What? Where? When? A Brainy Russian Quiz Show With A Cult Following Slips Into Propaganda, Ex-Players Say.

It’s been on Russia’s airwaves since the Soviet era: a high-minded, fast-paced brainteasing TV quiz show, with contestants wearing tuxedoes, seated in a casino-like setting, answering literary, historical, and cultural questions filled with wit, wordplay, and double entendres.

What? Where? When? is so popular that it’s spawned a host of spinoffs in other countries, including a version in the United States, and an international network of aficionados who staged nontelevised tournaments under the name Sport ChGK — the Russian acronym for the three questions in its name. The show has catapulted some of its players to fame and fortune, and some into politics. But it has also had a longtime, informal policy: keep politics out.

Now, What? Where? When? — which appears on state-run Channel One television — has increasingly turned into something else, several of its veterans say: a vehicle for Kremlin propaganda about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The launch of the full-scale war in February 2022 had already caused a split among several of the show’s longtime contestants, known as “znatoki” — which roughly translates as “experts” or “connoisseurs.” A few of the best-known players left the show. The loyal members of a sprawling network of clubs devoted to playing the game in localized tournaments condemned the invasion.

Several said the show’s slip toward reflecting Kremlin messaging occurred even earlier: when Russia seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

“Since that time, Russia has been dead to me, and Russian television has died with it. It has turned into a propaganda machine that serves aggression,” Ihor Kondratyuk, a longtime participant who is now a Ukrainian TV presenter, told Current Time.

In September, well-known participant Yekaterina Mereminskaya published a first-person essay in which she said the show’s policy — no politics — was impossible to maintain.

In the piece published by iStories, Mereminskaya recounted how Natalia Stetsenko, the show’s lead producer and widow of its creator, contacted Mereminskaya days after the invasion and told her to remove a post on her Facebook page that said, “Say no to war.”

Mereminskaya refused and left the show.

“I don’t think [participants] in and of themselves” are agents of propaganda, she told Current Time in a September 28 interview. “But is it possible that the show itself is? Most likely, yes.”

“It’s as if ‘no politics’ only works in one direction: when you aren’t allowed to say anything against policies approved by the Russian authorities,” she said. “But if you can say, ‘I support,’ it’s as if this isn’t politics.”

Among those participants who have gained fame from the show: Ilya Novikov, a well-known defense lawyer who left What? Where? When? after 14 years when he took up the legal defense of Nadia Savchenko, a Ukrainian military pilot who spent two years in prison in Russia.

At the time, Russian state propaganda had begun to actively use the epithets “Banderites” and “Nazis” to describe Ukrainians, a trend that continues today. “Banderites” refers to the World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, whom Russian authorities have long vilified, labeling him a Nazi due to his group’s actions alongside, in some cases in coordination with, Nazi forces.

“When I appear on Channel One in the evening wearing a bow tie, that’s one thing,” Novikov said, “but when I appear on the air of the same channel as a defender of the ‘Banderite’ and ‘Nazi,’ that’s something else.”

Earlier this month, Russia’s main security agency, the Federal Security Service, announced treason charges against Novikov, who now lives in Ukraine.

‘They Don’t Broadcast Live Anymore’

Over the years, What? Where? When? developed a cult following as a show for intellectuals or more educated viewers. Teams compete against one another for prizes — rare books were awarded in the Soviet era, according to Mereminskaya. Later, cash prizes were awarded; viewers were also encouraged to submit questions to be asked during the competition; viewers could also receive cash prizes for that.

The man who first created the program in 1975, Vladimir Voroshilov, is considered a titan of Soviet and Russian television. He died in 2001.

The changes in the game’s presentation and formatting are subtle, former players say: for example, the word “znatoki” to describe contestants must now be written with the English letter “Z”. The Kremlin has adopted “Z” as a symbol of support for the invasion of Ukraine.

The show hosts might introduce a participant from one of the Russian-occupied cities in Ukraine as a resident of Russia, which now claims Crimea and four other Ukrainian regions as its own. Or they might give a promo for an upcoming pro-Russian film about Ukraine or the war.

Another example, as Mereminskaya described in her essay, came from an actual question on the show: The question read: “You see the outline of one of the regions of our country. Name it.” The outlined territory was in fact Crimea.

Also, shows are now taped ahead of time, to allow for any potential slip-ups to be edited out, another former participant, Rovshan Askerov, says. The shows were broadcast live for many years.

Producers “are afraid of them and don’t broadcast live anymore,” he said.

In May 2022, a Moscow court filed criminal charges against Ashkerov, who lives in Ukraine now, accusing him of “rehabilitating Nazism.” The charge was based on an essay in which he called the World War II-era Soviet marshal, Georgy Zhukov, a thief, among other things.

After Voroshilov’s death, Stetsenko took control of the production company that owned and produced the show, Igra TV.

An American version of the show, called the Million Dollar Mind Game, was on air briefly in 2011-12.

Even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the company had alienated a chunk of the die-hard members of the What? Where? When? network that spreads across roughly a dozen countries, mainly in the former Soviet Union. In 2012, the company sought to trademark the name of the network, effectively restricting how they could host tournaments and local competitions.

A Sinking Ship?

Darya Salavey, a well-known former contestant from Belarus, says that during the massive protests that rocked Belarus in 2020, she regularly had supportive conversations with other contestants. But then the show’s editors approached and scolded them, saying, “No politics.”

She left Minsk amid the political turmoil and moved to the Ukrainian city of Odesa, where she recalled hiding out in bomb shelters when Russia launched its invasion. She then quit the show entirely.

After the invasion, nearly 2,000 members of the network signed an open letter condemning the war, which the Kremlin has called a “special military operation.”

Maksim Potashev, a longtime prominent contestant on the program, defended the shift in tone at the program as reflective as a shift in global politics.

“Staying on the sidelines, withdrawing inward, not getting involved in this global quarrel, abandoning one’s geopolitical interests will not work,” he said.

“Now that this global divvying up has begun, each country must be a player or ally with someone else,” he said, echoing a Kremlin narrative. “You need to be strong, demonstrate this strength and willingness to defend your interests.”

Novikov, the lawyer, rejected that idea. “Someone ties his little boat to a large warship, and when this ship begins to sink, he simply does not have the time or opportunity to get away from it,” he said.

“I wouldn’t like the program…to sink to the bottom along with Channel One, Russian television, and Russia itself,” he said. “But such are the stakes now. Such is the price of everything you do or don’t do. This war could become the last episode in the history of this game.”