Pub "13 Chairs"

Pub "13 Chairs" (Russian: Кабачок «13 стульев») was a variety entertainment and comedy television program produced by Soviet Central Television. It aired from 16 January 1966 to 4 October 1980. The show was set in a studio designed to resemble a Polish pub. Its characters performed sketches, monologues, and musical numbers, often adapted from humor magazines from the Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland's Szpilki, Hungary's Ludas Matyi, Bulgaria's Starshel, East Germany's Eulenspiegel, and the Soviet Union's Krokodil. The main roles of the café’s patrons were primarily played by actors from the Moscow Satire Theatre. The program's chief director was Georgy Zelinsky. Over 15 years, a total of 133 episodes were produced. The show ended in 1980 following the political crisis in Poland. All characters refer to each other with Polish forms of polite address: "pan/pani", meaning "mister/mistress".