bogatyrs, bored, boast of their feats: "I once stood against the Horde for three days, that was a battle to remember! / And I once fought Gorynych for four days! / And I once made love to Vasilisa the Beautiful for a week! / So? How's that a feat for a man like us? / Well, she only turned human on day four!" (L) Ilya meets Alesha: "I am called Ilya Muromets, for I am from the place called Murom! / And I'm Alesha Popovich, and I'm not telling you which place I'm from..." (the joke is a play of words: Ilya is named after his home city, while Alesha after his father's profession, "pop" meaning "priest"; however, "popa" also means "arse"). Three bogatyrs clash with the Three Musketeers over a petty dispute; of course, d'Artagnan challenges Ilya to a duel. He then marks Ilya's heart with a chalk: "It is here that my épée will pierce you!". Ilya looks at his mace, then at d'Artagnan, then, without a word, covers the musketeer head to toe in chalk dust. New Russians New Russians (Russian: новые русские, Novye Russkie, the nouveau-riche), a rich class of businessmen and gangsters in post-perestroika, were a very common category of characters in Russian jokes of the 1990s. A common theme is the interaction of a New Russian in his archetypal shiny black Mercedes S600, arguing with a regular Russian in his modest Soviet-era Zaporozhets after their vehicles collide. The New Russian is often a violent criminal or at least speaks criminal argot, with a number of neologisms (or common words with skewed meaning) typical among New Russians. In a way, these anecdotes are a continuation of the Soviet-era series about Georgians, who were then depicted as extremely wealthy. The physical stereotype of the New Russians is often that of overweight men with short haircuts, dressed in thick gold chains and crimson jackets, with their fingers in the horns gesture, cruising around in the "600 Merc" and showing off their wealth. Jokes about expensive foreign sports cars can be compared to German Manta jokes. A New Russian's son complains to his father: "Daddy, all my schoolmates are riding the bus, and I look like a black sheep in this 600 Merc." / "No worries, son. I'll buy you a bus, and you'll ride like everyone else!" A New Russian buys a new car. His fellow asks: