people are allowed to vote without IDs. Oh, yeah. I was just to fill you in, there's been this thing in the UK where they've been trialing making people present ID to vote in elections, which is basically like a clever tactic to like make it harder for like, poor people to vote because they tend to like have not have ID or not like have the not like think to bring it with them. And so it really conveniently means that the government who is surprised conservative is like, oh, it looks like all these poor people couldn't vote. Oh, no, what a shame. And what do you think popular Russians stand up comedians who's like, I mean,

I mean, if they gonna perform in English, do they have a chance to be popular in Britain or in States or somewhere? Yeah, I don't know. I think, well, I think that not not now, not now they wouldn't. It's like, it's they're too, they're too far down the road of like, the way the Russian way of doing things and like to switch over now would just be impossible. I think there are like, there are loads of like young comedians in Russia, who I think would work really well in the West, like someone like Elias Oylian, I think is really cool. I think Cooksil would work really well. You, of course, babe. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like, I mean, like Vanya Yavuz goes down well. But yeah, like, usually the people, the better you go down in Russia, almost the worst you'll

go down in the West, because it's just such a different, it's a bit, I think it's a bit like, kind of, you know, like those like 70s comedians in the UK, like people like Bernard Manning and stuff. Of course I don't. I don't know any of these people. I mean, I know like the, I know 70s comedians from like the States, where there'd be the guys in like the pale blue tuxedos who would sort of, you know, do racist one liners to like dentists on holiday and the Catskills. Yeah. Well, I mean, so yeah, I would say like, yeah, Russian standup now is a bit like, it's a bit like a weird hybrid between, so you've got like the, but the base level of it is like what British standup was like, maybe like 30 or 40 years ago, where there's like a loads of like,

kind of guys doing humor for like guys, and it's like stuff about like women, women, they do this, don't they women? Oh my God, women so strange. I heard that they be shopping. I read this somewhere. I just can't understand women if only I'd ever talked to one. Yeah, but then they're so different. I could just, a Russian standup comedian just sort of just speaking to a woman, speaking to him and just staring with his mouth agape, wondering at this complex and ancient language. These Russian comedians genuinely believe that like any woman they see is an alien from a different solar system who's like communicating through a series of clicks and beeps.

Well, some of them do, but then also you have this like other half. There's like this weird, like that's kind of like the older generation of Russian comedians. Then you have this younger generation of people who like all kind of grew up watching Western standup or like more or less did and that so they're kind of like pulling in like sort of more remote influences from the West, which they're mostly watching in translation into like the standup they do here, but also most of their live experiences. They have this like weird hybrid where they kind of have this like more like old school conservative influence, but then also this Western influence and like the guys who control the standup scene, like particularly the TV, try and suppress anything

that's more alternative. So I usually find this that whenever I go and get edited at the TV, I'm like, oh, they've taken out everything I liked about this joke and left me with a sort of husk of a thing, which you want to euthanize. Yeah, it's really a situation of you being like, anyway, so the thing about Putin is he's great. I have to go now. Milo died on the way back to his home planet. Yeah, apparently it's hard to get a Putin joke on TV these days. I had a Putin joke on TV once. Have you ever done a Putin joke? Yeah, once I had, but that was not so funny. And they cut it and they cut it anyway. Yeah, the joke was about the Canadian Putin. Yeah. And I had a friend in Toronto and and he he brought Putin in and he said, well, this is like

the traditional Canadian food. And you just can't eat a two Putin one by one, because it's like, there are too much fat there. And it's really hard for your heart. So you couldn't do that. And I was like, well, I'm Russian. I mean, two Putin one by one is not a big deal. I mean, have a little refresh of Medvedev. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. And they cut it. And after that, they told me you shouldn't just say the word like you can make jokes about Medvedev as as long as you want, but no Putin jokes. Medvedev is just there to get made fun of. That's more like Medvedev's more your level. Maybe start with Medvedev, get comfortable,

see if you can graduate. Easy. I like the idea that maybe when they decide which jokes to cut, they like they show them all to Putin and they see if he smiles or not. Sorry, he did not smile. That's what it is. Maybe maybe like all the all the elections in Russia are actually not how the president gets decided. Maybe it's a roast battle. Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. And speaking about the humor in Russia, the the main role is still playing KVN. It's like oh fuck. Yeah. This is the scariest organization I have seen my life. It's like they extremely popular. Now maybe not so much, but like they started in I don't know, maybe in

60s in 60s. Yeah. Yeah. I think back in the day. Yeah. And that's our organization. They they are on TV on the main channel on the channel one and this is a humor show where is different groups like squats of comics. I don't know how to explain how it works and it's like a team based. It's like a competition. Yeah. And there are leagues, right? So most people they start getting involved with their universities like your university will have a team and then you compete with like other local teams to like make the judges laugh at like regional like events. And then if your team that does really well in the league, you can get promoted to a higher league, which is like over a bigger area. Yeah. And in the super final, always sit and put in

in the crowds. Yeah. And the people they they not laughing. They just clap and like they say in the joke on the stage and people just clap and not not laughing usually. So it's like okay, we're we're okay with that. We're okay with that. So it's it's we heard the joke. We're acknowledging it. I'm going to laugh. Yes, it was made. Yeah. Confirming a joke took place. Yeah. And so it's like it's absolutely bizarre. You get this like weird competition system and it's all like a bit like old more common wise sketches or something. It's like like five guys in suits on a stage and they each have a microphone and they're doing these like weird skits as though they're not scripted, but they are. And it's really it's so weird. They're like,

oh, and not only what do you have in your pocket? Oh, it's funny. You ask. It's actually a banana. Oh, I thought it was something else. She knows like this kind of stuff. The judges who are going like oh, I'm like wiping a fake. It's funny because gay people do not exist. They make up kind of person. And they always got Putin jokes there, but they all the same. Like, you know, about Putin, but about how Putin is like clever and smart and like strong and always like this. So I don't know. The typical sketch is some guy we can understand. This is Donald Trump because he's got this. Holy shit. This is the opposite of the Michelle Wolf White House Correspondents Dinner. Like how nice can you be to the president?

That's what it is. It's that after the White House Correspondents Dinner, lots of like liberal journalists who want to preserve their access to the White House. We're saying like, hey, can't humor not be mean? Come on. I was like trying to decry Michelle Wolf for saying that Sarah Huckabee Sanders uses eyeshadow. They're like, hey, don't be mean. Just don't body shame. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. We need we can have humor that isn't mean and know our body. Shames Putin. That guy's ripped. Yeah, we're and we're proving we can. That would be so fun. Like because at least at least if you're trying to make jokes about how cool Putin is or whatever, like he is like he's at least like kind of comp like he is kind

of a cool guy in a way, right? Like he's kind of like, you know, he knows what he's doing. Well, he's gonna listen to this, but I would like to someone will be paid to listen to this. But it won't be. I don't think he'll personally listen. I wish someone I wish they would just pay us directly. Yeah. VVP if you're listening, come on trash teacher. Come on. Probably our longest term listeners realistically. Yeah, probably. They only get my end though, because I'm the one in Russia. Just a bizarre series of laughs and me saying weird things. But yeah, imagine like trying to do that kind of thing like with Trump. It would just be like genuinely harder than like taking the piss out of Trump is too easy, right? But actually

doing a dinner where like you had to make jokes about what a cool guy Trump is would be like, I would love so hard. He is, he know, I think you're complete. We must be seeing a different Trump because I'm seeing a very cool guy. Yeah. Well, okay. Here's the here's the, you know, he fucking rocks largely because he is just so he's so brazen and it's so fun. Right. Like, like if a less cool guy would have gone to the White House correspondence dinner and like, you know, gently endured the roasting and tried to be a good sport. But no, he was like, fuck it. I'm not going to go. I'm going to send someone else to get abused in my stead. I'm just going to go, I'm going to go whip a crowd into a frenzy in like Michigan or something.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is inviative. He's like, no, actually, you can't take the piss out of me. Look at it. Take the fat girl. You can't send her in there. Okay, honey, you're going to be all right. He's like patting her on the ass as she goes in. All right. Look, I'm going to be right back. You talk to those nice people. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah. We'll talk about this tomorrow. Okay, honey. All right. Just closing the door. I don't like this. But don't forget this is a guy who like when, when Sam Nunberg, one of his staffers ordered a custom burger at McDonald's, it was taking too long. So he was just like, fuck it. Leave him. Yeah. They just left one of the staffers at a McDonald's because he ordered a burger that

was taking too long to make and Trump was like, fuck you. I'm going. It's like, and that's the, that's the, that's the attitude of his that I, that I completely love because it's just nakedly criminal and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's fucking awesome. That's typical Kazakh shit. I mean, oh yeah. That's why he's a Cossack. Is it, wait, is it Cossack or is it Kazakh? Cossack. Okay. Yeah. Right. Like he is, they absolutely missed a trick kicking him out of the Cossacks. Like he should. That's exactly where he belongs is he's just like he's like, he's like a fucking big dick horse rider. Protesters are the sword. He's a big dick pastoral nomad who is just basically out there like terrorizing the

villages of, you know, like a sort of middle age Democrat voters who are slowly turning themselves insane on the, on the assumption that there is a usurper in the White House and there's, and the fact is he's just, he's basically just covering himself and everything in gold and it's hilarious. I want no more of this sort of sort of bourgeois restraint. I want the U.S. presidency to become like a God Emperor position where, right? Like where, where, where we can get like court gestures and shit back again. I want to have him write. I want to have him try to like dictate a religious audio book. Like none of this would happen under his like a sensible Democratic president or like a cuck like Mitt Romney. You need a genuine psychopath and that's why I think he's

hilarious. Okay. Fair enough. I just can't believe that his like assistant was trying to order a custom burger in McDonald's. He orders a custom like, I don't know if any of you ever tried to order anything custom in a Moscow McDonald's. Me not. Yeah. Like the only custom order you could make in a Russian McDonald's would be like, can you just spit in my face? That would be like that. You try, you try and order anything anywhere that's not on the menu. People are going to be like, sure, like this kind of anything that requires anyone to do anything that isn't like immediately their job that they do exactly as it is laid down in their contracts. Are we going to a restaurant tomorrow where they actually call you my lord? Oh, yeah. We're going to go to Cafe Bushkin. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Have you been? Oh, only outside. No, I never been inside. It's amazing. It's yeah. I saw it. It's like, it's like a theme park. It's like a Tolstoy theme park. You go in there and they like, they call you like Gus Bidgin. And then they, and every time you say, thank you, they say Kvash Mulsluka. It's like, I am at your service. Yeah. It's like, it's like a posh restaurant out of the Simpsons. So it's like, it's like an imaginary. But there's the, there's the Simpsons maitre d who opens everything with yes. That's basically them. Yeah. That is so exciting. I'm more excited for that than anything else ever. The menu is written in Tsarist Russian. Like they use all the letters that the Bolsheviks got rid of in like 1917.

Yeah. It's pretty, pretty exciting. I just wonder like how on earth, like it's not like it went underground like the church, right? Like the under the letters went underground. Like people like secretly writing in those letters. But like, how did anyone knowing how did a Tsarist institution like Cafe Pushkin? How is it? How does it existed with any sense of continuity? I don't know how old it is. It might be it's in an old building that doesn't necessarily mean it's an old. No, I think the restaurant is also old. I mean, I've never been called. I've never been called my Lord. No one's ever told me they're at my service before. And more than that, I'm just, I'm just terrible. I'm terribly excited to like see how

ripped my trainers can be before they tell me I have to leave. It's actually like a specific, like a measuring device there for that. I love the idea. Like you've never been called my Lord or told that someone's at your service before. Like the closest you'll ever get is in like some kind of sexual fantasy. Like my kink is telling men that I'm at their service. That kink would be my kink is that I'm a waitress at an extremely fancy, but very traditional Russian restaurant. Now fuck me over this bowl of caviar. I mean, if you had a fucking something like a Russian salad would be would be so much mayonnaise. Like Steven Seagal being fucked by Rocco Sifredi. I mean, I can't tell where the

comments and the salad begins. Anyway, I'm excited to be here. Jenny looked so upset by that last part. No, I'm okay. I mean, just the cafe Pushkin is is not so interesting place for me. I don't know why because I always I just walking close to that I I see the whole Russia there. I mean, all this stuff about my Lord in Russia are connected with Stalin, Orthodox Church, and the atheism and Putin and all that together is like they're like inside. I mean, they trying to be like so imperial like so we are like this Russian this czar this all this stuff but I don't know I feel in Moscow specifically I feel how people here are mixed all their you know all their ideas and they don't know where where we're going like like country like

like idea like national idea because all people here like we all believe in Jesus Christ but no we know we are so we are from Soviet Union we don't believe in God at all and we love Stalin but no we love czar but damn fuck we we go to the space but we're Orthodox shit and I think that's like in every Russian had all these thoughts always there's so much cognitive dissonance like with people who like that because now like the prevailing political climate is like we like Stalin we like the czar we like the Orthodox Church and it's like pick maybe two of three at maximum oh yeah yeah yeah the czar and Stalin famously did not get on as did the Orthodox Church and Stalin like but it's just like we're like we're just gonna pick all of the most

like like right-wing institutions that we've had even if they might have massively opposed each other and kind of like smushed them together into a kind of like weird composite national identity it's a real stretch to Karl Stalin right wing I mean like much as I'm skeptical in general of the horseshoe theory Stalin did kind of conform to it in the sense of like it did sort of murder a lot of people in a way that like a lot of very right-wing dictators have also done and he also presided over like massive inequality it was just a slightly different system yeah that democratic socialism yeah uh yeah no it's the way you know you can be in my opinion you can be a communist but you can't be a Stalin this is just like you can't you can't look at

Stalin and be like yeah it seems fine this is not like this is not it's not true is it it's like you know it can't really can't really do that well you're gonna piss off like 10 people from Twitter oh no bring it you're gonna you're gonna piss off the 10 people who always get mad every time you say that Stalin wasn't great yeah it's like okay you know many millions of people may have died in labor camps and various sellers but you know there were some buildings which were built and you have like 10 people from not Russians who believe that Stalin was great yeah there there are um there are a core of of people uh in the west uh who think that um everything bad you think you know about Stalin yeah was either Nazi propaganda or was cooked up as propaganda by the

west oh just brewing up some propaganda yeah exactly yeah it's sorry i think they'd call it disinformat sky or whatever no that's disinformation region disinformat sky and you and you metro station when nothing is true next station is disinformat sky there's like you get off there and it's like uh you know that there is no war in the ukraine and in kastrom they've made the world's biggest pancake haven't i stay um oh fuck yeah it's the kind of people who like they're they're like they really oppose like the like the predominant western politics which is fine but then they as a result of that they then think the natural thing to do is like think that anyone who previously opposed that must have been great and it's like you can be

bad on both sides like you like it's like people who say that like if you really oppose american like imperialism you have to side with north korea it's like you can say north korea and america are bad you don't have to be like you know either either it's like burgers and putting black people in prison or it's like north korean labor camps can we not find the middle ground yeah it's like it's like the um look it's it's the it's the whole thing right where it's like it's totally rational for and i think probably pro stable and an anti imperialist for north korea and iran to get nuclear weapons gen the the way that nuclear weapons tend to work like the way that they've been shown to work it's actually more stable if these countries have them because

then they're less likely to start conventional wars because having nuclear weapons just keeps you from doing anything yeah i'm only into like alternative wars now kind of the b-side wars you know their early stuff yeah at the russo-japanese war of 1905 people are all about you know world war two world war one all right you know you're feeling a bit more edgy but where's you know the six-day war you know you know elon musk is is here saying but what about world war three a new album the difficult third album you know oh man who gave it like man i liked world war two better you guys don't have an elon musk equivalent do you um no i don't think so we we just like the cuddly billionaire who everyone likes um i think there's this guy he rides a horse

pavel durov but he is not more like uh tsukherberg and he's not like uh like musk he's like if sukherberg was like a human being yeah he'd be palvel durov no lisa oh is this the guy that created uh telegram yeah telegram and vkontakte russian facebook yeah yeah uh he's probably one of the most famous young rich people who's who's russian but is he living in switzerland now i know he doesn't live in russia but not in russia definitely but i don't know where maybe switzerland maybe in the states no i'm not sure but not in russia absolutely yes he's he's currently like a bit of an opposition figure because of all this like trying to ban telegram um which was so great because this week they said that uh if viber which is like another ms new service doesn't comply with

like the same rules that telegram refused to comply with like handing over the encryption keys then they'll ban viber as well like i think the actually was like they'll suffer the same fate as telegram and it's like telegram still works if the fate is continued operation of your product yeah that's all right that's what it is enjoyable about russia how just like people will just say things on the news that are just like demonstrably not true to like everyone watching like not even like you can say like for example if on like british news they said we're not at war in yemen that's not like demonstrably not true to everyone watching because it's like hard to check that right but like they're like telegram doesn't work you can be like nope

but uh the main idea for them to ban uh telegram is that uh some terrorists use telegram to connect to to for their plans to make it there are all these police station police station everywhere who are just sort of appear to be manning metal detectors and just looking at their phones yeah do you have telegram on your phone that's a big problem yeah don't worry cobra this is a problem yeah it's a weird thing like yeah the security where like there is security but it's not doing anything it's like there's a metal detector everyone walks through it the metal detector goes off the security guard just shrugs and like so my favorite incident with this was i was in the metro one time and a guy got his bag scanned in the that's have like a bag scanner like

one in like 30 people or so they might scan the bag and uh they scanned his bag and they're like oh there's something in your bag and they opened it and they took like two samurai swords out of his bag and i see the guy like look at them put them back in the bag and he's like all right go ahead it's like what what do you need to have in your bag for them to not let you free some rice like okay this is you know you're gonna have to fill out a form for three so it's like oh man will will keith has to come to russia to depose steven sagal steven sagal is like a bag full of nunchucks going into the going into the mosco metro he's got a hand and leaf weapons i've got to save that albania

i love that no one on the podcast can see the site joke of you checking an imaginary note as steven sagal yeah he's got like a albania white bulgaria black written on his head the deep cut simpson's joke a deep cut simpson that's what i'm here for yeah you provide you you're basically here to well i mean this is the thing that keeps us from replacing you with a colorful fish or a sort of a snack bar or a fluffy dog someone else has suggested yeah a lot of our listeners uh message riley suggesting that he should replace me on the podcast with like various things so don't like my takes they don't like fuck you i'm still here i will outlive all of you and i will still say starlin was bad you can do nothing about it i will make this podcast as

dumb as i damn well like every time they try and make an intelligent comment i will divert it with a dick joke oh man i am the kaiser soze of the left i don't know i don't really know what i mean by that i was gonna say do you want to complete that thought or are you just making sounds just making sounds man it sounds like very myles davis like we're just making sounds in here man well we've we've made about an hour's worth of sounds yeah oh one thing i thought we should do is just talk do a quick bit about kazakhstan sozhenia is russian but you're actually from kazakhstan yeah thanks to starlin by the way oh yeah hell yeah yeah starlin the original travel agent yeah because all my grandparents were sent um to kazakhstan so because they supported

a white uh in the civil war in russia so and a lot of russians live in kazakhstan still and somewhere else in the post-soviet republics uh because they all were in in uh those lame lambro camps or i don't know how how to say it yeah and yeah and that's why i was born in kazakhstan uh but i'm not kazakh but i can speak kazakh a little bit uh yeah and uh krumita singing sounds you sound like you're undergoing an operation without anesthetic yeah well and in kazakhstan we've got a democracy oh yeah yeah and the president who rules country for like 27 years very good at winning elections yeah and the last time he took part in elections he got 98 percent uh western countries should really be studying his policies like if they want to win

and after that it that was like i don't know six years ago and and he said well if i've got 90 98 people are absolutely happy so i think we just don't need more elections and next election is going to be only one i die and then we was like okay the data backs him up the available data like shows pretty incontrovertibly that's the case i don't see the problem shouldn't they get like telemarketing where people find them up they're like are you happy with your current presidential service and it's like 98 yes they told you to stop calling me during dinner yes god yeah that's crazy yeah didn't he write the constitution of kazakhstan himself yeah and he again you want a guy that doesn't need help writing a constitution to be a president

i fail to see the problem he wrote the anthem and the concert you know that's sick yeah that's actually no that that's extraordinary i know you guys are like like not big on that that's extraordinarily big dicket in my opinion well uh the story was that was a guy who first wrote the words of the anthem and he showed to the president and president just changed the few words and so it was a collab yeah and that was the two names like the the original guy and the president but after like five years the original guy is gone and only president left so now technically the president is the only one well there's bands in the 70s that don't speak to each other anymore that's amazing no it's like it's it's it's certainly it is certainly the it's this is this

was the the spiciest collaboration of that of that time period it's like get ready for the ultimate superhero crossover would have been great and we had the first capital of the independent country kazakhstan was almaty this is the south part of country and in the south part there are different groups of people who like following traditions like of old kazakhstan and they said no we don't want that president we we won elections and after that he said okay then i'm gonna make my own capital city and kazakhstan feel like the new city in the middle of the country and they called astana which interests which means capital actually so the capital circle just capital yeah city main city yeah concludes our 25 yeah 25 year intensive regime

and so now it's the capital city and the almaty lost all those power like all the money all goes to the astana and you come at the king you best not miss you if you're gonna come if you're gonna come at number one in the rap game uh what is it uh nazbayev nazbayev yes nazbayev yeah he is he's fucking kicking lanes at the rap game in kazakhstan oh man they've got like it's like it's like it's like a it's like a kazakh version of we built this city on rock and roll but like whatever orchestral sort of swell the national anthem is kazakh opposition known as the shook ones and kazakhstan is is really wonderful because they made an incredible thing in all this situation with kremia between russia and ukraine kazakhstan is like steal the country

which can like the russian's things that kazakhstan supports russia and ukrainians think that kazakhstan supports ukrainian so like nazarbayev yeah they told you actually you're all you're doing the comedy trope of doing having two dates at the same time yeah you're like kazakh like kazakhstan is joey tribiani who's sort of running in and out of the bathroom like halfway between various costume changes people like oh oh sorry is that the phone for me i'd better go get it i crained jimmy see while i was gone be fucking that's so cool yeah so that's why this again all you're describing to me is the big dickadist leader i've ever really even heard talk of i want i'm like i'm gonna i'm gonna hang up my jeremy corbin supports sombrero and i'm going to get a new hat that proclaims

my support for nazarbayev who is officially the coolest world leader yeah this is now officially kazakhstan governments no we're a kazakhstan stand stand podcast i want kazakhstan stand i've missed a joke you yes you did okay that's good but and the last thing about kazakhstan you should know that once uh his daughter uh he um she's got the wedding and the nazarbayev he prepared the gift for for his daughter's husband and he gave him the post of prime minister of kazakhstan like now prime minister of kazakhstan his jeremy kushner kazakhstan has a jeremy kushner that rules god that fucking rule i love this part of the world it's my favorite joke is that like the the daughter's husband just gets the piss taken out of him all the time he's like the clown

he's the medvedev of kazakhstan he's like well nazarbayev is great but that prime minister's a fucking pussy turns out it was a sex thing the whole time he's hated by the russians and the ukrainians oh cool all right well i think it's like i think trump's gonna do all this shit you know i think i think trump's gonna rewrite the anthem yeah he's gonna rewrite the anthem to make basically make it a fucking butt rock thing because that's the last thing he remembers was from like like heavy metal from the early 90s um like the kind of shit they would proceed a monster truck rally or a wwe match again two things that are cool and he's just gonna do that he's gonna add fireworks to the lyrics like you have to set off fireworks at a certain time and that like you need

to be wearing like a trump tie which is gonna be wide as fuck and made a polyester uh i'm i'm very excited for america's future i really want to see a trump rap national anthem like you made me u.s president i answered the call you wanted me to get rid of the mexicans and i'm building a wall but the democrats they don't like me i just can't catch a break but i'm telling you the best meat you'll ever have it's called trump steaks all right thank you tremendous yeah that that would rule um i i mean we could just i'd like him to start making movies like seagull i want to be a cossack again like make make trump a cossack again yeah is my new i want to get that on a hat yeah it'd be a big hat big cossack hat oh shit yeah god this is this is all just working way too well

i'm gonna do a trump and seagull aren't speaking because seagull you served him as a cossack those guys they couldn't handle me i was too good at being a cossack it was embarrassing for them okay they had a very limp handshake all of those guys eddie if you're listening can you please on a russian hat print make trump a cossack again fuck all right should we leave it there i'm hungry and i want to drink yeah let's go get some let's go get some food with our with our official best russian guest ever oh thanks oh shit episode three dmitry vakinov look out he's he's ukrainian oh shit cool oh shit throwing down um it's a big thing genio is there anywhere like our listeners can find you on the internet if they want to like

follow you or whatever oh yeah i think so you you can find me you've given your chair about coffee if you're interested in that anyway i mean find me in instagram instagram okay okay what's what's your handle on instagram the afghanian chair about kof okay c h e b a t k o v okay all right english speaking listeners yeah change instagram is good you speak in you speak english on instagram a lot sometimes yeah sometimes i've seen it i've seen it nice yeah well uh our theme song has been here we go by jin sang uh commodify your descent with a shirt and that's that's how we that's how we afford these grandiose trips to russia well i don't i'm not legally allowed to make any money because i'm an immigrant i just like doing this i'm not specified that roddy does not receive any

funds these terrible terrible takes all right uh genia thank you very much for thank you thank you guys and and thank you to the oh yeah thank you to the bar by the way yeah like my friend uh hasan who owns the bar jim and jacks uh which is an expat bar it's at mrs nitskaya 38 in moscow if you're ever in moscow and you're an english speaker you want to hang out with some english speakers come to this bar it's cool place uh really nice owners as you can tell yeah they let us come in here and recall while it was closed use their mixing deck you might even you might even see celeb celebrity comic mylo edwards and his the dwindling days of his russian existence you might hit the gem of the dwindling days of my existence uh yeah so yeah yeah grab a grab a beer there

all right excellent well let's do that cheers guys later bye