Comedy in Russia is booming. But stand-ups live in fear of being jailed for jokes.
Watched more than 1.3 million times since it was posted by Russian comedy group “Plyushki” to YouTube last month, the video comes with a disclaimer. “Some of the jokes are based on wordplay and do not carry any religious, philosophical, or ideological assertion,” it says, acknowledging that comedy can be a risky business in Russia,…