Putin, Medvedev become fodder for many Russian jokes

A joke going around among Russians these days has President Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev waking up in the Kremlin in 2023 with a vicious hangover.

Putin to Medvedev: "Which of us is president and which of us is prime minister today?"

"I don't remember," Medvedev replies. "I could be prime minister today."

"Then go fetch some beer," Putin says.

It tidily sums up the ambiguities of the new power-sharing agreement whereby the baby-faced Medvedev will serve as president with the stern Putin serving below him as prime minister -- tapping into widespread speculation that it's really Putin who will be the boss.

This new odd couple at the pinnacle of power has become ideal fodder for the cherished and once dangerous Russian tradition of poking fun at leaders through satirical jokes called anekdoty.

The latest crop play on the contrast between Putin and Medvedev, riff off of the novelty of a two-headed state, or spin puns out of Medvedev's last name, which stems from the Russian word for bear.

Anekdoty have long been a litmus test of public opinion -- and individual liberties -- in a country where in the past people faced exile, prison or worse for expressing their opinions directly.

"Anekdoty sometimes live for a day and sometimes survive for centuries," linguist Sandjar Yanyshev said. "They remain the main genre of oral tradition in Russian folk culture."

George Orwell once called the joke "a tiny revolution," and nowhere was that taken more literally than in the Soviet Union.

Despite danger, Soviet citizens told stories lampooning Josef Stalin's heavy Georgian accent. His successor Nikita Khrushchev was ridiculed for his redneck joviality and introduction of corn on collective farms, in regions where it was too cold to grow the crop.

Leonid Brezhnev was mocked for his mumbling speech and, toward the end, his senility, and the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was ridiculed for his reputedly domineering wife and for his short-lived campaign to eradicate alcoholism.

Anekdoty remained mostly an oral tradition until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the first printed anthologies often outsold serious novels.

Russians tall tales built around former president Boris Yeltsin's heavy drinking, and even the popular Putin could not escape barbed jokes about his KGB history and his use of salty slang.

With the emergence of online media and text messages on mobile phones, Russians today can openly joke about their political leaders -- although not on national TV. Kukly (Puppets), a popular satirical TV show on Russian politics, was closed down in 2001 after the Kremlin objected to Putin being lampooned.

Over the years, the Kremlin has tightened controls on the mass media, and that, perhaps, has led to a modest revival of anekdoty.