Chicks Rule the Screen

Russian women shine in a fresh TV series

A new series has taken Russia by storm this summer. Set in a provincial Caucasian town, Chiki (Chicks) is about four girlfriends trying to escape their lives as sex workers and launch a fitness club – the first in the area. Battling a lack of money, ridicule, and violence, the four characters stick together, taking everything in stride. The series is full of humor and the beautiful, at times unnerving, southern scenery of cornfields, watermelons, and dusty roadside kebob cafes.

The series was the brainchild of Eduard Oganesyan and Irina Gorbacheva, an actress who plays one of the main characters – the spunky Zhanna who returns to her sleepy hometown in a fancy red car, dreaming of making a new life for herself, her son, and her three friends.

Gorbacheva, a comedic actress who became an Instagram star a few years ago through her hilarious sketches, later said they struggled to finance the pilot episode due to the show’s salty, realistic themes. The show was finally picked up by the online platform More.TV, where it became an instant hit. By early August, some 13 million had viewed it, growing the platform’s clients by 250 percent.

But the show has also had its critics. One activist, Olga Baranets, actually filed a complaint with the police, saying the show “propagated LGBT ideas.” She and others perhaps took issue with a scene in the pilot where Zhanna’s young son dons her clothes and makeup, pretending he is on stage. But the channel argued in response that the series is rated “18 and over,” and watching any show other than the pilot requires registration and payment.

“The project carries a deep message about the necessity of correcting social roles and brings attention to the importance of family, the importance of fathers’ participation in the bringing up of children,” the show declared on Instagram.

Besides Gorbacheva, the show has another internet star, the vlogger Anton Lapenko, who became a sensation with his sketches reminiscent of 1990s television. In the series, he plays a policeman. The other main actors are Alyona Mikhailova, Irina Nosova, and Varvara Shmykova, who had a small role in Andrei Zvyagintsev’s film Nelyubov.

Critics have mostly lauded the show. Esquire Russia called it a “very important and honest series about women in Russia that everyone needs to watch.” The influential critic Anton Dolin raved about the project, calling it a “huge success.” Meduza's Yegor Moskvitin said that “The comedy, which begins eccentrically, gradually turns into something else: either a thriller about persecution, or a tragedy about an act of bravery that seems doomed to failure.”