Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, companies and organizations rushed to the former Communist countries to impart western and democratic ideals on what they believed were a populace that was open to those ideas. One of the most interesting experiments in teaching young children was the brief and slightly crazy story of how Sesame Street came to Russia. Sesame Street back in the day was a tool used to spread Western ideals to other countries, many countries now have their own versions or air the United States version. Sesame Street was kept out of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union for this exact reason until the mid-1990s when everything collapsed. At that time the producers and creators of Sesame Street were invited by educators to help develop a local product, that sadly did not last very long before it came under military and propagandist control. The story itself is extremely interesting, but sadly the writing style is not as interesting as the story. There are elements where the author is writing from her experiences visiting Russia today, and elements from the past. Just falls flat in the end.