Comments on: Happy Birthday, Vladimir

By: Anina Ruth Rhodes Davis

Anina Ruth Rhodes Davis — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:00:39 +0000

Dog is Good!

By: abby

abby — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:07:15 +0000

Happy Birthday Prime Minister Putin and a 100 more. A big fan!

Abby/USA

By: abby

abby — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:06:33 +0000

plase leave Putka alone. what do you see when you look into the eyes of a CIA agent/officer?

By: tanstaafl

tanstaafl — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:29:39 +0000

I guess I don’t have the right sense of humor to properly appreciate Vladmir Putin.

To me, he’s forever in the grips of that small KGB control brain mentality driving his moves and policies.

Which is sad for the great Russian Bear, not to mention the personal fate of anyone deemed to be at cross purposes with the agenda of the regime.

By: Red Square

Red Square — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:35:13 +0000

Consanescerion asked “where can I find this article in Russian?”

Good question. Various compilations of these “Putin facts” in Russian have existed for several years, and they keep expanding. Google search alone gives 5 pages of results. Here’s one page, containing 130 such jokes – http://www.anticompromat.ru/putin/130factov.html

It was impossible to post them all here, I just made a representative sample. I also altered and rephrased many of them because otherwise they didn’t work in English, although in Russian they were very funny.

The Edison joke was originally about Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, which made more sense considering the popular story that he had seen the Table of Elements in his dream. But explaining this story to Americans would’ve ruined the joke. Mendeleev is part of the Russian cultural narrative, and Americans have their own narrative. This is the problem with translating humor.

Yakov Smirnov was perhaps the most successful comedian in that respect – he had the right feel for the both cultural narratives and did a great job mixing them together. Many of his jokes are original, but a few I had heard back in the old country even before his career started. I wish he hadn’t gone into that semi-retirement so early. We would certainly be honored to feature Yakov on the People’s Cube. Yakov? Are you listening?

By: Jim Nelson

Jim Nelson — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:59:50 +0000

And yet, with all that power, he still can’t get moose and squirrel.

By: Consanescerion

Consanescerion — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:57:18 +0000

Say, where can I find this article in Russian?

By: K T Cat

K T Cat — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:45:31 +0000

This is nothing. Have you seen what Fred Thompson can do?

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:54:52 +0000

When Chuck Norris smiles you feel sunny and gay.

When Vladimir Putin smiles you will be sunny and gay.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:03:24 +0000

Every one of these could be a Chuck Norris joke.