Alexander Rosenbaum

KVN is a Russian humour TV show and competition where teams compete by giving funny answers to questions and showing prepared sketches. The programme was first aired by the First Soviet Channel on November 8, 1961. Eleven years later, in 1972, when few programmes were being broadcast live, Soviet censors found the students' impromptu jokes offensive and anti-Soviet and banned KVN. The show was revived fourteen years later during the Perestroika era in 1986, with Alexander Maslyakov as its host. It is one of the longest-running TV programmes on Russian Television. It also has its own holiday on November 8, the birthday of the game, which KVN players celebrate every year since it was announced and widely celebrated for the first time in 2001.

The Voice is a Russian singing competition television series broadcast on Channel One. Based on the original The Voice of Holland, it has aired twelve seasons and aims to find currently unsigned singing talent contested by aspiring singers, age 17 or over, drawn from public auditions.

Fabrika Zvyozd, sometimes known internationally as Star Factory, is a popular Russian television talent show that aired on Channel One from 2002 until 2007. It was the Russian version of the Endemol format Operación Triunfo.

During the main withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, a company of hardened paratroopers under the command of Major Bandura are joined by Steklov, the son of a high-ranking officer.

During the post-WW2 reconstruction in Russia, bald-headed technocrat Drozhdov equates communism with the empowerment of the ordinary man over the arrogant "specialness" of genius. Dedicated scientist Lopatkin takes refuge in Moscow with the potty, brilliant old inventor Busko. Lopatkin works tirelessly on his invention, embarking on a roller-coaster of rejection and acceptance, his work vilified, plucked apart and plagiarized by colleagues, particularly by his nemesis Drozhdov. Drozhdov's wife Natasha, alienated from her cold, controlling husband, is increasingly drawn to Lopatkin, whom she knew when they both taught at the same school. Soon she runs away from her husband and happily keeps house for the two absent-minded ex-professors Lopatkin and Busko. Natasha is ready to give Lopatkin her own life, love and faith. Lopatkin is eager to sacrifice his life for the idea, doing the utmost for his motherland.

An Afghan war veteran reluctantly agrees to lead a caravan smuggling drugs and guns across the desert after his estranged son is abducted.