After losing job and friends, stand-up comedienne apologizes again, this time in tears, for upsetting cultural conservatives in North Ossetia

Under pressure because of a joke from last year about ethnic Ossetians, stand-up comedienne Ariana Lolaeva has now apologized twice in tearful messages on social media. The apologies follow a video from a “Roast Battle” in 2020 that started spreading in North Ossetian online groups on October 9, 2021. In the footage, fellow comic Alexander Ni tells Lolaeva that she has “Ossetian pie between her thighs.” As the news outlet Baza explains, this dish has specifical significance for Ossetians particularly because it’s associated with the “rite of the three pies,” which according to some versions symbolizes God, the Sun, and the Earth.

The same day that the footage went public, both Lolaeva and Ni published apologies on Instagram. Ni said that the backlash helped him realize the joke’s “outright stupidity,” while Lolaeva accepted responsibility for failing to explain to her partner that he was broaching something “sacred.” 

Three days later, Lolaeva shared a second apology, indicating that she got a “serious talking to” and now understands the “full scale of the tragedy and level of colossal damage” inflicted on everyone who saw the joke. Weeping, she reveals that she’s already lost her job and many of her friends, and she says she doesn’t want to be an “enemy of the people.”

In early August, a Russian court jailed comedian Idrak Mirzalizade (a Belarusian citizen of Azerbaijani descent) for 10 days for allegedly inciting hatred against ethnic Russians because of remarks he made about xenophobia during a comedy program (while observing that Moscow landlords prefer Slavic tenants, Mirzalizade joked that ethnic Russians smear themselves in feces before sleeping). Mirzalizade later apologized for the joke.

In late August, the Interior Ministry banned Mirzalizade from returning to Russia for the rest of his life, declaring him permanently “undesirable” and a “threat to public order and citizens’ rights.” The comedian challenged this decision in court and a judge has ordered the police to limit Mirzalizade’s entry ban to a “reasonable” term.