Russian cartoons

One thing I remember most about my television watching while in Russia was the interesting animation "filler" that would show up between shows. Other things that I remember were the surreal endings to many Soviet films that made no sense [for example, a film about Tchaikovsky suddently turns into a movie with horses galloping in slo-mo through chest-high snow], and gratuitous breast exposure, but for this post I'll stick to the animation. I've not quite figured out how to include the actual pic of the cartoon like other blogs do, so I'll just include links.

Speaking of links, YouTube has some fantastic examples of thesse cartoons, some of which are rather rare. A more modern cartoon is The Ends of the Earth, which had me laughing pretty much the whole time. And yes, I believe the cow's name is Martha.

Soviet-era composers, many of them, made their money from writing soundtracks to various movies, and some, including Shostakovich and Alfred Schnittke, also wrote soundtracks to some of these cartoons. Here's an example of Schnittke's work with Ballerina on a Boat. I don't believe this soundtrack has been recorded anywhere else.

And then there is this one entitled Gagarin after the famous Cosmonaut. There are quite a few others out there.