The Russian (Extreme Version of) MTV

Initially conceived as “the Russian MTV,” but broadcasted for only five months between 1997 and 1998—before being shut down for provocative content—Vladimir Epifantsev’s Dryoma (Dreams) was an extreme version of its Western counterpart (1981-). Along with music videos and interviews of Western pop stars, the show included striptease, BDSM performance, references to Greek tragedy and classical philosophy, and parodies of TV commercials degenerating into scenes of absurd and grotesque violence. It systematically violated Soviet and post-Soviet taboos and commonplaces while capturing and embracing the chaotic essence of the 1990s, appropriating the language of Western popular culture while inventing a specifically post-Soviet variant. And, like most of Epifantsev’s media performances, it represented an extreme and primarily physical way of challenging commonly accepted norms and beliefs.

Dryoma was supposed to be part of the nighttime slate at TV-6, one of Russia’s first private TV channels. Epifantsev was given carte blanche, with one stipulation: the show had to include an “erotic component.” The program was the epitome of low-budget production: its set a dark, seedy-looking Moscow nightclub, the striptease bar Grinkholl-Klub Utopia. Its live audience was a bored-looking group of teens sitting on an old couch. Its opening credits featured fast-paced editing and dissonant images—gas masks, nuclear explosions, close-ups of pupils —accompanied by equally dissonant music, screams, and moans. Its typical repertoire involved heavy flirting and petting between the two main hosts, Epifantsev and Anfisa Chekhova, with Chekhova acting provocatively while Epifantsev chain-smoked and grunted profusely. These sequences were interspersed with stripteases (presented as one of the show’s main attractions), nonchalant conversations about sex, and readings from Baudelaire and Rimbaud.

Monologues by Chekhova and the other hosts, like Pavel Egorov, Yulia Stebunova, and Oleg Shishkin, focused on random topics: the origin myth of the prophet Tyresia’s androgyny; Eastern philosophy and storytelling; and the tale of a parent smacking his child with a console to prevent him from becoming “too stupid” from playing video games. The show also contained surreal sketches parodying Soviet tropes and post-Soviet realia (“The Paranoid Soldier,” “The Teacher,” “The Sadistic Policewoman”). It featured fake commercials (i.e., commercials for common products that ended up being more entertaining than the originals), along with fake, mis-dubbed interviews of international stars like Einstürzende Neubauten, Elton John, or Aphex Twin. Dryoma’s targets included the absurdity of the post-Soviet experience, the violence and corruption of the Soviet bureaucratic system, and the newly discovered idiocy of mass consumerism. The show also skewered the putative ingenuity of older generations and the hypocrisy of a specifically late-Soviet form of political correctness—with its omnipresent calls for world peace, tolerance, and respect for the elderly—that many Soviet citizens had perceived as fundamentally oppressive.