"Ulitsa Sezam" interleaves original Russian-language material with dubbed American sequences, producing a somewhat schizophrenic feel for your average child-of-the-80s American viewer. It's a little odd to switch from a totally novel sketch on phonetics to an all-Russian but otherwise familiar "Super-Grover" causing massive property damage in order to teach a child about conserving energy.
Russian kids, however, either can't tell or don't care; by Hessman's account, the program has taken Russia by storm since its premiere on the NTV network in 1996. "I hear lots of stories about people racing home with their kids from the detskii sad (kindergarten) to get back in time for the show," Hessman said in her presentation.
"Ulitsa Sezam" features some new faces and some old favorites. Many classic characters are out because the only footage of them is on Sesame Street itself, which Hessman and her crew have changed into a Russian dvor, or courtyard. The Count, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie are all back, with names changed in deference to their audience-the pun on "count" doesn't survive in Russian, and the "B" and "E" on Bert and Ernie's beds denote different sounds in the Cyrillic alphabet than in the Roman.
Three new Muppets have been added as well. Zeliboba, a gigantic, blue answer to Big Bird, serves as the icon of "Ulitsa Sezam"; his nose possesses the miraculous power of synaesthesia, allowing him to smell such non-olfactory entities as letters and music. Busya and Kubik are smaller, relatively nondescript-looking creatures. Busya is energetic and fun-loving, and Kubik is the resident botanik (Russian slang for "nerd").
The human cast consists of a family of three (storekeeper Sasha, doctor Nina and their daughter Katya) and Aunt Dasha, caretaker of the courtyard, as well as assorted anonymous toddlers smiling in terror while enormous, cavorting Muppets sing educational songs in their general vicinity.
A graduate of Brown University and the All-Russian Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), Hessman had several films under her belt before she started in on "Ulitsa Sezam." Her most widely-recognized work is her senior thesis at VGIK, "Portrait of Boy with Dog," which won over 40 prizes at several international film festivals.
Hessman stressed the meticulousness with which the Children's Television Workshop's "International Sesame Street" division tailors its programming. "Each segment has one little educational goal," she said, adding that the writers are given more or less free reign to achieve this goal.
Hessman mentioned that over 20 countries have versions of "Sesame Street" created by International Sesame Street, which takes great care to make each country's program seem unique to that country. "There's an Israeli/Palestinian co-production that's having an interesting time of it right now," she said.
In addition to her work behind the scenes at "Ulitsa Sezam," Hessman played an equally anonymous, yet more conspicuous role on the show: she sings the theme song.