Masyanya is a popular Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n online cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

 made with Macromedia Flash animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

, created by Oleg Kuvaev. The title character is a woman in her twenties who lives in an apartment in St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. Masyanya has an oval-shaped head and always wears a miniskirt

Miniskirt

A miniskirt, sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, is a skirt with a hemline well above the knees – generally no longer than below the buttocks; and a minidress is a dress with a similar meaning...

 and a shirt with a bare midriff. Aside from Masyanya, the main recurring characters in the series are:

• Hryundel' (Хрю́ндель) - her rather dense, good-natured, overall-clad boyfriend.
• Lokhmaty (Лохмáтый, Russian for "Shaggy") - their friend, a pudgy and care-free drummer.
• Lyas'ka (Ля́ська) - a girl from Moscow
  Moscow
  Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
  
   and Masyanya's friend.

A typical Masyanya episode is only a few minutes long and consists mainly of sarcastic (and frequently absurd) commentary on contemporary Russian life. Some of the most popular episodes include one in which Masyanya and Hryundel' snicker and later hysterically laugh while Hryundel' is recording a jingle on the radio; another involves a sexual encounter made impossible by the lack of "shtuchki" ("thingies"), while yet another involves the two main characters exchanging a series of increasingly awful gifts, including a horse-shaped piñata

Piñata

A piñata is a papier-mâché or other type of container that is decorated, filled with toys and or candy and then broken as part of a ceremony or celebration. Piñatas are most commonly associated with Mexico, but its origins are considered to be in China...

 and a bag of green cats.

The episodes are generally loosely connected, but the characters do not age. For most of the episodes, no particular sequence or storyline can be established. They can be watched in any order, but some episodes lose a great deal of their charm if one isn't familiar with at least some series history.

Russian pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 songs are often used in the soundtracks of episodes. Several episodes are, in essence, music videos set to a particular song.

Masyanya's popularity is rapidly growing on both sides of the Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. In Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Masyanya made the move from the Internet to television and can now be seen on several cartoons and talk shows, although its popularity is mainly supported by the Internet. In 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...

, translations are being made of some of the more popular episodes. In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Masyanya has become an integral feature of the Middlebury College

Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...

 Summer Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 Language Program in Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

.

External links

- cartoons in Russian, freely available for viewing on the site (Flash

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

plug-in required) and for downloading as stand-alone Windows executables (require no preinstalled software and can be run in full-screen mode). File sizes are in the 1-5 Mbyte range.

• English translations of some cartoons