Soviet Engineers become Post-Soviet Aristocrats on TV

In December 1991, when Yeltsin moved into Gorbachev’s office at the Kremlin and the USSR finally entirely ceased its existence, Vladimir Voroshilov’s television quiz show, Chto? Gde? Kogda? (see Artifact 00030), which had been on air since the 1970s, and which had already undergone major changes during Perestroika, once again dramatically altered its visual formula and format. During the Brezhnev years, this show was a place where smart Soviet young men and women, almost entirely with STEM backgrounds squared off in a socialist intelligentsia competition against their peers in the TV audience, who submitted question-riddles for teams of six Experts [Znatoki] to solve on the spot, after one minute of joint deliberation. During the Perestroika, what was already a widely-watched site of cultural erudition, with its ethos of sharp, honest intellectual competition, turned into an increasingly explicit political arena in which viewers could see an alternative power elite take shape. Now, with the rise of Yeltsin, that elite was apparently taking power and leading Russia’s transition to liberal capitalism. But were they legitimate stewards of such a project and was this project itself legitimate?

Voroshilov, like his peers at Kommersant (see artifact #00044) believed that in this moment of the advent of a post-Soviet, post-socialist Russia, it was imperative to create an appealing image of a successful, respectable liberal capitalist. For Voroshilov, that ideal figure was the former Soviet young scientist or engineer who was a typical player on his show and who now was very likely to have become a successful business leader, who nevertheless retained her Soviet intelligentsia bonafides. Like at Kommersant, it naturally occurred to Voroshilov that the best way to imagine such a figure would be by dressing her up in the garb of an Imperial Russian aristocrat. Hence, Chto? Gde? Kogda?’s transformation into what Voroshilov repeatedly called an “intellectual casino, where everyone can win money with the power of one’s mind.” In this opening clip from the 1993 Summer season of the game, one can see particularly well the aristocratic aesthetics of this place. The players are transported into the 19th-century world of Pushkin and Chaikovsky, as we watch money get placed on the table to the tune of the Countess’s aria from Chaikovsky’s opera, The Queen of Spades. Once lights go on, we see a crowd dressed in tuxedos, along with some raspberry blazers worn by the club’s “immortal members” (see Artifact #00136). They are then introduced to the tune of Richard Strauss’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, suggesting the intense, honorable, agonistic struggle that they are about to embark on. With the money on the table, these former Soviet technical intelligentsia elites become noblemen and noblewomen, wagering enormous sums with abandon.