A Russian New Year Favourite. (The Irony of Fate.)

Memorial plaque at 125, Vernadsky Prospekt.

Happy New Year!

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! is a two-part TV film that has been a New Year's must in Russia for over thirty years since it was first broadcast on New Year's Day in 1976. 

"The comedy born by the director Eldar Ryazanov is the most loved film of all Russia, — writes Lurkmore.—It is also an object of unbridled adoration (~) of all who are nostalgic for everything Soviet and the Soviet way of life. Every New Year from the time of its release the film is shown on at least one and sometimes several TV channels [in Russia]. Anonimus remembers an occasion when the film was on on three main TV channels at the same time (but staggered, not synchronised.) On New Year's night, it has become a good tradition in true Russian families to contemplate this example of the art of cinema with vodka-heavy eyes and a mouthfuls of festive olivier salad (because it will be off the next day.) A whole generation of citizens has grown and matured who have been watching The Irony of Fate from age two. They can imagine the holiday without the film no more as without the chimes of the Kremlin clock tower, olivier and hellish hangover on the morning of the 1 January. And they successfully instill the beautiful tradition in their children."

Dialogues in the film are in a perfectly correct Russian, to the point of being bland. This makes it a good aid for language lessons.

The songs, all of which have become national hits, are to the poems by Yevgeniy Yevtushenko, Marina Tsvetayeva (two), Bella Akhmadulina, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Aronov, Vladimir Kirshon and Mikhail Lvovsky. They are sung by Alla Pugachyova and Sergei Nikitin. 

Here is the film in full with English subtitles.
(Episode 1, from the official Mosfilm YouTube channel)



(Episode 2, embedding disabled, link only)

Photo: Felixgor. Memorial plaque on the entrance to the apartment building where the film was shot in 1975.