Posted on 08/21/2026 1:20:05 PM PDT by fruser1
Russia marks Cheburashka's 60th birthday on August 20 amid indications officials in the country may be set to disown the beloved character over claims he represents a dark force corrupting Russia's children, along with debate over the creature's "ethnicity."
Amid the record-breaking success of an eponymous 2023 film about Cheburashka and its 2026 sequel, Aleksandr Dugin, a prominent pro-Kremlin political theorist, has repeatedly railed against the character, whom he has variously described as a "lunar demon" and "rootless cosmopolitan" (a pejorative Stalin-era term for a Jewish person) responsible in part for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In December a lawmaker sparked debate by declaring "Cheburashka is a Jew" during a discussion on state funding for a domestic Russian toy.
Cheburashka first appeared as a character in the 1966 children's book Crocodile Gena And His Friends by Eduard Uspensky. The creature lived in a "distant tropical forest" and arrived by accident in the Soviet Union after falling asleep inside a crate of oranges being shipped to the USSR.
After the crate was delivered to a fruit shop in a Soviet city, a mystified sales clerk placed the creature onto a table, but, with its paws numb from his long journey, the animal flopped onto the floor. In a play on the archaic Russian verb "cheburakhnutsya" (to fall down), the shopkeeper exclaimed "Good grief, look at this Cheburashka!"
The storekeeper attempted to hand Cheburashka to the local zoo, but he was refused as as no one knew where to place a creature "unknown to science."
Uspensky was not Jewish, and his ex-wife recently dismissed claims that Cheburashka represented the ethnicity as "nonsense." Cheburashka's origin story describes his home as a "dense tropical forest," which does not obviously align with Israel's climate or landscape.
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
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There are a couple recent movies that came out with the critter. The first stop-motion one from 1969.
Some soldiers carry it out to Ukraine.
Other links:
Example of CDS elitist writings
“rootless cosmopolitan”
Is that like a dazzling urbanite?
I don’t know, but it sounds rather rakish and glamorous.
I guess people just don’t have enough stuff to worry about in the world...
My wife is a huge fan of Cheburashka. We have 3 in the house, including a Christmas ornamamenf. Takes him on vacations with us. Brought one into the hospital last year when I was getting treatment for leukemia.
I’m like “whatever.”
Yes, “He was born in the city, concrete under his feet.”
In West Philadelphia, born and raised..
Well, the thing does look a little like Will Smith.
Someone in East Asia should clone this thing, sell it to tween girls and make a fortune.
In my day, Cheburashka was a beloved character, along with his friend Crocodile Gena, and a wonderful and kind animated cartoon adored by kids. And the songs from it were very popular, like the Blue Railway Car or Let The Passers-By Run Clumsily Over the Rain Puddles. Those freaks are looking everywhere for enemies now. Now they want to take away our childhood memories. What’s next, Nu, Pogodi? Getting more and more like IRI.
sounds like a term for “Jewish”.
It sounds like that to you?
that or gypsies.
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