KVN
Encyclopedia
KVN is a Russian humour TV show and competition where teams (usually college students) compete by giving funny answers to questions and showing prepared sketches. The programme was first aired by the First Soviet Channel
on November 8, 1961. Eleven years later, in 1972, when few programmes were being broadcast live, Soviet censors found the students' impromptu jokes offensive and anti-Soviet and banned KVN. The show was revived fourteen years later during the Perestroika
era in 1986, with Alexander Maslyakov
as its host. It is one of the longest-running TV programmes on Russian Television. It also has its own holiday on November 8, the birthday of the game, which KVN players celebrate every year since it was announced and widely celebrated for the first time in 2001.
every January and attracts hundreds of teams from around the world, this is where teams are arranged into Leagues for the Season, the Musical Festival which is called "Singing KiViN" (Golosyaschiy KiViN) is held every July in Jūrmala
, Latvia
where teams are competing to win KiViNs, which are also very prestigious prizes, the Summer Cup or Supercup is played usually in August every year in a different place, usually in Sochi, and only Major League Champions are allowed to compete (with some exceptions, when in 2003 a unique team of famous KVN players competed (and also won) and 2007, 2008 and 2010 when Finalists were invited), another game is held every year in November to celebrate KVN's birthday and is called the Specproject . Many places in the CIS have Leagues independent from KVN Union and conduct their own competitions, the same is said about KVN outside the CIS which has no connection to KVN Union.
Rarely, other activities are assigned.
A panel of judges, usually well-known celebrities, actors, and writers, evaluates performances on wit, humour, production values and spectators reaction and declares a winner by awarding points to the teams. In the Premier-League the jury consists usually of famous KVN players.
KVN's reach is impressive. According to the official site of KVN Union:
For more than 20 years TV broadcasts of KVN games receive the highest ratings in Russia. The popularity of the game is so high that even politicians use it as an opportunity to gain extra points, Boris Yeltsin
, Vladimir Putin
and Dmitry Medvedev
attended games played before the elections. The game of KVN helps in interstate relationships. The CIS
–Israel
game broadcast on September 19, 1992 helped in warming up relationships between the two countries (mostly on Russia's side). KVN became part of the culture, illustrated by the fact that it became a game of choice in Russian-speaking communities around the globe.
Also, the president of the club, Alexander Maslyakov, received one of the highest (if not the highest) award from Vladimir Putin
, the President of Russia, for hosting the game for so many decades. This happened at the end of the game dedicated to KVN's 45th anniversary in November 2006. It was a surprise to Maslyakov as he didn't know he will be receiving an award before the game.
, Germany
, Australia
, Portugal
, and the United States
. Many countries created their own teams, leagues and competitions. In 1992 the Israel team tested the waters playing against the CIS team. The game was an unquestionable success and more international games on a highest level followed: the CIS team visited Israel, Germany and USA. The culmination was in 1994 with the First KVN World Festival in Israel with 4 teams (USA, Israel, CIS and Germany). This event attracted a new generation of players to KVN. Currently, the American League includes more than 30 teams from different universities, including such prominent ones as Harvard, Berkeley
and New York University
(NYU) (the very first League Champion). KVN Israel comprises two Leagues with 16 teams from different towns.
Channel One (Russia)
Channel One is the first television channel to broadcast in the Soviet Union. The channel was renamed Ostankino Channel 1 in 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation. According to a recent government publication, the Russian government controls 51%...
on November 8, 1961. Eleven years later, in 1972, when few programmes were being broadcast live, Soviet censors found the students' impromptu jokes offensive and anti-Soviet and banned KVN. The show was revived fourteen years later during the Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
era in 1986, with Alexander Maslyakov
Alexander Maslyakov
Alexander Vasilyevich Maslyakov is a prominent Soviet and Russian television game show host. He is an extremely well known, iconographic figure throughout the former USSR, having been on the screen for the greater part of most people's lives...
as its host. It is one of the longest-running TV programmes on Russian Television. It also has its own holiday on November 8, the birthday of the game, which KVN players celebrate every year since it was announced and widely celebrated for the first time in 2001.
KVN as a competition
Groups of KVN teams are organized into several Leagues, where they compete annually for the League Champion title. KVN is so popular that there are literally hundreds of Leagues around the globe. To organize the movement, the KVN Union created a structure of regional and multi-regional arrangements of Leagues. Games of 2 Leagues are regularly broadcast on Russian Channel One: the Major League and the Premier-League, other Leagues are broadcast on local channels. The winner of the Major League (Vysshaya Liga ) is declared the Champion of the Club. There are other KVN competitions outside the Leagues: the KVN Festival (KiViN) is held in SochiSochi
Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, situated just north of Russia's border with the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea coast. Greater Sochi sprawls for along the shores of the Black Sea near the Caucasus Mountains...
every January and attracts hundreds of teams from around the world, this is where teams are arranged into Leagues for the Season, the Musical Festival which is called "Singing KiViN" (Golosyaschiy KiViN) is held every July in Jūrmala
Jurmala
Jūrmala is a city in Latvia, about 25 kilometers west of Riga. Jūrmala is a resort town stretching and sandwiched between the Gulf of Riga and the Lielupe River...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
where teams are competing to win KiViNs, which are also very prestigious prizes, the Summer Cup or Supercup is played usually in August every year in a different place, usually in Sochi, and only Major League Champions are allowed to compete (with some exceptions, when in 2003 a unique team of famous KVN players competed (and also won) and 2007, 2008 and 2010 when Finalists were invited), another game is held every year in November to celebrate KVN's birthday and is called the Specproject . Many places in the CIS have Leagues independent from KVN Union and conduct their own competitions, the same is said about KVN outside the CIS which has no connection to KVN Union.
KVN as a game
KVN is a task-based team competition in front of a live audience and judged by a panel of judges. Typically, each team is asked to complete in 4-5 assignments, such as:- Mandatory
- Greeting (Privetstviye): witty introduction of the team, humorous greeting to the jury and spectators.
- Warm-up (Razminka) (usually the second contest): rapid exchange of funny questions and improvised answers, sometimes played against the audience, jury and/or the host.
- Musical Competition (Muzykalnyy Konkurs): a competition in which the competing teams show musical sketches and numbers involving singing, playing musical instruments and dancing. Sometimes an alternate shorter version called One Song-Contest (Konkurs Odnoy Pesni) is played. In this competition the players must use only one melody throughout the competition.
- Optional
- STEM ("students' variety miniature") : a contest in which only three performers from a team are allowed to be on stage simultaneously (the rule didn't apply at the 2008-2009 seasons).
- Captains contest (Kapitanskiy Konkurs): individual competition between the team captains.
- Homework (Domashneye Zadaniye): comedy theatre sketches on a given topic, sometimes a Musical Homework is played when there is no Musical Competition.
- BRIZ (Bureau of Rationalization and Invention) : In this contest the teams need to present something such as an invention, a brief historical survey, movies, photo-albums or any type of new idea. It is also called a literature contest because it mainly consists of textual jokes.
- News Contest (Konkurs Novostey): similar to the BRIZ, but focuses on strange and funny "news".
- Biathlon : a contest in which a representative of each team "shoots" one joke or more at the audience. The jury decides who leaves the "shooting range" until only two contestants remain and the jury picks one winner who gets 1 point. In case of a draw the finalists receive 0.9 points each.
- Freestyle : a more modern and free version of the Greeting in which the teams have no restrictions of genre.
- Cinema Contest (Kinokonkurs): a contest which involves making a movie, making a clip to a song, making a clip consisting of different video and audio pieces or dubbing a well-known movie.
Rarely, other activities are assigned.
A panel of judges, usually well-known celebrities, actors, and writers, evaluates performances on wit, humour, production values and spectators reaction and declares a winner by awarding points to the teams. In the Premier-League the jury consists usually of famous KVN players.
KVN as a social phenomenon
- over 5 million live spectators annually watch now
- more than 40,000 participants organized into
- more than 3,000 regularly competing teams from
- more than 100 cities play game of KVN.
For more than 20 years TV broadcasts of KVN games receive the highest ratings in Russia. The popularity of the game is so high that even politicians use it as an opportunity to gain extra points, Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
, Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
and Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third President of the Russian Federation.Born to a family of academics, Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987. He defended his dissertation in 1990 and worked as a docent at his alma mater, now renamed to Saint...
attended games played before the elections. The game of KVN helps in interstate relationships. The CIS
Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....
–Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
game broadcast on September 19, 1992 helped in warming up relationships between the two countries (mostly on Russia's side). KVN became part of the culture, illustrated by the fact that it became a game of choice in Russian-speaking communities around the globe.
Also, the president of the club, Alexander Maslyakov, received one of the highest (if not the highest) award from Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
, the President of Russia, for hosting the game for so many decades. This happened at the end of the game dedicated to KVN's 45th anniversary in November 2006. It was a surprise to Maslyakov as he didn't know he will be receiving an award before the game.
KVN around the world
Since Perestroika opened Russian borders for emigrants, KVN reached IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Many countries created their own teams, leagues and competitions. In 1992 the Israel team tested the waters playing against the CIS team. The game was an unquestionable success and more international games on a highest level followed: the CIS team visited Israel, Germany and USA. The culmination was in 1994 with the First KVN World Festival in Israel with 4 teams (USA, Israel, CIS and Germany). This event attracted a new generation of players to KVN. Currently, the American League includes more than 30 teams from different universities, including such prominent ones as Harvard, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
(NYU) (the very first League Champion). KVN Israel comprises two Leagues with 16 teams from different towns.