Ned May, who may or may not be related to me (but he does like old Soviet jokes and that’s probably in the DNA, right?) recalls a couple more good ones:

*Two guys are walking across the Siberian steppe and happen upon the tracks of the Trans-Siberian Railway. One says to the other, “Ah, now if only we had a loaf of bread, we could lie down on the tracks and commit suicide!”

*The other one asks: “Why would we need a loaf of bread?”

*The first one replies: “You could starve to death waiting for a train in this country.”

*A guy is walking down the street in Moscow and sees a sign advertising, “Come in and see the talking horse! Only five kopeks!” He’s curious, so he pays his five kopeks and goes in. A lot of other people are there in an auditorium sitting in front of a brightly-lit stage with a horse on it.

The horse quietly munches feed from a bag, but does nothing else. After ten or fifteen minutes the crowd gets restless and starts muttering ominously. A man appears from backstage with a plank and whacks the horse upside the head with it.

The horse turns to the man and says, “Why can’t I just die?”

* * *

Shouldn’t someone be collecting these for posterity and history?