"Putin enters a bar and proclaims, 'Next round's on the house!'" What's the point of this popular Russian joke?

Question

I'm a student learning the Russian language, and I visit a popular Russian jokes website from time to time. There's a monthly rating list of new jokes on that website, and last month the top joke on that list was this:

Заходит как-то Путин в бар и говорит:

-- Всем пива за счет заведения!

My translation of the joke into English is in the title of my question, and I'm pretty sure I got it right from the language standpoint. More literally, the joke goes:

"One day Putin enters a bar and says, 'Beer to everyone at the expense of the house!'"

Putin's phrase in this joke is based on the common Russian expression used to buy a round of beer for the whole bar, "Beer to everyone at my expense." There seems to be nothing I could get wrong linguistically, so there must be some political context that makes the joke funny.

Given the popularity of the joke, I got very much curious about it and hope that SE users interested in politics can shed some light.

Answer 1

This relates to the Russian government's controversial decision to declare that the majority of workers should not go to work in April due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while also mandating that these workers should still be paid by their employers.

As this Reuters article puts it:

“They say ‘pay the salaries’, but no one explains where you’re supposed to get the money from,” [the co-owner of several bars in Moscow] said. “It will kill the (restaurant and bar) sector. Many of them won’t survive.”

Small and medium-sized businesses have voiced anger and warned of mass bankruptcies in petitions to the government, including one with more than 250,000 signatures, illustrating the headwinds Putin faces as he tries to counter the virus.

Critics point to how other countries have offered to pay workers; Britain, for example, pays up to 80% of wages. They also note Russia’s huge gold and forex reserves, around $550 billion.

So the relation to the joke is that Putin is declaring that the bar should give free beer to everyone at its own expense, rather than at Putin's expense, in the same way that the Russian government is declaring that wages should be paid to workers at the employer's expense, rather than at the Russian government's expense. This contrasts to government programs such as in Britain, where furloughed workers can have 80% of their wages paid by the government.

Answer 2

This is how I see it: The joke works just as well in English as it does in Russian. It is making fun of Putin (and maybe at the same time complimenting him), but how?

Suppose a rich man walks into a bar. If he is the right sort of person, maybe he says “Drinks on me!” and buys for everyone.

Suppose another case, the owner of the bar gets some good news. Again, if he is the right sort of person, maybe he says “Drinks on the house!” and then he is buying for everyone because he is the owner of the house.

Suppose a third case, someone who isn't the owner walks in and says “Drinks on the house!”, then he is not buying for everyone. Rather, he is demanding that someone else (the owner) will buy for everyone.

Well, who could get away with this? A powerful person. And who would do it? A person willing to spend other people's money. So, the joke is--Putin would do this.

I think that's it.

Answer 3

As I see it, the point of the joke is not who pays for the drinks, but what is being paid for...

• Under "normal" circumstances, someone going into a packed bar and saying, "The drinks are on me", or (a landlord saying), "The drinks are on the house" is an offer of generosity.

• Under COVID-19 lockdown, with bars closed, this is very much an "empty gesture", since there will be no one (other than the speaker) to buy drinks for.

The joke works because the offer sounds generous but has no substance.