Posted on: Oct 15 2007
1 
We’ve heard all the jokes about Soviet Russia, but who came up with the joke anyway? Turns out it’s a Russian immigrant living in the USA. Yakov Smirnoff emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1977, becoming a citizen in 1984.
He was a room-mate of A.D. Clay, the famously rude and crass comedian, and started his own brand of stand up comedy. Although it has been quite some time since Mr. Smirnoff has been touring, his jokes live on across the internet in the form of the Russian Reversal joke.
Wikipedia notes:
Russian reversal is a type of joke popularized by Smirnoff. The general form of the Soviet Russia joke is that the subject and objects of a statement are reversed, and “In Soviet Russiaâ€, or something equivalent, is added. For example:
- In the US, you catch a cold.
- In Soviet Russia, cold catches you!
- In the US, you can always find a party.
- In Soviet Russia, the Party finds you!
Although Mr. Smirnoff has lost his superstar status his jokes live on through 3nglish.co.uk and thousands of meme websites.
More information on Yakov is available on his website.
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i dont know what it meeeans!
In Soviet Russia it doesn’t know what you mean!
i came up the the soviate russia joke but in soviate russia it cmae up with me