Who were the ‘raeshniks’ & why were they Tsarist Russia’s first ‘TV’?

The ‘raeshnik’ was extremely simple: a small wooden box with magnifying glasses, inside which a long strip of popular prints was rewound. The ‘Severnaya Pchela’ newspaper described the play in 1842 as "a small, mobile cosmorama, carried on the shoulders of a Russian peasant, who explains wondrous deeds to the audience in his own language – rhymed prose – complete with sayings and jokes. It'll make you cry from laughter!" 

The ‘raeshnik’ owes its name to its original plots: it showed "paradise and flour and for no more than a kopeck apiece", meaning the repertoire was based on biblical stories. However, over time, scenes from sacred history were supplanted by topical relevance and the ‘raeshnik’ evolved into a mixture of media and stand-up comedy.

The performances were, initially, very popular in Moscow, especially during ‘Maslenitsa’ and Easter festivities. In the 1830s, they migrated to St. Petersburg.

But, the main attraction here was, of course, not the picture box, but its owner – the magician who operated it.

His rhymed commentary – the so-called "raeshny verse" – was the main attraction. The pictures, often dimly lit by a solitary candle, served merely as a pretext for improvisation. All the power lay in the words addressed to the crowd. The repertoire was an encyclopedia of popular life, a veritable "oral newspaper", where news was reworked into satire and fable.

The main themes of the ‘raeshnik’ were:

Geography: “But look at the big city of Paris, if you enter it, you’ll be blown away! Our eminent nobility goes there to spend their money.”

War and politics: During the Crimean War, a ‘raeshnik’ could caustically comment on the results of military operations: "…and God spared ours: they stand there without heads, smoking pipes."

Sensationalism & technology: Ballerina Fanny Elssler going on tour; a hot air balloon flight; the first train to Tsarskoye Selo – all of this immediately became a story.

Incidents: The fires in Kostroma were covered in the following way: "The city of Kostroma is burning, a man is standing by the fence taking a piss…, a police officer grabs him by the collar, says he's starting the fire, but the man screams that he's putting it out."

At the turn of the 20th century, the ‘raeshnik’ disappeared from public squares, replaced by cinemas. But, it didn't die; it transformed: the combination of “high” technology with topical commentary remains the foundation of any mass media to this day.