A strange Christmas advert from Russia does not rather provide the joyful cheer you may anticipate as it reveals a woman needing to consume her family pet hamster.
It’s tough to prevent seeing Christmas adverts at the minute, with almost every television channel and social networks post sprinkled with items and brand names guaranteeing celebration, delight and shimmer over the Christmas weekend.
The advertisements do help to get you in the Christmas spirit – it’s not the joyful season till we see the Coca Cola truck, after all – however the video broadcast by Russian tv network RT provides less shimmer, and more scary. You’ve been cautioned:
Don’t be deceived by the start of the advertisement, due to the fact that things do really leave to rather a charming start as the noise of ‘Silent Night’ calls out and we see a happy family commemorating in their home, with their tree perfectly embellished with Christmas lights.
A little lady smiles as she’s amazed with a lovable family pet hamster using a red bow, and a caption over the video checks out: “Europe, Christmas 2021.”
The scene then cuts to the next year, aka this Christmas. Instead of all the twinkly, vibrant lights, the family are finished up versus the cold and are depending on head torches and candle lights for light – apparently a nod to energy costs which increased following the break out of war in Ukraine.
Rather than needing to depend on the grid to power their Christmas lights, the family make use of the hamster’s workout wheel and enable the little animal to illuminate the room by running.
One year on, the scene is even more bleak. The tree is somehow already dead, the windows are apparently broken and are letting in gusts of freezing wind, and the Christmas meal is a bowl of soup – but not just any soup.
As the young girl looks at the meal with disgust, the dad finds something strange in his food and pulls out the recognisable red bow first seen on the hamster two years prior. Realising what’s happened, he runs to throw up.
The advert comes to an end with the words ‘Merry Anti-Russian Christmas’, and adds: “If your media doesn’t tell you where this is all going, RT is available via VPN.”
Social media users have been left baffled by the video after it started to do the rounds online, with one Twitter user born in Ukraine writing: “Propaganda ads coming out on Russian channels available online in Europe to instill fear in Europeans through energy terrorism. The message: In a year, Europeans will have to resort to eating their own pets unless they appease Putin now.”
Another viewer joked: “We’re cutting down this year – it’s packed roasted rats. Might utilized the bones for soup tomorrow.”
Russia has actually declared Ukraine and its allies are set for a ‘long conflict’ with Russia if the nation keeps getting assistance in the continuous war.
