Muppets in Moscow

Shocking but sadly, true,the adorable, sweet-voiced Muppet, Elmo, was abducted and banished from Moscow. What business did Elmo even have going to Russia? For the most reliable answer please consult the most reliable source, filmmaker, TV producer, Natasha Lance Rogoff, now author of a captivating new book, Muppets in Moscow. Rogoff chronicles the resistance to bring the American Sesame Street team to Russia and adapt it to the Russian version, ‘Ulitsa Sezam’. Somehow, Elmo got in the crosshairs of her mission.

 

In 1996, following five years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Sesame Street the most popular kids’ TV show on the planet invaded Russia. As in the USA and thirty Western countries the Russian version took Russia by storm, reaching tens of millions of viewers across Russia’s eleven time zones. The show created “something lasting for millions of Russian children”. However, in 2010, President Putin ruthlessly expelled “Zeliboba, Kubik and Basinka, counterparts to the American Big Bird, Ernie and Abby. Ulitsa Sezam’s liberal philosophy did not fit Putin’s repressive plans for the Motherland. Three years of preparations and fourteen years of broadcasting went into cold storage.

Following the USSR’s demise there was every reason to hope for investments from Western entrepreneurs. With a “gold rush for opportunities” billions of dollars in foreign aid poured in to aid Russian development of Western style democracy. Predictably, initially, Rogoff encountered frustrating difficulties at every level. Before any productions would take place, the team had to reconcile “Sesame Street’s progressive values against 300 years of Russian thought”. For starters, artistic and creative production partners could not accept “wooly” puppets over their “revered 16th century wooden versions”. And then the iron boot came down! The staff looted the office… a life sized Elmo, in fact, was kidnapped from Rogoff’s workplace. After several false funding initiatives with shady oligarchs, Rogoff found a reliable financial partner in “Irina the Golden Goose” an oligarch with an artistic heart and an eye for profits.

The series took off—not as transplants but as ambassadors for values in an open Russian society, of course using Russian characters. As it turned out the experiment was regrettably short-lived. Putin put an end to it. But fond memories remain with young Russians. When Rogoff checked into a Moscow hotel in 2020 the young desk clerk screamed.” I luv Zeliboba, a Russian Muppet. He’s my favorite.”

During the years of the development of the Slavic Muppets, Rogoff proudly mentions, “those who are now defending Ukraine were raised on Ulitsa Sezam. And yes, Elmo was rescued… safely back home.