Q 6

PLAYBOY: Ever date a Russian woman weight lifter?

Yakov Smirnoff: No, because if I had, I wouldn't be here talking to you. When they jump your bones, they really jump your bones. Crunch. Well, there was this one girl. She looked a bit like Orson Welles, only a different-color beard. I'll tell you the truth: Russian women don't take care of themselves. There is no Oil of Olay, though there is perfume, Evening in Prison. But it's understandable. If you look at a Russian woman's night table, you see that in daytime it's a stove. Also, Russian women must work harder than men. A man can spend 18 hours behind the plow; but the woman is in front of it. So it's tough. And if you wonder why Russian men's team wins in Olympics all the time, it's because if they don't win, they become Russian women's team.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: What's the difference between a Russian and an American blow job?

Yakov Smirnoff: Simple. In America, you can get it. Also, here they don't use a gun.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Tell us some more of your Russian jokes.

Yakov Smirnoff: A comedian in Russia won first prize in a contest with the joke "How many Russians does it take to screw Poland?" There was no punch line. They gave him 20 years to provide one.

In Russia, designer jeans are called Calvin Kremlins. If they could talk, you'd be shot.

Russian TV is wonderful. We have great shows: Marx and Mindy, The Young and the Arrested, One Day to Weep, Bowling for Food. We've even got commercials: "You asked for it, You got it: hard labor." "The Russian Express Card. Don't leave home."

In the U.S., it's "innocent until proven guilty"; in Russia, "guilty until you die."

To keep warm during the Russian winter is easy. You hire a bear to hug you. But in Siberia, it's no problem. They have solar heating. No roofs.

Growing up in Russia is fun. We have wonderful schoolboy games: Simon demands. Hide and stay hidden.

Here you have freedom of speech. You can go up to Reagan and say, "I don't like Ronald Reagan." You can do the same thing in Russia. You can go up to the party chief and say, "I don't like Ronald Reagan."

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Why don't you use the word fuck in your act?

Yakov Smirnoff: Because I use yup. Yup means almost the same thing in Russian. Also, I'm planning to have a long career, and that means Atlantic City and Las Vegas and television. Those places don't accept cussing. So why waste my time developing something I won't be able to use anyway? That's the Russian school of comedy coming in handy. There it was politics and government I couldn't joke about. Here I put limits on cussing and cheap fart and shit jokes--which make me sick personally, anyway. But if I get personalized license plates for my Mercedes, they'll say YUP.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: Recently, we saw a picture of Russian kids with punk hairdos listening to Sony Walkmans. Do you think they have been co-opted by Western values? Do you think that will eventually spell the end of East-West tension?

Yakov Smirnoff: No way. The government is letting those things happen. It's the same with Sakharov and the other dissidents. The government lets them talk, because it doesn't hurt and it makes the West think they are still open-minded. A lot of Americans will see that picture and think things are not so bad in Russia. But maybe there are only five kids like that and they got them all together for the picture.

When I was on The Merv Griffin Show with Roy Clark, Roy was saying how wonderful it was in Russia; he'd been there for a few weeks. They showed him the best things they have. They took him to wonderful supermarkets. He saw happy people. But it's a setup. A friend of mine told me that when he came to America, he couldn't believe the supermarkets were real, because in Russia, they set them up to show foreigners. He thought he could go shopping again in a week and the market would have disappeared. Russia is really just like the world's biggest movie set.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Have you had any problems with the Government here?

Yakov Smirnoff: Not so far. I did in Europe. I went to Germany to get my Mercedes. They saw that my papers said I was a comedian. They said, "What is a comedian?" I said, "I make people laugh." They said, "Well, make us laugh." I said, "I don't have to do that. I have the right papers. I can do anything I want to." They said, "That's funny," and put me in jail.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: Have you ever been debriefed by any of our Government agencies?

Yakov Smirnoff: Yes, a couple of times. They just wanted to make sure I was legit in what I was doing. They saw me on television after I'd been in America only six months. and since my records said I couldn't speak English, they wondered how I'd learned so fast. So I got a visit from a couple of guys in New York. It was very intelligent, not like K.G.B.--no arm twisting. When they realized I was for real and had nothing to hide, they were supportive and wished me luck.