I watched the first episode but I shan't see any more. For an English person, this is just not viable. Scenes where the dialogue is in English are not subtitled in Russian but dealt with by a "Lektor", an infernal method used in Poland and Russia. For those unfamiliar with the system, it's not dubbing. What happens is that the sound of the English dialogue reduces markedly until it can barely be heard and a Russian speaker comes in saying "So-and-so is saying blah blah blah" and then when another character speaks, "Such-and-such is saying meuh meuh meuh" and so on. It's just awful. So one has to read subtitles while one's own language is being spoken because the dialogue remains tantalisingly quiet and this Lektor is speaking over it anyway.
So much went on and so many characters were introduced or died that it was hard to work out who was who. This isn't helped by the use of full names or patronymics along with first names after the Russian fashion.
I'm sure that for Russians, this must be a well-paced drama that they can follow. For a non-Russian speaker, it's just too much.
So much went on and so many characters were introduced or died that it was hard to work out who was who. This isn't helped by the use of full names or patronymics along with first names after the Russian fashion.
I'm sure that for Russians, this must be a well-paced drama that they can follow. For a non-Russian speaker, it's just too much.
