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The war on Cheburashka: How Russia’s box office smash ignited a conservative revolt

Source: Meduza

Russia’s domestic box office has a rare smash hit. “Cheburashka 2,” this year’s sequel to the 2023 live-action film adapting Soviet writer Eduard Uspensky’s beloved “animal unknown to science” (as the creature is famously described), has already generated more than five billion rubles ($65.1 million) in ticket sales. The movie is on track to outperform its predecessor, which earned a record 7.1 billion rubles ($92.4 million) during its theatrical run. Despite strong commercial success, the production has provoked outrage from some conservatives. The prominent “Eurasianist” right-wing philosopher Alexander Dugin has led the backlash, and several State Duma deputies now echo his criticisms. Meduza examines the reasons for the controversy.

Alexander Dugin’s objections to Cheburashka are nothing new, but his criticism has intensified

Dugin spoke out about the new film as early as January 5. In his Telegram channel, he wrote: “If we continue this unhealthy obsession with Cheburashka, the Lord will surely curse us. Come to your senses, people.” He did not say whether he had actually seen the film.

Dugin’s call to action went largely unnoticed, and on January 13, he published another series of short posts about Cheburashka:

The next day, Dugin was invited to talk about Cheburashka on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio. There, he said that both Cheburashka and Gena the Crocodile (Eduard Uspensky’s other protagonist) are “brainrot,” arguing that their story is alien to Russian culture. “Cheburashka’s appearance coincides with the transition to philistine values and infantilism,” Dugin explained, saying the character’s popularity threatens modern Russia’s fight with the West “for the right to remain in history.” Dugin did not mince words, telling radio listeners that Cheburashka “dismantled” the Soviet Union. The production of such films is “sabotage against the revival of Russia’s state-civilization,” he added. “I consider it a crime.”

Dugin also criticized the first Cheburashka film. In 2023, he wrote: “I understand that I’m going against everyone here, but Cheburashka is absolutely not what Russia needs. We do not need Cheburashka — this is some kind of feeble-mindedness.” Lecturing on “Russia’s New Ideology” that same year, he said again that he despises Cheburashka, describing the creature as a “rootless cosmopolitan” unfit to serve as a national symbol.

Throughout the year, Dugin returned to these Cheburashka criticisms again and again. For example, the big-eared, monkey-like character popped up in his writing about A.I. (“There is nothing viler or more deceitful than a liberal. They are simply scum. But A.I. is not scum; it’s simply artificial. Like, God forgive me, Cheburashka.”) and a lecture on the decline of Russia’s patriotic movement (“Liberals have sharply declined culturally since the [war in Ukraine]. But against this backdrop, patriots, alas, have not significantly improved their image. Consider the rabid defense of Cheburashka.”) When addressing teenagers in Crimea in February 2023, Dugin brought up Cheburashka yet again.

Dugin remained fixated on Cheburashka throughout 2025. Last summer, he started using the word itself as an insult, analogous to “buffoon,” against Russians who reject the idea of fighting the European Union (“pure Cheburashkas”). He also denounced “Russian digitalizers with Cheburashka faces” for introducing American “network weaponization.” 

The release of Cheburashka 2 — and its enormous box office success — only reignited Dugin’s rage.

State Duma deputies join the criticism, denouncing the Cheburashka films as ‘cash grabs’

On January 14, the State Duma’s Culture Committee convened a scheduled session. Attendees included committee head and United Russia member Olga Kazakova; New People party deputy and actor Dmitry Pevtsov; singer and United Russia member Denis Maidanov; actress and Just Russia member Elena Drapeko; United Russia member Alexander Sholokhov (the grandson of writer Mikhail Sholokhov), and others.

The participants had planned to discuss the selection process for films receiving public funding, but within half an hour, the conversation had devolved into a debate on the state of Russian cinema. While discussing allocations for children’s movies, the lawmakers began discussing remakes of Soviet animated classics. Ivan Musatov, an LDPR deputy with no professional background in the arts, asserted that the production of Russia’s children’s entertainment is now in the hands of those “who couldn’t leave for the West”:

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian film industry has seen a boom in fairy tales. In January, moviegoers could purchase tickets not only for Cheburashka 2 but also for Prostokvashino and Buratino. Recent theatrical releases include The Wizard of the Emerald City: The Yellow Brick Road, Upon the Pike’s Wish, The Bremen Town Musicians, The Tinderbox, Little Kuzya the House Spirit, and Finist: The First Warrior.

Dmitry Dyachenko, the director of the Cheburashka films, has not publicly expressed an opinion on the war in Ukraine — a silence that Duma deputy Ivan Musatov highlighted in his remarks. Reflecting on his Cheburashka films, Dyachenko said last month: “I really just want our movie to get people out of their daily grind, shake things up, and make them realize — even just for 90 minutes — that the most important thing in life is family and our relationships with our children and parents.”

Actor Dmitry Pevtsov, who serves as the committee’s first deputy chairman, was even more outspoken. He declared that Cheburashka “corrupts children” and accused filmmakers of a shameless “cash grab.” Pevtsov also complained that the film lacks role models and positive human characters, and that it relies on a “badly animated” fictional animal for its moral compass. “We need to stop caring what the people think,” he said. “I’m speaking cynically, but that’s the situation in [Russian] cinema right now. What is released on screens and earns enormous amounts of money has nothing to do with cinema or art.”

So, what actually happens in this diabolical film?

The plot centers on Cheburashka living with Gena (Sergey Garmash). Cheburashka’s attempts to help Gena invariably complicate life further. After a disagreement, Cheburashka escapes to the mountains with friends Sonya and Grisha. Their carefree trip hits all the expected snags, and the adults eventually arrive to save everyone. The film concludes with the characters resolving their differences and recognizing the importance of listening to one another.

The movie is a joint project of the Yellow, Black, and White studio, the online cinema START, and the Rossiya television channel, with additional participation from Soyuzmultfilm and Russia’s Cinema Fund. The film’s distributor is Central Partnership (a subsidiary of Gazprom-Media Holding), with Sber serving as the general partner. The movie’s plot is not based on Eduard Uspensky’s original books; the filmmakers merely adapted only his principal characters.

In response to Pevtsov’s remarks, Elena Drapeko, an actress and deputy from the Just Russia party, proposed annulling Article 9 of Russia’s culture law — a move that would allow the Culture Ministry to intervene more directly in the film industry’s creative process. Today, Article 9 essentially grants Russians the right to create art and express themselves freely, prioritizing individual rights in this sphere over those of the state. Its repeal would potentially open the door to even stricter censorship.

Cheburashka’s screenwriter responds to the criticism

In mid-January, Cheburashka 2 screenwriter Vyacheslav Zub told Radio Sputnik that “everyone has the right to their own opinion.” Asked about the backlash to the film, Zub remarked, “We all see through the prism of what we wish to see.” Zub said the film’s production team did not intend to demonize the main character or portray him as infantile:

In a rebuttal to Dmitry Pevtsov’s assertion that the film lacks positive characters, the outlet T-J noted in its review that the protagonists are “always in the right, the villains are absurd and suffer easy defeats, and everyone adheres to their archetypal roles.” The review argues that the characters’ internal conflicts are compelling “because everyone here has their own truth.” By the end of the film, even the cartoonish villain Larion is revealed to be just another “misunderstood person who just needs love.”

Lidiya Maslova, a film critic for Kinopoisk, characterizes the movie’s storytelling as “repetitive, recycling the same tricks (even verbal gags) over and over, piling up the same situations, and ultimately just cloning the main character.” According to a review from the streaming service Okko, the film’s central narrative “splinters into gags and moral lessons, blurring the impression left by the key storyline about the family discord between Gena and Cheburashka.”

Currently, the film holds a rating of 7.3 on Kinopoisk — a minor decline from the first installment’s 7.5 score. Russian celebrities who attended the premiere have rallied behind the movie. Actress Elizaveta Boyarskaya wrote on Instagram, “Well, I certainly didn’t plan to cry like that at this movie.” Alexander Lykov, the actor who played the Hunter in the film, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta that “Russians would be better off hanging homegrown Cheburashkas on their bags instead of Labubus.”