MOSCOW, April 2 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has attended the inauguration of a building that will host the Club of the Cheerful and Sharp-Witted, or the KVN, humor show in Moscow.
The ceremony took place on Monday night at the former Havana cinema building, which has been remodeled with Putin’s backing to accommodate Russia’s most popular and funny student show.
“They say an artist must be poor if he wants to create works of genius. We do not believe so,” Putin said, addressing KVN teams from five Russian cities and fans of the show.
He congratulated the KVN creators and said the efforts of all those involved in the show “have turned it into the most powerful mass youth movement.”
The Club of the Cheerful and Sharp-Witted show was created in 1961. The Soviet authorities banned the program in 1971 for its sharp humor and satire. The show reappeared in TV programming in 1986.
President Putin is a well known fan of the KVN games. He has attended the show three times — in 2004, 2006 and 2011.
“I am particularly pleased with the fact that this is a domestic intellectual product,” Putin earlier said.
