The Brandeis Big Russian Klub walloped their opponent from the University of Chicago, 34.5-29.2, Saturday night at the fifth annual final of the American version the highly popular cultural Russian competition titled Klub Vesoluh y Nahodchevih (KBH), which roughly translates into English as the Club of Jolly and Improvisational (translated on the KBH website as the "Humorous Acting Game"). The Brandeis team performed brilliantly, hitting most of their jokes and eliciting much laughter and applause from an audience of over 500 Russian speaking observers who packed the Melrose High School auditorium to cheer for their favorite team (which, for the majority of the audience, was Brandeis - although Chicago had their supporters travel with them as well). The competition is one of intellectual and witty humor, including dancing and parodying of songs and people, usually written to a specific theme. The winner is picked by a panel of judges, usually comprised of well-known celebrities and writers within the Russian community, who judge the teams based on their performance in each of the six different segments, ranging from answering conundrums, captains' competition and theatrical enactments.

Brandeis' margin of victory appears small; however, the five point victory can be best equated to five touchdowns in football - as it is hard to gain more than a point per event on an opponent. While Brandeis was impressive in all of its six acts, the performance that astonished the audience and the judges was by a black student of Russian, Aaron Crutchfield. It is highly unusual for a non-native Russian to compete; it is uncanny for a black nonnative student of Russian to compete.

His only performance of the night was nothing short of amazing as he flawlessly sang a parody of a Russian song "Ruskoe Polya" (roughly translated as a Russian crop field). His parody included the lyrics of him being the blackest crop of the Russian fields (community). The irony of his performance will most likely get lost in the translation, but was mostly centered on homophones and mispronunciations in the song. Not only did he get the loudest cheers and applause from the audience, he also helped Brandeis score a perfect 6.5/6.5 for the round from the judges - a feat not duplicated that night. His effort also won him numerous post show awards.

Not to downplay Chicago's performance, as putting together a KBH performance is difficult task, but their show was nowhere near the quality expected at the finals. At times their skits seemed drawn out, stale and lacking in jokes. As one of the judges accurately, although some what disrespectfully pointed out, Chicago apparently did not understand some of the formula for a successful KBH show.

No one was safe from ridicule during Brandeis' performance; they joked about the Taliban, Catholic priests and of course, the economy. A particularly good number was a dance performed by CEOs of companies pretending to have empty pockets (as if to say they aren't stealing money).

Another favorite topic of the Russian audience was the current lack of computer related jobs available. It is established throughout the Russian community that many immigrants reeducated themselves to either become systems analysts or computer programmers. However, due to a recent downturn in the economy, many have lost their jobs. A genie during the show predicted that all programmers who lost their jobs will soon be employed again . as five janitors entered the stage singing about the good old days when they used to live in Newton.

An example of Chicago's misfortunate performance was during the captains' competition, during which the captains of each team aresupposed entertain the audience, giving a short, prepared speech on a predetermined topic and then asking each other several question about the speech. Brandeis captain Grisha Ramonvsky's '97 successfully joked about the typical day of President Bush. An example, "11:00 a.m. fulfilled my duty as a husband (implies sex) 11:01 a.m. woke up." Chicago's captain weaved a tangled web about Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," which confused most of the audience.

Maybe Chicago's performance is indicative of the league or the degrading quality of the shows due to their frequency, but this final was nothing compared to the finals of several years ago between Boston University, Harvard, NYU or Ladies of New York. Recent KBH competitions have been losing their flavor during the last several years, and sometimes aren't worth the price of admission. Often, teams have acts that are gems, however they are spread out through several performances.

KBH started in the former Soviet Union sometime in the '60s as a comedic collegiate extra-curricular competition and was broadcast live, like U.S. sporting events, to the entire Soviet nation. As part of their acts, the students would make jokes which were a facade for jabbing at the political system in the Soviet Union. Being transmitted live made it difficult for the Soviet censors to accurately screen the competitions for anti-Soviet material, and as a result the competitions were soon only shown on tape delay. However, even then the censors had difficulty talking out the politically charged material from the acts and KBH was banned in the '70s. Only during Perestroika in the mid '80s was KBH reborn.

Since then, KBH has grown into a Russian pastime. Attendance and atmosphere at KBH competitions rivals that of the NCAA Basketball Championships. Versions of the competitions exist in many places of the world where there are Russian communities, including Israel, Germany, Australia, Portugal and the United States.

Although slightly modified from the Russian version, the American version is still very popular within the Russian communities in the United States, and tickets are always at a premium. It is especially successful in the New England/New York area. The American version is more culturally centered on the assimilation of the Russian community in the U.S., American politics, and less on Russia.