Masha and the Bear episode is first Russian-language video to reach a billion YouTube views

An episode of the popular Russian animated series Masha and the Bear has become the first Russian-language video to reach a billion views on YouTube.

Produced by the Moscow-based Animaccord studio, the episode to achieve this feat comes from the 17th series of the show and is entitled “Masha plus porridge”. The seven minute-long episode was uploaded to YouTube in 2012.

Earlier this year Animation Magazine, a leading US magazine on animation, included Masha and the Bear in a list of 250 TV shows destined to become classics. At the beginning of 2015, Russian business newspaper Vedomosti also reported that the channel GetMovies, which hosts Masha and the Bear, among other Russian cartoons, was one of the top ten most profitable channels on YouTube.

Source: Afisha (in Russian)