It's true that laughter translates into any language. Even from Russian, where life for the most part is no joke, as shown from the following.
An elderly woman enters the Kremlin and insists on seeing the General Secretary. Mikhail Gorbachev agrees to meet her, and asks, "What can I do for you?"
"I have one question that's been bothering me," she answers. "Was Communism invented by a politician or a scientist?"
"A politician," he answers candidly.
"That explains it," she continues testily. "A scientist would have tried it on mice first!"
--from Grinning With the Gipper: A Celebration of the Wit, Wisdom and Wisecracks of Ronald Reagan, by James S. Denton and Peter Schweitzer, Atlantic Monthly Press
The newspaper Sovetskaya Kultura published a letter from a dispirited Odessa film director complaining about all the privileges available to foreign tourists and to Russians who use foreign currency, while ordinary Soviet citizens who lack foreign money, are refused service at many places along the Black Sea coast. He recalled a brief conversation with a Russian child from the area:
"Vovochka, what do you want to be when you grow up?" he had asked.
"A foreigner!" she had replied.
--New York Times, July 22, 1987
When Stalin was on his deathbed, he called in Khrushchev and said, "I've prepared two letters. When you find yourself in difficulty over your economic policies, open the first one. When you are in real trouble and your life is in danger, open the second one. Nikita didn't understand this strange advice, but he accepted the two letters Stalin handed him.
Later, when an economic crisis seemed imminent, Nikita opened the first letter. It stated, "Blame everything on me!" Nikita immediately saw the benefit of this advice and promptly unmasked Stalin as a murderer and a despot. He weathered the crisis nicely.
In 1964, when a real showdown came in another Kremlin power struggle, Nikita opened the second letter. It was even more brief, stating, "Prepare two letters."
--Matt Weinstock, Los Angeles Times
Some of the funniest stuff was immigrated with comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who has made it big time in the USA by telling it like it was when he was back home in Russia before the century changed.
Two citizens were talking about the merit of Communism. One asked, "If you had two houses, would you give me one?"
"Of course," the other answered. "You are my fellow Communist."
"What if you had two automobiles? Would you give me one?"
"Sure, you're my fellow Communist."
"How about if you had two chickens?" probed the first citizen, getting down to the meat of the questioning.
"No!"
"Why not?"
" Because I HAVE two chickens!"
How do you improve the value of a coin from a Communist country?
You bore four holes in it and sell it as a button.
A citizen went into a Russian auto dealership, bought a car, and was told to come back in ten years to pick it up.
"Morning or afternoon?" the buyer asks.
"What difference does that make?" asks the dealer.
"The plumbers will be coming on that morning," reports the buyer.
President Clinton and Russian leader Yeltsin were standing on a cliff overlooking Moscow, each doing a little bragging, when the question of whose secret service staff was more loyal came up. Clinton, always the joker, turned to one of his agents and says, "Why don't you jump off this cliff for me?"
The agent pragmatically replies, "Can't do that, sir. I have a wife and three kids."
Yeltsin, with a winner's grin, turns to one of his agents and says, "Jump!" And the agent leaps off the cliff.
The American agent, aghast, runs down and helps the badly bruised Russian agent up. "Why did you jump?" he asks.
"Because I too have a wife and three children!"
In English, a holiday is the word used to describe going some place different to have fun and get away from all one's trials and tribulations.
In Russia, that's known as defecting.
What's the definition of a quartet? A Communist symphony orchestra after a tour outside the Iron Curtain.
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