03 February 2010

Russian Version of Sesame Street Promotes Creativity, Tolerance

Ulitsa Sezam enjoys long tenure, commands eager young audience

Characters on the U.S. version of Sesame Street have entertained and educated children for decades.

By Carrie Lowenthal Massey
Special Correspondent

Washington — Businka, a 3-year-old Muppet on Ulitsa Sezam, the Russian production of the U.S. children’s show Sesame Street, encourages her viewers to shed their inhibitions and let their creativity flow through art.

Businka’s audience, preschool-age Russian children, send her paintings and drawings, which she displays on the show while she sings songs about her own love for art.

“Through Businka, we were trying to say, ‘All types of art are valid; make your big Van Gogh flower, make a house that’s kind of abstract,’” Sesame Workshop producer Basia Nikonorow said in a press release. Sesame Workshop is the New York City-based nonprofit organization that supports Sesame Street programming and conducts additional educational outreach in more than 140 countries throughout the world.

Fostering creativity and artistic expression reflects one of Ulitsa Sezam’s educational missions. The arts play an integral role in Russian culture, and parents expose their children to art from a young age, according to Sesame Workshop. Businka and her friends try to teach children to let go of a sense of rules and boundaries when it comes to art and to think freely as they design their own pieces.

Throughout its 14-year run on Russian television, Ulitsa Sezam has focused on educating its young audiences about timely issues. This production model mirrors that of the original Sesame Street, which first aired on American public broadcasting on November 10, 1969. Now the longest-running children’s television program, Sesame Street and its 25 international partner productions have taught children to think in new ways.

In 1996, Ulitsa Sezam began broadcasting with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Open Society Institute (a New York-based foundation), and Nestlé Russia. The show’s initial curriculum centered on themes of change to help children adapt to the changes Russia faced as it continued its transition to democracy from the Soviet era. Topics included voting, acceptance of differences among people from various ethnic groups, familiarization with the foods associated with the many nationalities living in Russia and tolerance for people with disabilities.

“We worked on breaking down some stereotypes,” said Robin Hessman, an American documentary filmmaker who studied film in Russia and worked as a producer on Ulitsa Sezam from 1995 through 1999. “We also showed different ways to solve problems, and the importance of try, try again.”

Businka, a character on Ulitsa Sezam, the Russian version of Sesame Street, is introduced in 1996.

As far as Hessman could tell, the first episodes of the program reached an eager audience.

“There was no other educational, entertaining show for Russian preschoolers in the 1990s. It was very exciting. I actually remember when it finally aired I was packing to go home for Christmas and looking out the window. … I looked across the u-shaped building I lived in and could see that all the TVs I saw — there were about seven — were all watching. I could tell from the way the colors were changing,” she said. After a year and a half of preparation, Hessman explained, actually seeing the production on the air was somewhat surreal.

Even if its debut felt otherworldly to Hessman, Ulitsa Sezam built on its foundation of helping children adapt to real-life situations. In 2006, the show tackled the sensitive issue of adoption, introducing a young boy named Kolya who was adopted by Aunt Dinara and her husband, Uncle Jura. A film about a girl who lives in an orphanage sought to educate young children about adoption and increase a positive reception for orphans and the adoption process.

Live-action films incorporated into Ulitsa Sezam episodes have helped to take young audiences to the different regions of Russia as well as to neighboring countries, including Armenia, Georgia and Uzbekistan. The films let children see people “in their native environments,” producer Nikonorow said in a press release. One film shows a young Siberian boy whose grandfather teaches him to lasso a reindeer’s antlers.

The films contribute to the show’s celebration of Russian creativity and art.

“There’s a very strong film tradition in Russia, a storytelling with pictures … where you tell a story much more with pictures than with words,” Nikonorow said.

Hessman has seen firsthand how the characters, films and lessons of Ulitsa Sezam have come to shape today’s generation of Russian youth, while reflecting the country’s modern values of creativity and self-expression. She recently completed a documentary film for which she interviewed several Russian adults about growing up behind the Iron Curtain and the contrasting experience of raising children in today’s democratic society. Hessman’s subjects included two schoolteachers, and she spent time in their classrooms, witnessing how their students learn and interact.

“From just having made a film where a lot takes place in school, I know the people in the film do get a sense that younger generations are more individualistic and are not afraid to be different. There were social ramifications if you were different in the past. Kids today have a lot more autonomy and self-confidence, and people in their 30s have shared that perspective,” Hessman said.

Designing the academic curriculums and melding all of the components needed to bring Ulitsa Sezam to life can prove challenging and tiresome, but Yana Shelygina, executive producer at DIXI-TV, Sesame Workshop’s Russian co-producer, said the enthusiastic response she sees from children makes her work on the show worthwhile.

“The charge of positivity that you get within the work process, when afterwards you hear or see how children react to Ulitsa Sezam — that is really wonderful,” she said in a press release.