We had a real Soviet celebration last night, complete with listening to Putin’s New Year’s address on TV to the music of the USSR anthem. I wish I could have been having some drinks in the process because that would have intensified the fun. But I was the designated driver, so there was no alcohol for me.

After the celebratory dinner, we went to this new fashionable bar in town for a masquerade party and countdown. N and I danced the tango, and everybody gaped at us. One if us is very good while the other one can’t do any dance where she has to be led by a man. (This isn’t the riddle yet, so please keep reading.)

After the countdown, I drove us back home where we watched the Russian New Year’s show on my computer, danced, and discussed our research. N explained Newton’s binomial equation for me. Everybody invariably asks “Gosh, how drunk were you?” when they hear this part. Nobody wants to believe there was barely a glass of champagne involved. Like there is something wrong with binomial equations as a subject of conversation.

And now for the riddle. The concert we watched was the most important New Year’s show on the most popular Russian channel that everybody in the country watches. All of the songs in the show that lasted from midnight to past 6 am were the ones we associate with the late eighties-early nineties. Crowds of foreign stars of that era were shipped in to perform. They all looked befuddled when they saw the enormous (and quite young) audience that filled Moscow’s Olympic stadium.

So here’s the question: why were all the songs at that massively popular show so dated? Why would so many people in Russia want to hear the music that the rest of the world is totally over?

Mind you, the Russians could have had any number of today’s world stars performing for them. They’ve got the money.