Left to right, top: Borya (our director), Max (captain), Misha (aka Poruchik), Misha (saluting), Leon (aka Leonich), Leon Taycher (aka Lodrion), Stas (aka DJ Stas), Milena, Felix (aka Mr. X), Vadim (guy with a beard, aka Botsman), Lena (aka Lentochka), Lenya Mirkis. Left to right, bottom: me (aka Progressor), Arthur (biting the guitar), Sasha (aka Shchuka), Natasha, Olya (in charge of the musical accompaniment), Mashka and Belka (in a winter hat).
What is KVN? It's a Russian thing...the closest thing to it that I have seen in America is an improv comedy competition. Think of it as humorous sketches much like ones you can see on Saturday Night Live (unlike SNL these sketches are funny too), done as a team in a formal competition with guest judges. Each competition has a) a main topic, like Health and Medicine or Gambling b) sub-competitions such as the Warm-Up, the Introduction, the Captains Competition, the Musical, Cross-Questioning etc. c) points awarded based on ingenuity, artistic talent and fun factor of the jokes. Many universities/colleges have their own teams comprised of Russian students. The competition is hierarchical, i.e. there are quarter-finals, half-finals and finals and the winner proceeds to the next round. This ain't your father's stale static compedy. KVN is as dynamic and powerful as comedy can get, and that, my friend, is why the tickets are sold out months before the competition takes place no matter how large an auditorium is rented.
Misha, me and Max--always ready to take on a challenge.	Lodrion, Leonich and Misha mingle after a three-hour long rehearsal.
Me, Misha and Arturich, in a prison, picking work assignments.
These pictures are taken during the final rehearsal on the 4th of April, 1998, just before the finals of 1998. KVN is a lot of hard work: for every competition we needed to come up with a script (which is hard enough, because it has to be funny on the verge of being ingenuous). But that is just the first part. After the roles were assigned, we had to meet for two months three days a week for 4-hour rehearsals late at night. In the final week before the actual performance, we met every day to polish the act. While during the rehearsals you think that you will go crazy of being tired, hungry and doing the same scene for the twentieth time while not quite meeting Borya's expectations, it all becomes worth it later on, during the performance, when you step on the stage and every couple of words that you say cause an avalanche of laughter in the audience of thousands of people.
These are my KVN buddies and those were glorious times.

Introducing ourselves...

Victorious and glorius bastards! (Note my strategic location)

Grandma, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf; hilarity continues!

Misha gets force-fed by his MOMMA.

How about that eggplant salad, folks?