TIME EUROPE
June 26, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 25
Wit That Hits Home
Puppet on a short string
By ANDREW MEIER Moscow
Could the televised escapades of a rubber puppet really be responsible for the arrest of Vladimir Gusinsky? To understand how relations between Gusinsky's media empire and the Kremlin soured, you have to understand Kukly — The Puppets — ntv's immensely popular show that presents outsized caricatures of Russian politicians at their most unflattering.
For the past six years, the program, inspired by Britain's Spitting Image, has been must-see-TV, drawing top viewer ratings every Sunday night. Puppets of Russia's political and business élite quarrel and conspire against each other in hilarious sketches that more often than not accurately reflect Moscow's murky politics. And while Media-MOST's news coverage has long frustrated the Kremlin, Kukly may have been the most consistent irritant. After state agents raided his offices last month, Gusinsky even said that he had been warned by Kremlin officials to tone down the show.
Kukly, the brainchild of Viktor Shenderovich, a 42-year-old standup comic and writer who has been called "the best political analyst in Russia," has come under attack in the past. Five years ago, its portrayal of then President Boris Yeltsin as a drunk led to a criminal investigation — later dropped. In 1995, Yeltsin's prosecutor general tried to have it taken off the air. Yeltsin sacked him.
Putin has claimed that the show does not bother him. But his backers protested over an episode in which he was depicted as a crazed psychiatrist wielding a hatchet and blowtorch, and another, during the run-up to the election, in which Putin selected candidates for his cabinet from a clutch of politicians depicted in drag as prostitutes in a brothel.
On May 28, ntv news anchorman Evgeny Kiselyov begged listeners not to turn their sets off for Kukly, which followed his broadcast. It would be marking a new epoch — by not showing Putin's puppet. "In order not to fan the flames, if someone high up is so worried about a rubber puppet of the President ... we have decided to try an experiment," said Kiselyov. "We will try one program without the Putin puppet." That night, however, Kukly still managed to get its licks in: Putin instead became an offstage presence — God — in a sketch about the Ten Commandments, with Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, as Moses. Among the commandments: "Thou shalt not kill (except persons of Caucasian ethnicity)" and "Thou shalt not steal" — an imperative that caused the assembled puppet-politicians to quiver.
Putin was not off camera for long. On the weekend of the U.S.-Russian summit, in a sketch written by Shenderovich, the Putin puppet tried to recruit a Clinton puppet for Russia's intelligence service. When asked later on a Gusinsky-owned radio show if he had seen his own Kukly puppet, Clinton said he had not, but would love to see a tape of the show. "It does not bother me," he said. "I've been lampooned in America a lot. There is almost nothing anybody can say to make fun of me that has not been said already.'' Putin, perhaps, is not quite so relaxed.
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June 26, 2000
COVER
The Redesigning of America
High style isn't highbrow. In fact, it's everywhere, for everyone, in everything from can openers to CD racks to cars
EUROPE
The Big Chill
The arrest of one of Russia's most outspoken media moguls casts doubt on Putin's promised "rule of law"
Wit That Hits Home
Puppet on a short string
Identity Crisis
Greek church and state clash as new ID cards drop religious affiliation
Tell — But Don't Show
A new law will change the look of French journalism
AFRICA
"Whatever I Do, It Will Never Be Good Enough"
An interview with King Mohammed VI of Morocco
The Warm Embrace
Europe is showing signs that it's keen to better its often uneasy relations with the Maghreb nations
MIDDLE EAST
Chance for the Son To Shine
Syria's Bashar Assad can better his father's miserable legacy
BUSINESS
The Missing Link
A $4 billion engineering feat fulfils a century-old dream of joining Sweden and Denmark — and business is set to boom
TRENDS
Wheelie Good Fun
Shiny, compact and cool, scooters have become Europe's ubiquitous accessory
THE ARTS
The Talented Mr. Ridley
Gladiator director Ridley Scott, enjoying a long-awaited thumbs-up from the crowds, talks about life, death — and why filmmaking is a blood sport
DEPARTMENTS
World Watch
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