Kazan, 1989. Crime is exploding. As in any city in the Soviet Union, it trains young teenagers to fight against enemy gangs down the street. Slovo Patsana. Krov na asphalte (“Boy’s Word. Blood on the Asphalt”), a Russian series released in November 2023 on the Start platform, tells the story of this lawless world of the streets of Soviet Tatarstan, struck by extreme precariousness.
In Russia, the formula is a hit: punctuated with insults in matt roussky (the Russian dialect) and violent fights, the soap opera already boasts seven million spectators. A success which goes beyond Russian borders and is exported to other countries of the former USSR such as Kazakhstan, Belarus… and Ukraine, where this craze for the series worries the authorities.
Although the work makes no reference to the war in Ukraine and avoids political messages – apart from some mockery of the last upheavals of the Soviet Union – the enthusiasm of the Ukrainian public, who pirated the episodes despite the ban from the Ministry of Culture, poses a problem in kyiv. The series remains in fact financed by a Russian state organization. Several Ukrainian personalities have spoken out to condemn the viewing of Slovo Patsana, synonymous with glorification of the Soviet Union, or even a form of “sympathy” with the enemy. In Ukraine, the war against Moscow is also playing out on the small screen.