Watched more than 1.3 million times since it was posted by Russian comedy group “Plyushki” to YouTube last month, the video comes with a disclaimer.
“Some of the jokes are based on wordplay and do not carry any religious, philosophical, or ideological assertion,” it says, acknowledging that comedy can be a risky business in Russia, where some have been jailed for jokes, particularly if they are thought to be critical of the war in Ukraine.
“Maybe there’s problems in the country,” one of the comedians said, a nod to the fact that addressing the country’s issues head-on could be dangerous. “There’s a lot of cameras here,” another replied, to laughter from the crowd, because the words for camera and jail cell are the same in Russian.
While there have been no repercussions for the group, others including Artemy Ostanin are not so lucky. The 29-year-old was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison by a Moscow court earlier this month after he was found guilty of inciting hatred for a joke about being tripped up by a disabled person. A second joke about Jesus Christ led to a conviction for offending religious believers.
They were brought to the attention of authorities in March by pro-government activists from a group called Zov Naroda, or Call of the People, which accused him of mocking a fighter who lost his legs in the war in Ukraine — a claim he denied, insisting the joke had been misinterpreted.
Aware that he could be in trouble, Ostanin fled to Belarus, only to be arrested and deported back to Russia. He told the Moscow courtroom that he was severely beaten in a forest and his hair was cut off by Belarusian security services, an independent Russian media outlet, Sota Vision, reported in its trial coverage.
Eva Merkacheva, a member of Russia’s Human Rights Council, also posted a picture on Telegram of Ostanin with heavy bruising and blood on his back.
Belarus’ interior ministry issued a statement on Telegram denying he’d been beaten.
Fellow stand-up Nikolai said his friend was “a convenient target” and the severe sentence was meant to scare other comedians into toeing the line. “It’s easier to harshly punish one person so the others live with the knowledge that it’s best not to take risks,” he told NBC News in an interview earlier this month.
NBC News agreed not to use the last names of the people interviewed inside Russia, over fears for their security.
A relatively new thing in Russia, stand-up comedy took off in the last decade after it was aired on TV, turning relative unknowns into huge stars.
Even today, “it’s hard to find a bar in Moscow that doesn’t host a stand-up gig at least once a week,” Nikolai said.
But “the state isn’t well-versed in humor,” according to Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer with the rights group First Division, which specializes in defending people accused of political crimes and espionage. He added that authorities take “everything seriously and literally,” and Russia has introduced more laws that punish people for speech.
Among the more draconian was legislation introduced shortly after President Vladimir Putin launched what the Kremlin refers to as its “special military operation” in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Those found guilty of “discrediting” the Russian army could face up to 15 years in prison.
Previously, few topics were off-limits, including issues like the #MeToo movement, according to Anastasia, a 35-year-old artist from Moscow who regularly attended comedy gigs before the crackdown. She added that people took pride in how free and vicious Russian humor could be.
That changed dramatically after the war started almost four years ago, she said, adding that in the current climate, comedians “play it safe.” Before delivering their jokes, she said, some comedians will tell their audiences that they don’t want to offend them, while others will tell the crowd that they have a joke “but I won’t say it.”
As a result, she said, she was going to fewer gigs because a lot of the material became repetitive.
“Every time, we stoop to a whole new low. And there’s no end to it. We live in some kind of frightening mirror world,” said Anastasia, adding that although she wasn’t a fan of jokes about disabled people, she was frustrated by Ostanin’s prison sentence.
After 2022, Nikolai said, he removed material about the army because he had been heckled and told to stop joking about the war, and he’d heard others had been beaten up for doing so.
Some comedians who wanted to joke about those things have left Russia, among them Denis Chuzhoy, who performs in English using the name “Dan the Stranger,” a literal translation of his name in Russian.
Once popular in his homeland, he said his fortunes changed after he spoke out against the war. During a show in the northwestern city of Vologda, he recalled, two men stood up and handed him a funeral wreath with a ribbon that read “to Russia’s traitor,” one of the reasons he decided to relocate to Spain.
Today, comedians in Russia are “retelling wife jokes,” Chuzhoy, who now performs in both Europe and the U.S., said in an interview earlier this month. While he mostly jokes about death and depression, some of his posts on social media reference Putin and the Russian state.
The bravest comedian he’d seen recently on a video filmed in Russia did a routine “about the right way to eat pizza,” he said. As the comic held a pizza with two slices missing from the bottom, it eventually became clear that it “looks like a peace sign,” he said.
On the first day of the Ukraine invasion, he added, it was made clear to comedians performing on TV that joking about this was off-limits. “We’re making a comedy show, not a revolution,” they were told by show producers in group chats.
Those who defied the ban were threatened with “dismissal or criminal charges,” he said.
Even those who don’t appear to have criticized the war are not immune, like Nurlan Saburov, a popular comedian from Kazakhstan who earlier this month was banned from Russia for 50 years for “criticism of the special military operation, as well as violations of immigration and tax legislation,” according to the state-run TASS news agency.
In a statement on Instagram, Saburov said he did not want to comment on the situation and his lawyers were handling the matter.
Nonetheless, Nikolai said some political stand-up did still exist in Russia at a grassroots level. Comedians perform in front of loyal audiences of around 20 people “whom they basically know personally,” he said. “No one will even consider doing it on TV. No one’s suicidal,” he added.
Comparing stand-up in Russia to an electric fence, he said it was “easy to get through, but God forbid you brush the side — you’re dead.”
Back in Moscow, a soldier who lost his leg in the war in Ukraine stood on the stage of a show broadcast on Russian social media channel VK.
“I’m the only comedian who’s actually fought for every audience member,” he said, to cheers from the crowd.
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