Apart from the Soviet writers' prolific input into the children literature, a great deal of stories was translated into Russian, so the kids of the USSR grew up on the stories by Hans Andersen, Charles Pierrot and the Grimm brothers. Often the translators took the liberty of changing the plot of the storyline: this is how the famous book by A. Milne "Winnie the Pooh" in its Russian version features no Tigger yet there are some extra characters not from the original script. Arguably, it allowed the translator to become somewhat of an author and hence their name went onto the book cover (this is what happened to the Russian version of The Wizard of Oz). As cartoon making was one of the most developed (and certainly less censored ones) graphic arts, it can be of interest to see how the Russian animators saw the traditional Western fairy tales characters.
Piglet, Winnie the Pooh and Rabbit. 1969
The story of Pinocchio (Buratino in Russia) is another fine example of how things got transformed on the way from Italy to the USSR: the plot retains very little of the original story, and the only thing unchanged is the wooden puppet.
Pierrot, Buratino (the Russian Pinnocchio), and Malvina, the beautiful female puppet friend. 1969
Little Red Riding Hood
The Jungle Book: Mowgli, Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther and Kaa the python. 1973
Dr Doolittle. 1984
The Treasure Island. 1984
The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy (Ellie in the Russian version, for some reason); the Scarecrow; the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man. 1974
Puss in Boots. 1968
The Nutcracker, with the original music by Tchaikovsky. 1973.
However, we would fall short of a fair story if we did not mention the most famous Russian cartoon of all times - Well, Just You Wait, Hare! It is an original Russian-made script and the plot line, with a loose resemblance of the Tom & Jerry cartoon. The cartoon is a slapstick adventure of the Hare who is being chased by the Wolf, and each episode (there were 16 of them altogether) has its own wee plot. The popularity of it was so huge that possibly everyone born in the USSR still has the nicest memories of it. During the hay days of the Soviet power, this series were imported into the countries of the Eastern Bloc, as well as China, India and some other pro-socialist countries where it found to be liked by the audience, due to very little spoken language and a happy end of each episode. You can still buy an adapted version on amazon and enjoy it just as much, almost 40 years later.
The Wolf and the Hare: Well, Just You Wait! 1969
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