2010: A Russian Odyssey

Kolombo

After watching about two hours of “Kolombo” (Columbo) with my host father Andrey, I now have a greater appreciation for the series. I always just passed by it whenever I saw it on KDOC (really there’s rarely anything worthwhile on KDOC), but it’s actually a really great detective show. Andrey really likes the actor Peter Falk and how he puts together all the pieces of the puzzle throughout the show (“Look! They are staging this to trick the police, but they won’t trick Columbo!”)

It was during Columbo that I was first unable to convey my point in Russian. The first episode we watched was from the 1990s and the second was from the 1970s – in the second episode Columbo ALWAYS had a cigar in his mouth or a glass of alcohol in his hand. I was trying to point this out and comment on how smoking and drinking has been phased out on American television, but it just didn’t work. I probably sounded something like “It’s interesting how Columbo to smoke and to drink in the seven but right now no smoke.”

My other observation made while watching Columbo was that people watching American television shows in Russian get a very unfortunately poor experience. There is one man dubbing all the male voices and one woman dubbing all the female voices in the show, and they rarely use emotion or inflection in dialogue. Although this is probably good for the Russian economy, I don’t really think it’s a better viewing experiencing than watching with subtitles. At least with subtitles you know how the dialogue is originally being spoken. All the grittiness of Columbo’s voice is lost with the Russian voice-over. Movies are a little more professional though, they seem to use multiple voice actors.

As a side note, I’ve been playing a lot of charades with my host family (not literally playing, but we often act out what we’re trying to say). Some of my favorite words/phrases to act out or have acted out to me so far have been: pipe (sophisticated expression with your hand like you’re holding a wine glass), icicle (grab some ice from the freezer and make a dropping motion from it), electric chair (point to the chair and shake), lethal injection (give yourself a shot), evidence (act like you’re scattering papers across a table), and gallows (motion like you’re hanging yourself, of course). Electric chair is actually a really straightforward translation, but for some reason I thought they were asking about those massage chairs you find in Brookstone.

Also here’s a photo of the queen of the apartment: