Synopsis
Gorodok (1993) is a Russian sketch comedy you can watch online on iFILM. The whole show rests on two men: Ilya Oleynikov and Yuri Stoyanov, who write and play every character themselves. Between them they populate an entire imaginary town — clerks, shop assistants, traffic cops, nosy neighbours, summer-cottage dwellers.
Each episode is a string of short skits that take ordinary Russian situations and push them into farce. A queue, a home renovation, a doctor's visit, an awkward TV interview — all of it tips into the absurd, and the viewer keeps recognising his own street in it. Oleynikov and Stoyanov swap wigs, voices and tempers several times an episode, carrying the entire program as a duo.
Running on the Rossiya channel from the spring of 1993, the show became one of the defining comedy brands of Russian television across the nineties and the two-thousands. The humour is gentle and observational rather than cruel — you laugh with everyone, not at them. Stream Gorodok online on iFILM.
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