Iftah Ya Simsim
Iftah Ya Simsim (; meaning "Open Sesame") is the first international co-production of the American children's television series "Sesame Street" created in the Arab world. It premiered in Kuwait on September 14, 1979 and was broadcast in 22 Arabic-speaking countries, running until April 6, 1990. The program continued to be well-known decades after it went off the air. In 1978, educators, mass media officers, and social planners agreed to adopt "Sesame Street" as a feasible and economical solution for the low attendance in preschools and illiteracy that plagued the region. They approached the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the producers of the American show, and purchased the rights to create an Arab version for US$2.5 million.
Grigory Isayev
Grigory Zinovyevich Isayev (; born 1943) is a Russian politician and labor activist. He is the leader of the Samara Stachkom (Strike Committee) and the Party of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Isayev was arrested and sentenced to a prison camp in 1981 for his role in organizing workers' strike and an underground communist organization in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev rule. He was arrested twice under Boris Yeltsin in 1998 for leading the successful two-month-long strike of the 5,000 ZIM (Zavod imeni Maslennikova) factory's workers and the blockade of the main street of Samara which paralyzed the center of the city.