As morning broke over the Ukrainian city of Kherson last summer, those fumbling for their radios at 7am might have heard a Russian presenter greeting the day with his surreal imitation of a motivational video.
“As Lenin said: ‘In work we are forged.’ I too was an orangutan in a zoo, but when I started working hard I bought a car, built myself a villa in Crimea and even raised my IQ. Work as hard all day and you’ll be like me.”
Later, at 3pm, between a jazz-and-metal medley and a quiz with donuts for prizes, listeners could have heard a political discussion on the theme of “the Americans screwed up. Let’s make the Alaska People’s Republic exist” – a reference to the US state’s history under the Russian empire, before it was sold to the Americans in 1867.
