The Moscow Times revealed details of the new limousine used to transport President Dmitry Medvedev. It was said to be far more secure than the limousine used to transport U.S. President Obama:
The Russian car has a 12-centimeter-thick titanium plated roof that is so strong a T-72 tank can drive over it without causing any real damage, the sources said. Its windows are made of glass that will withstand a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade, while its wheels automatically turn into caterpillar tracks when going over rough terrain, they said...
Officials at the factory where Medvedev's limousine was assembled were so confident in the level of safety provided by the vehicle that they placed the designers inside the car while soldiers shot rocket-propelled grenades at it -- a tradition that dates back to the Stalin era.
The Kremlin official noted that the car's occupants could survive a small nuclear attack, but only if the wind was blowing in a certain direction. He declined to elaborate, saying reporters would be allowed to ask Medvedev questions on April 1.
Various news outlets around the world reported the story as fact, including Britain's The Guardian. The German magazine Der Spiegel and three media outlets in South Korea contacted the Moscow Times seeking more details.
Russian Public TV reported that a spring had been discovered in the Caucasus mountains with the ability to cure male baldness. "According to the latest statistics, the number of bald men in Adygeya has plummeted," the report noted. The news program showed "before" and "after" pictures of the man who had made the discovery. The BBC had perpetrated a
similar April Fool's Day hoax in 1977.
Radio Russia reported that the Russian parliament was considering a proposal to declare April 1st a public holiday: "Telephone jokes, absurd tasks for managers, warnings that the power, light or heat is to be cut off and other practical jokes are much more extravagant then than on other days. As a result, expert analysis shows, industrial efficiency in Russia falls," the report explained. By declaring the day a national holiday, efficiency would be maintained.
Russia's
Itar-Tass news agency reported that a military factory had begun manufacturing diamond-encrusted grenades, which it was selling to Russian gangsters who might be concerned that they could not only live glamorously but also "die luxuriously as well." The article noted, "The use of such a grenade will leave your one-time rival in a sea of beautiful sparkling gems rather than in a pool of blood."
The Russian news agency
Itar-Tass reported that an alcoholic beverage company had invented a new kind of candy sure to be a favorite with the Russian people: chewy Vodka Bars. These bars, designed to compete with Mars and Snickers bars, would come in three flavors — lemon, coconut, and salted cucumber. The same company was also perfecting another new product: instant vodka in tea bags.
The
Moscow Tribune went out onto the streets of Moscow to ask people what they thought about the ethnic cleansing in Brutistan. They received a variety of concerned replies. The joke was that Brutistan does not exist.
The Russian newspaper
Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that Mikhail Gorbachev had volunteered to test a revolutionary new anti-baldness spray. As a result he had sprouted a new head of hair, covering his famous birthmark. Accompanying the article was a picture of Gorbachev on a trip to South Korea sporting his new, curly-locked look.
The Russian
Moskovskaya Pravda revealed that plans had been finalized to build a second subway system in Moscow. This was being done "in the interests of competition." The paper made this announcement in a special March 32nd edition titled
Moskovskaya Nye-Pravda (Moscow Un-Truth).
Izvestia, a Soviet newspaper, reported that the Moscow Spartak soccer team was in negotiations with the Argentine star Diego Maradona to offer him $6 million to play for them. Supposedly he would join the team within a year.
Izvestia later admitted that the story was false, and that it was, in fact, the first time they had ever published an April fool's day hoax.
An April Fool's joke by an amateur American astronomer was apparently taken seriously by a highly regarded Soviet scientist. Walter Scott Houston, professor of English at Kansas State College and editor of the
Great Plains Observer, the monthly newsletter of the Great Plains Astronomical Society, included an article in the April edition that made the following claim:
Just last week Dr. Arthur Hayall of the University of the Sierras reports that the moons of Mars are actually artificial satellites... They are truly space stations in the most elaborate sense of the word... even though the race that flung them so magnificently into orbit may be dead and gone, they still orbit as the greatest monument to intelligent accomplishment yet known to mankind.
Houston later explained that he chose the story because it was "so ludicrous it would not need to be labeled a gag." Both Dr. Hayall and the University of the Sierras were fictitious.
But soon after, the same theory was advanced by a Soviet scientist, Dr. Iosip Shklovsky, in an interview with
Komsomol Pravda, a Communist youth league publication. American scientists were baffled by Shklovsky's assertion since there was no indication he was joking. Dr. Gerald Kuiper of the Yerkes Observatory was quoted as saying, "He is much too brilliant to believe such nonsense." [
Jefferson City Post-Tribune, May 4, 1959.]
