What the World’s Watching

Russians prefer to watch their blood and gore in the comfort of their own homes. The low price of bootlegged videos and the fact that the few cinemas that haven’t closed shy away from sex and violence means there is a brisk market for violent home videos.

Konstantin Marinin, the manager of a downtown video kiosk, says it’s not so much that Russians like violence but that they have an insatiable appetite for Western films. The supply of violent films is higher and the cost to video stores lower--increasing sellers’ profit margins.

“We sell these films because they are cheap,” Marinin says. “And because America churns out hundreds of new ones a year.”

Customers are mainly men under 30. “They are the ones with a lot of time and not much money,” says Pavel Meshkov, a video kiosk owner. “An escape from reality for $1.50 to $4 is the perfect solution.”

The Russian video market brings in approximately $700 million a year, according to U.S trade officials. Of that, 60% comes from movies classified as action, thriller or erotic. Eighty percent of all videos sold are pirated copies, so Hollywood gets only a small fraction of the profits.

At least so far, Russians don’t complain publicly about movie violence.

“The violence doesn’t bother me. I’m used to it,” says 27-year-old Grigory Lavrov. “Besides, it’s not as bad as ‘Road Patrol,’ ” a Russian TV program that shows real corpses at car accidents.”