Russian popular culture popular in the west

Just recently I have been watching Guest from th Future a Soviet TV series from the eighties and have been astonished at how much I liked it (really it is very good). I have sometimes thought the same reading various Russian/Soviet novels (such as Andromeda nebula and Red Star) and being presently suprised at how good they were. But they are very hard to get my hands on (I doubt I'll ever be able to get the book series that guest from the future was based on) and many seem to have be more or less continously out of print in English. So my challenge is this. How can Russian (or Soviet) works make an inpact on the west comparable to say how Japanese works have. Failing that how can they gain some kind of cult following. Any ideas anyone. What would have to change.
 
For 'some kind of cult status': at least those Science Fiction fans with a broader knowledge (not just focused on a single series) know that stuff from the (nowadays former) East Bloc was often surprisingly well done (provided the writer kept the socialist propaganda low or at least at reasonable levels)
 

MSZ

Banned
Heh. I still think that all those old Czechoslovak cartoons were magnitudes better than anything the USA or Japan ever produced. Krtko, Rumcajs, Kremilek a Vochomurka are absolute classics.

I suppose all it would really take for russian cartoons like Nu pogodi to become popular than Tom and Jerry in the west was having the USSR become interested in exporting them; communist economies simply didn't realize the potential these type of products had and never tried to get them on air in the west. So if someone at some animation film studio simply decided to get political approval, or if some kind of International Animation Festival was founded, then the sheer quality of such works would speak for themselves and get the shows a significant audience.
 
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