Lost Nu Pogodi Bootleg

An animation cel taken from the Nu Pogodi episode, "Cruise Ship At Sea"

The Lost Nu Pogodi Bootleg, also known as the Nu Pogodi Lost Episode, is a lost, unofficial VHS recording of the episode "Cruise Ship at Sea", originating from the Soviet animated children's show, Nu Pogodi (English: Well, Just You Wait!) that released direct-to-video some time around 1982. The recording has become an online urban legend due to it's supposed violent, graphic imagery and speculated connections to Soviet-funded sleeper agent programs.

The first mention of the recording came from a user's post made back in 2013 on the Internet Animation Database's public forum. The post goes into detail about the user's purchase and viewing of the tape, progressively becoming more disturbing the further they watched. By the end of the post, the user explains that their tape no longer worked after the initial viewing, asking for help from other forum users for any assistance in finding related content.

Screenshot showing an archived conversation relating to the original IAD forum post.

Due to a lack of online attention towards the original forum post around the time of it's creation, no internet archive exists of the original thread outside a few screenshots that have been passed around over the years as evidence of the post's existence by users of various websites and forums.

Screenshot of the archived IAD forum post [2013]

Forum Post Transcript

Creepy Nu Pogodi Episode [worldwidetooner]

< on: January 15, 2013, 11:37:12 pm >

I’ve been hesitant to post about this for a while. Not because of any spooky hauntings or anything like that, just, I haven’t been able to sleep for a while because of it. Writing about this should do me good, I think. I am referring to an old VHS tape I’ve held onto for a while now since my last visit to see relatives in Europe a few months back.

I fear what I have now though is something much larger than me, too large for any guy like me to even have, and I don’t know what to do.

For context: I have distant relatives in the Moscow area who I try to visit every once in a while. Though when you have an eager family waiting for you that lives halfway across the world, it can be difficult to arrange stuff. Last year however, with a mix of luck and extra hours, I was able to afford the trip to see them once again. Typically with these trips they normally follow the same formula of getting down there, sleeping, helping with stuff, getting shitfaced, and then repeating that cycle with a few moments to do whatever.

It was sometime around the later part of my visit that my two cousins and I decided to go and visit the neighbouring community and go exploring for a little bit. One of the main areas we found there though was this fairly large outdoor flea market, like, it looked like the entire town was there. Now admittedly, I am a bit of a nerd for novelty items, especially for the stuff that’d cost you an arm and a leg on ebay to even bid on.

So to be able to see all of these old, unique Soviet relics just laying around for a few rubles at most was surreal in itself, and I couldn’t resist. While my cousins were over at some other stall, I was browsing over a few items this older lady had in her stall just for the sake of looking; that was until I noticed a stack of tapes sitting beside an older TV on display.

Sifting through them, I found one that caught my eye largely due to its bright, colourful appearance compared to the other dull covers. The box art was for a show called “Nu Pogodi”, roughly “Well, Just You Wait” in english. I can’t recall what it was specifically that got me so interested in it outside the cover, but whatever it was, I ended up buying it for a dirt cheap price.

Not long afterwards, the three of us would regroup by the entrance to the market and head back to their house.

By the time I got back home from my trip, I had largely forgotten about the tape, storing it away on top of my shelf alongside other junk and items I hadn’t gotten to yet. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I now find myself cleaning out every inch of my apartment trying to look for something completely unrelated.

Go figure then that when I go over to check the closet, the first thing to catch my eye is that tape. Normally, if I was cleaning out junk and found something interesting, I’d woo at it and put it back, but thinking it could make for some quick entertainment over supper, I figured to take it and keep it out to watch for later.

By the time I had my food, I went ahead and grabbed the tape, popping it into the old player to watch just what would happen.

If I can recall correctly, the episode that was shown was the cruise ship one, the one where the Wolf tries to find the Hare on a large cruise ship as it’s out at sea. Most of the episode was fine, albeit a bit shit in quality due to the age of it. Sometime around the middle of the episode, the tape began replaying back to a specific segment, though when I went to go and fix it, it fixed itself.

The episode continued to where the Wolf was trying to sneak up on the Hare in his room, that was until there was an abrupt cut to the audio, followed by these god awful high pitched sounds. The sounds kept going for a while, though just barely out the corner of the screen, I could see some words being flashed in a flickering motion.

Even if my Russian was better, the words were too fast to follow. They’d eventually stop and the episode would resume as normal, though by that time I had paused the tape just to clear the headache that followed.

Continuing the episode a few minutes after out of curiosity, not much else would have changed for a good chunk of the episode. It was only when the end credits rolled around that the tape would cut to black momentarily, an intense whirring sound coming from my player before the tape would cut back to a red background with some text appearing on the screen, something like what you would see introducing a new film.

All of the text was in Russian, not a good chunk of it I could understand but I do recall seeing something along the lines of “Ministry of Communications, Not for [something] Distribution.”

The tape continued, this time with triumphant music playing in the background followed by more subtitles on the screen, eventually cutting to a shot of a row of hares with helmets. Oddly they looked identical to the production found in the show. The shot would cut over to the Wolf, blindfolded and tied up to a metal pole against a wall.

A voice would echo from the recording, scaring me half to death as by now the tape had been silent besides the whirs from the player. The voice said something along the lines of, “The world is plagued, youth of the union, spread and liberate.” The shot switched over to the hares pulling up rifles and aiming them at the wolf, soon cutting back to the wolf as the animation would cut and be replaced by footage of an actual captive held up in a similar position to the wolf.

The phrase, “Kill the Wolves” would begin chanting as the recordings resumed, showing various pieces of old footage of various people being shot dead by firing squad, the phrase continuing to be shouted as the recording continued. I was looking away from the screen, nearly threw up out of fear as I couldn’t stand to watch it. It felt like an eternity with the sounds of gunshots and children shouting in joy being repeated, until it all stopped.

It came to a dead silence and I’d sit back up, looking towards the screen.

On the screen was a drawn still of the Wolf’s head, drawn like a skull with bits of moldy flesh still attached to his face. By the time I caught a glimpse of that, the tape ended and switched back to nothing.

To be truthful, I want to forget all about it. I want to get rid of the tape, but a morbid curiosity still festers inside of me wanting to look for answers. Was this some sick bastard’s elaborate prank? Was this a part of something deeper? I don’t know, and I don’t know what to do with it now. I tried playing the tape again but the player keeps rejecting it, only showing jumbles of static any time I try to.

If anyone else knows anything about a tape like this, send a reply.

2019 Archive Screenshots

On May 27, 2019, a user on the Lost Media Wiki forums made a thread titled "Nu Pogodi bootleg (partially found)", posting several screenshots and a link alongside a brief explanation on where they had found the screenshots.

Attached to the message were several screenshots which showed both original stills from the episode and found stills similarly identified from the original IAD forum post. A link as well was provided that led to a Russian blog page, containing the same screenshots mentioned in the forum post.

When other forum users discovered the thread, they began digging around the blog page to look for any additional leads or media files. The blog page would be shut down unexpectedly just a few weeks after the initial exposure.

As of 2023, it is not currently known why the blog page was taken down or if there exists any archives of it online.

Nu Pogodi bootleg (partially found) [generaltsoman]

< on: May 27, 2019, 5:36 pm >

sup. anyone familiar with that one weird soviet animation urban legend from a few years back? i think i just found some proof of it laying around. was screwing around trying to find some archives of old russian naval instruction videos but accidentally stumbled across a blog that had abunch of these cels from the show (Ну, погоди) and some pretty disturbing stuff.

dunno if its the same one but i think it matches pretty close ngl

"Nu Pogodi bootleg (partially found)" Thread from 2019

Theories

With little information being known about the origins of the bootleg's contents, several prominent theories have spread regarding things such as the current whereabouts of the VHS, who made it, or the purpose behind it. A common theme shared between most theories surrounding the bootleg is the direct or indirect involvement of the Soviet sleeper agent project, "Young Hares."

Young Hares Conspiracy

The Young Hares Conspiracy is a conspiracy theory that suggests that from the years 1975 to 1986, the Soviet Union designed and orchestrated an illegal human experimentation project called the Young Hares Program. This program would abduct and subject often orphan children inside the Soviet Union to a series of trials designed around the manipulation of a subject's mental state. This would've been achieved via high doses of psychoactive drugs, sensory deprivation, frequency hypnosis, and isolation.

Theories have sprung up about the Nu Pogodi bootleg recording being directly tied to the Young Hares Program, being used as a means to create sleeper agents. Supporting evidence to this claim points to the described frequent usage of high-pitched noises, key phrases, and disturbing imagery to potentially brainwash an already weak audience into further submission with the goals presented in the recording.