Video: Late Night With Alex And Dima

Glasnost hits Soviet TV, and viewers are riveted

It is 11:15 p.m. A suave young man in a red tie and gray pinstripe suit is seen walking through a grove of trees outside Moscow's Ostankino television center. Vladimir Molchanov, 37, host of the late-night television show Before and After Midnight, is opening his monthly broadcast with an elegiac monologue on the passing of summer. By the time Molchanov has entered the studio, oak branch in hand, Soviet viewers have been treated to brisk, taped reports on an Australian stork breeder, a Japanese horseback-riding robot and the world's largest egg. The 90-minute show also features videos from rock stars like...

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