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• 1 2022-11-25T13:47:10-08:00 The Game 26 plain 2022-11-26T12:38:50-08:00

  We are starting KVN
  For what? 
  For what?
  So that no one stays on the sidelines
  No one!
  No one!
  Even though it won't solve all our problems
  It won't solve all our problems
  Everyone will become happier,
  Everyone will become more cheerful
  —KVN theme song, 1986 to the present

  
  This chapter describes what happens at KVN games. All Americans more or less know what baseball games are like, even if they've never been to one. But most Americans can't envision a KVN game, and there is no close Western equivalent. It isn't much like stand-up or debate competitions. It's scored like figure skating but is, of course, team comedy. Here I give an overview of the types of events common in contemporary KVN games, then provide ethnographic snapshots from two representative games, one in Irkutsk and one in Odessa. Understanding the sequence of events at games will become important to understanding analysis in later chapters, which don't discuss games themselves at all. Instead, the chapters following this one all analyze activity and discussions that surround games: teams' brainstorming meetings, feedback sessions with league editors, and commentary about games (and commentary about commentary about games).
  
  After walking through these two typical games, I explain how leagues work in Russia and Ukraine, discuss multi-week humor festivals, and give a short KVN glossary. I conclude with a discussion of how people maintain joke writing as craft.
  
  We are starting KVN
  
  "KVN has probably gone on for so long because no one thought it up, not in the form that it's in now," Mikhail Marfin told me as we sat in a cafe across the street from the House of KVN in Moscow. KVN started out more like a quiz game, he said, where people answered questions with a bit of humor thrown in. "And then at some point some team came up and said, 'Can we do some kind of Introduction (Privetsvye) for a minute and a half?' And now we have Introductions. And they just walked out and said, 'We're going to light the atmosphere on fire with humor'...they laid the foundations of the genre through trial and error, no one knew anything..." (interview with author, June 3, 2019).
  Each KVN competition consists of a number of events, some pre-scripted, some improvised. Organizers decide which events to include based on the abilities of their competitors, the interests of community members, and the number of teams competing. A classic KVN competition might include an Introduction skit, a razminka ("warm-up") improvisation section, and a musical skit. Introduction skits are now the most common events in KVN competitions. A lot of games, in fact, only have Introductions, especially if more than six or so teams are competing. Otherwise games just get too long. In Marfin's definition, KVN "doesn't really consist of anything. Some number of teams competes in some number of events—kto kogo—who's funnier? And that's all. Everything else can change."

  Events common in contemporary KVN include:

  Introduction (Privetsvye)  Often the first event in KVN competitions. Teams perform a series of pre-prepared skits or ultra-short numbers (miniatures).
  
  Business Card (Vizitnaia Kartochka) Differs little from Introduction skits; difference mainly of name.
  
  Homework (Domashnee zadanie) Pre-prepared skits. 
  
  STEM  STEM stands for Studencheskiy teatr estradnykh miniatur (Student Theater of Estrada Miniatures), a skit-making activity that preceded KVN. For STEM, teams write skits, often on a predetermined theme. Some STEM competitions require that there be no more than three team members on stage at any time.
  
  Razminka  Razminka is a classic component of KVN games. It usually consists of questions posed to teams from judges, members of the audience, or read from slips of paper prepared in advance. Teams are scored on how cleverly they are able to improvise answers. "Questions" can take a variety of forms, from a riddle to the first line of poetry or a song, or perhaps a visual image that contestants must explain in a clever way.
  
  Biathlon  Biathlon is a joke contest. Teams take turns reading two jokes each. At the end of each round, judges decide which team was the least funny and either the entire team or one member of the team gets eliminated. Teams continue to read jokes until there are only two teams remaining. A final round (or two, or three) determines a final victor. The teams that survive the most rounds earn the most points.
  
  Muzathlon  Muzathlon is much like Biathlon, but teams sing humorous re-workings of the lyrics of popular and well-known songs.
  
  Familiar subject (Znakomiy suzhet)  A skit built around a theme from literature, folklore, or popular culture.
  
  Musical contest (Muzikal'niy konkurs)  In musical contests teams write humorous scenarios set to music.
  
  KOP  KOP stands for Konkurs odnoi pesni, or Contest of One Song. It is much like the musical contest, but scenarios must be built around a single song.
  
  Captain's contest (Konkurs kapitanov)  Captains' contests are stand-offs between the captains of KVN teams. These used to be more improvised battles of wits, but now more often feature pre-prepared individual performances or monologues.
  
  To give a fuller sense of what Introductions and other events during KVN competitions are like, I describe two typical games, one from Irkutsk and one from Odessa, below. 
  
  Baikal League Final, Irkutsk, December 4, 2015
  
  Every seat in Irkutsk's National Research Technical University's 814-person auditorium had been filled. Upbeat music primed the crowd as we waited for the game to start. Since this was the final game of the year, a short KVN quiz with prizes from the game's sponsors preceded the game, just to add to the festive atmosphere (this isn't typical). A KVNshik who had played in Top League came out on stage. "Which team told the following joke?" he asked. People in the audience raised their hands, offered guesses, and the first person to answer correctly won a gift certificate to a local restaurant. The jokes came from Irkutsk teams across a number of years. Next came a series of questions about teams' signature songs, or otbivki. "Guess the otbivka!" the KVNshik announced. I only knew one of the answers, the otbivka for team Raisy, an Irkutsk team who had played on television. 
  
  The quiz ended and the lights dimmed. People began clapping and cheering, even standing up to applaud once the teams made their entrance on stage. Five teams competed in that night's competition: Irkutsk State University's Pedagogical Institute; Young People, from Irkutsk State University (IGU); Irkut, the team of the Irkutsk Aircraft Factory; Irkutsk Policeman, the team of the Eastern Siberian Institute of the MVD (Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del, or Ministry of Internal Affairs); and Five Stars, a team with members from Irkutsk and Yerevan. The emcee walked to the center of the stage and said, "Good evening, friends, hello. Tonight the most important event of the outgoing year will take place in Irkutsk's Club of the Cheerful and Clever. I am happy to welcome you to the final of the Baikal League, 2015 season. We are starting KVN (My nachinaem KVN)." Right before the game began, he appealed to the audience, "Let's wish the teams the traditional "neither fluff nor feathers" ("ni pukha ni pera"). Audience members said in unison, "Neither fluff nor feathers!" The teams on stage shouted back, "To the devil!" (k chertu!) Emcees and teams use this exchange as a version of "break a leg" before a lot of KVN games.
  Five Stars started off the Introductions with jokes based on Armenian and Buryat stereotypes, which they ended with an upbeat song: "I have one dream, that in the city where I live, there is my game!" Team Irkutsk Policeman followed, saying, "In the final you can sing well—or like this!" Their front man sang weakly, "The final, the final. Cops, cops..." as five uniformed young men on stage performed jumping-jack style choreography. The rest of their Introduction included skits about crime and police officers, and one surprising number in which a female police cadet lifted one of the male members of the jury over her shoulder and carried him away. Young People, the Pedagogical Institute, and Irkut followed with their Introductions. 
  
  After all the teams had performed their Introductions the panel of judges raised score cards, in a range between one and five, for each team. Scores for the Introductions were as follows:
  
  Irkut 5.0
  Five Stars 4.9
  Pedagogical Institute 4.8
  Irkutsk Policeman 4.6
  IGU 4.4
  The teams then competed in photo razminka. The first photo, of two children making strange faces during a martial arts match, was displayed on a large screen behind the competitors. Teams got thirty seconds to prepare their responses. Some of the best answers included those from the Pedagogical Institute, who replied, "Give me fifty cents!" and from Five Stars, who, noticing that the judge in the picture had his back turned towards the kids, said, "The judge really could care less." The next picture was of a man getting into a car almost entirely submerged in floodwaters. After that round the judges each held up a number corresponding to the team they thought they had given the least funny responses. Irkutsk Policeman got the most votes, and they left the stage with 0.5 points out of a possible 1.0.
  
  Photo razminka continued with pictures of a hammock suspended over a ravine, men standing on an ice overhang, a seal kissing a woman, a man carrying a huge log, a woman standing on a man's back in a grocery store to reach a high shelf, an alarmed baby, one extremely tall African-American basketball player among a group of white players a foot and a half shorter than him, and a cat at the dog pound. After every two rounds, judges voted for one team to leave the stage. Five Stars and Irkut faced off for the full 1.0 points; Five Stars won. These were the scores for razminka:
  
  Five Stars 1.0
  Irkut 0.8
  Pedagogical Institute 0.7
  IGU 0.6
  Irkutsk Policeman 0.5
  
  The final event of the night was the Musical Contest (Muzikalka for short). Irkutsk Policeman performed a series of numbers. The first was a rap about vegetarianism, the second was a take on the Russian true crime show Man and Law (Chelovek i Zakon) narrated on a backdrop of Soviet cartoons, and the third was a dance number between two people in Baikal seal costumes. The Pedagogical Institute built their musical skit around a medieval theme. The princess ran off with the health teacher and Lancelot went to rescue her. In the end, the princess told Lancelot, "You're rich and you have a big, beautiful castle, but I'm staying with him. Yes, he's poor. But he's a teacher. And that's a noble profession." The narrator then said, "This production was brought to you by the Irkutsk Region Ministry of Education." 
  IGU came on next. They started off their Muzikalka with a skit about extreme wilderness vacations: 
  
  Wilderness guide I haven't been with a woman for three years.
  Tourist But we've only been out here for two weeks.
  Wilderness guide I know! I just thought out here we could be open with each other.
  
  For the second half of their performance IGU brought out a young man from Angarsk, a nearby city, who had recently played on the Russian version of Wheel of Fortune (Pole Chudes). While parts of this performance made me laugh to tears, the team's Musical Contest contained very little music, which may have hurt their scores. Five Stars followed. Their skit revolved around a conflict between the Armenians, dressed classily in bow-ties, and the Buryats, who kept clowning around on stage. But the Buryats had also brought a secret weapon to help them win the final: a Buryat shaman. 
  
  Armenian Shaman Dzhangalovich, how did you become a shaman?
  Shaman Oh, a long, long time ago, my great-grandfather, a great person, found [secret wisdom]. And my grandfather then passed it on to a very great person. Generation by generation...
  Armenian I think you're a charlatan!
  Shaman And I think—so too.
  Irkut ended the night's performances. The team wrote skits that spoofed their own status as factory workers, and middle-aged ones, rather than the college students who more commonly play KVN. In one of their numbers fortysomething MC Vitaly Ivanovich and his friends came out in hip-hop style clothes, saying, "One, nine, seven, three. Yeah! That's when I was born!" 

  After Irkut's final song all the teams assembled on stage. The judges each gave comments on the night's game, mentioning their favorite teams, jokes, and KVNshiki. Then they gave the scores for the Musical Contest and the emcee announced the game's ultimate winners. In the end, Five Stars took first place, Irkut second place, and the Pedagogical Institute got third. Viktoria Karnovich from the Irkutsk Policeman, the cadet who carted off a member of the jury, won the title of best female KVNshik, and Sergei Tsyrenov from Five Stars won best male KVNshik. The prize for best joke went to Irkut.
  
  The final score breakdown was as follows:
  
  Musical Competition
  
  Five Stars 5.0
  Pedagogical Institute 4.8
  Irkut 4.6
  IGU 4.5
  Irkutsk Policeman 4.5
  
  Cumulative Scores for All Three Events
  
  Five Stars 10.9
  Irkut 10.4
  Pedagogical Institute 10.3
  Irkutsk Policeman 9.6
  IGU 9.5
  
  KVN games in other parts of Russia—Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, and the Moscow suburbs—varied noticeably but unradically from games in Irkutsk. The same is true for KVN games I saw in Ukraine. Below is a description of a semifinals match I watched at Odessa National University (ONU) in 2017.
  
  Odessa National University Semifinals, Odessa, Ukraine, April 27, 2017
  
  "Odessa National University is the most "KVN" University in Odessa," announced a video introducing ONU's spring Evening of Culture, an interdepartmental talent contest which took place about three weeks before the university's KVN semifinal. "It is from our university that the legendary team Gentlemen became champions [of the Central League] two times. And the team New Reality continued the tradition of champions when they won the Ukrainian league [in 2004]. Now we have the open ONU KVN championship, in which almost every department of the university participates." ONU, among the first universities in the USSR to host a KVN program, showcases its KVN pedigree even at non-KVN events like the Evening of Culture. It's that important in the narrative the university tells about its history—a history that also includes professors like Dmitry Mendeleev, who created the periodic table of elements, and Ilya Mechnikov, who won the Nobel Prize for research in immunology.

  ONU's 2017 Semifinal game began with the KVN theme song pumping through loudspeakers: "Once again in our hall, no empty seats in our hall" ("Snova v nashem zale..."). The teams, eight in all, lined up on stage. Then the emcee walked out and said, "Good evening, good evening ladies and gentlemen! I'm happy to welcome you to the open ONU championship. Applause!" After introducing the teams and judges, he said, "The teams are ready, the jury has convened, the audience is ready, and by old KVN tradition I would like to say, "Neither fluff nor feathers!" The teams then shouted, "To the devil!" 

  Televised KVN games left Ukrainian airwaves in 2014, when the war between Russia and Ukraine began. KVN fans still watch Top League games (and, if inclined, Premier League and First League games) on YouTube, but KVN as such is no longer broadcast in Ukraine. Ukrainian KVN traditions, though, from the game itself to the theme song, do not rely on Moscow-based televised leagues. 
  
  The first team to perform in ONU's game was actually not competing. The emcee explained that the team, from Odessa National Economic University, was just starting out in KVN and sought the support of the audience. The teams in the competition itself included Igor, from Odessa National Polytechnic University; 3D, from ONU; Friend Zone, from Odessa National Maritime University; Native Odessans, from ONU; Breathe In, Breathe Out, from the Odessa National Medical Institute; Team ONU from ONU; the Trump Cards, from ONU; and team Brahms, also from ONU. The night's game consisted of Introduction skits and a Contest of One Song (KOP).
  
  The Native Odessans began the Introductions. Their skit relied on tropes of Odessa as a city of bandits. Either by mistake or subversion, they reverted to their original team name, "Odessa Bandits" instead of "Native Odessans" when they announced themselves. "Team Odessa Bandits," they said. "More of a team than bandits." They continued, "I'm, of course, not a stukach (informer), but I'm going to tell you what's about to happen." This line got laughter and applause from the audience, who appreciated the team's semi-criminal yet somehow ordinary personae. The sketch that followed, about a young man who practices kissing on a potato instead of a tomato, got a fair response from the audience. "We have set ourselves the task to make it to the final and die," they said. "And so we're in clean [underwear] just in case."
  
  Team 3D performed next, followed by Brahms, Friend Zone, and Breathe In, Breathe Out. The Medical Institute team cracked jokes about doctor-patient situations, doctor-dentist rivalries, and problems common to all doctors. "We medics don't often get free time. And even when we find some, medicine finds us." A skit about a man on a date then followed.

  Woman Dear, I'm so glad you have some free time.
  Doctor Me too. We can finally sit for a while in peace.
  (phone rings) Just a second.
  Valera. Valera, it's just a breakout. It's normal. Okay.
  (turns back to woman) Anyway. It just seems like I never get a chance with you—
  (phone rings)
  
  Things escalated from there, with Valera calling again, a neighbor knocking on the door with questions about her cat, and the doctor's girlfriend herself even asking questions about her crooked nose. Team ONU came on next, with a song about the merits of traditional smoking versus vaping (which the judges in the youth auditorium might not have liked), followed by Igor, who chose a camping trip as their skit's theme. The Trump Cards, a team of four young women and a semi-closeted gay man, Dima, gave the last Introduction. Dima came on stage last, singing and dancing out to the song, "Cooler than everyone" ("Kruche vsekh") by the Quest Pistols Show. "Ah, girls, notice anything?" he asked, twirling. "Dima, we've been pretending for three years that we don't notice anything," said Alisa. They ended their number on a high and humorous note, bringing their "parents" out on stage. "Dasha, sweetie, did you eat?" asked one of the mothers. "Yes, mom, why?" answered Dasha. "Nothing. Probably shouldn't have, is all."
  
  These were the scores for the introductions:
  
  Trump Cards 5.0
  Odessa Bandits 4.8
  Igor 4.8
  3D 4.6
  Breathe In, Breathe Out 4.5
  Brahms 4.3
  Team ONU 3.6
  Friend Zone 3.5
  
  Team Brahms began the Contest of One Song. While they usually incorporate classical music into their skits, they did not try to write lyrics to Brahms. Instead, they sang to the 1988 hit "Music has tied us together" ("Muzika nas sviazala") by the group Mirazh. They ended with the words, "Friends, value music" and Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5. Next was the Odessa Bandits with a song about their pipe-smoking grandma, the Trump Cards, singing about male-female relationships, and Friend Zone, with a song about female friendship—and spats—set to the 2017 hit "Ice Melts"("Taet lёd") by Griby. "Your legs remind me of the letter K, your breasts look like the letter V, Nastya, your legs look like the letter N. Now we understand how you all ended up in KVN," they sang, joking that they might become plus-size models.
  
  Igor followed, then 3D, then Breathe In, Breathe Out. The medics' Contest of One Song got delayed by a light-headed person backstage. "Breathe In, Breathe Out are actually performing their duties right now," the emcee said, explaining that someone had started feeling ill. The medical students were checking the person's pulse. To fill time the emcee started quizzing the audience about the game's sponsors. 
  
  "We have two more teams left tonight, but we also have some wonderful sponsors, about whom you have already heard. But that doesn't mean that you remember them, am I right? So, what sponsors do we have?"
  
  "Legal specialists!" responded the audience.
  
  "Yes, yes," said the emcee. "And chocolate!"
  
  Breathe In, Breathe Out took the stage after only a few minutes, with a song about saving lives. Team ONU concluded the competition. They sang about how we spend most of our lives sitting—on bus commutes, waiting for partners as they shop, or in armchairs after work—but they set their sedentary number to the upbeat theme from the musical La La Land. They sang:
  
  What a terrible day!
  Hello, family—I have a ton of work to do at home today...
  I'm so tired of sitting
  Now I'm going to relax for a bit
  First, I'll sit down

  
  After ONU's performance, the judges, all of whom had played in Top League—two on the 1980s team Odessa Gentlemen, two on the 1990s team New Reality, and two on the 2014 team Odessa Tales—gave the teams extended comments before issuing scores. These were the final results:
  
  Contest of One Song
  
  Odessa Bandits 4.8
  3D 4.7
  ONU 4.5
  Igor 4.3
  Trump Cards 4.3
  Breathe In, Breathe Out 4.2
  Brahms 3.8
  Friend Zone 3.8
  
  Cumulative Scores for Both Events
  
  Odessa Bandits 9.6
  Trump Cards 9.3
  3D 9.2
  Igor 9.1
  Breathe In, Breathe Out 8.7
  ONU 8.1
  Brahms 8.1
  Friend Zone 7.3
  
  ONU ran its semifinal match a little bit differently than most, though. To determine which teams advanced to the finals, teams' scores from both the quarterfinals and the finals were added together. The top four teams would go on to the final. According to this calculation, the top four teams were the Trump Cards, Brahms, the Odessa Bandits, and Breathe In, Breathe Out. A member of the jury, though, stood up and said, "Wait a second, wait a second, four teams is too few...I would like to see team Igor in the final." The audience cheered. Then another member of the jury stood and said, "Well, that was obviously a creative decision. But we would also like to see team 3D." Once again, the audience cheered and applauded. The emcee said, "Wonderful! So that means we have six teams in the final." There was a bit of back-and-forth between the judges and the emcee, and finally league editor Viktoria Pis'michenko cut in and said, "Excuse me, is this some kind of anarchy? We want to decide—Pavel and Viktoria, thank you again—well, let's determine what fifth team to add, according to the members of the jury. It's either Igor—" The fans of team Igor exploded in such loud screaming and clapping that Viktoria could not continue for half a minute. She then continued, "or 3D—" The auditorium erupted again. Viktoria and Pavel agreed to let both Igor and 3D play in the final.

  The Baikal League final and ONU semifinal did not have the same events. But skit style, team competition, and scoring methods all made the games feel similar, even though they were separated by 4,000 miles. Emcees also followed the same conventions as they began games ("Neither fluff nor feathers!") and as they introduced teams, often foreshadowing the content of teams' skits. Below, I list KVN competitions from various leagues and locations across Russia and Ukraine to illustrate the range of possible events at KVN games. 
  
  Irkutsk, Russia
  
  Irkutsk State Agricultural University
  Rector's Cup, October 29, 2015
  • Introduction
  • Razminka
  
  Baikal School League
  First Quarterfinal, December 5, 2015
  • Business Card
  • Contest of one skit
  • Razminka
  
  Irkutsk State Transport University
  Quarterfinal, December 12, 2015
  • Introduction
  
  Irkutsk State University
  First Quarterfinal, December 18, 2015
  • Introduction
  • Biathlon
  
  Krasnoyarsk, Russia
  
  Asia League
  Final, November 26, 2016
  • Introduction
  • Musical biathlon
  • Freestyle (skit)
  
  Moscow Region, Russia
  First League of KVN Moscow Region, East Division
  First Quarterfinal, April 5, 2019 (Voskresensk, Russia)
  • Introduction
  • Biathlon
  
  Moscow Student League 2
  First Stage, Game One, April 17, 2019 (Moscow, Russia)
  • Razminka
  • Introduction
  
  Central League of Moscow and the Moscow Suburbs
  First Quarterfinal, May 26, 2019 (Moscow, Russia)
  • Introduction
  • Razminka
  • Musical Number
  
  Odessa, Ukraine
  KVN League of the Odessa Jewish Community Center Beit Grand
  First Octofinal, March 12, 2017
  • Introduction
  • Razminka
  
  Odessa National Polytechnic University
  First Quarterfinal, March 20, 2017
  • Introduction
  • Biathlon
  • Razminka
  
  Mayor's Cup for Schoolchildren
  Final, March 29, 2017
  • Introduction
  • Video razminka
  • Homework
  • Battle
  
  Mayor's Cup
  First Quarterfinal, May 18, 2017
  • Introduction
  • Razminka
  • Musical Competition
  
  Odessa National Academy of Food Technology
  Individual game, May 19, 2017
  • Homework
  • Razminka
  
  Kharkiv, Ukraine
  
  Laughter Cup
  April 1, 2017
  • Introduction