Live Well! (Жить здорово!) is a Russian talk show that Russians seem to love and hate in equal measure, and at the same time. It’s only been on since 2010, but it airs every morning and there are well over 1,000 episodes already.
The show is basically about health, though with a somewhat ridiculous, unintentionally (… I think?) comedic flair. There are segments in four theme areas: “About Life,” “About Food,” “About Medicine,” and “About the House.” In the first, doctors come on the air to talk about how to live a healthy lifestyle; in the second, doctors talk about the best ways to store and cook food items. The viewers are then usually given samples. In “About Medicine,” doctors both talk about how to recover from illnesses, and then heal patients right there in the studio. The last segment is actually led by the host, Yelena Malysheva (Елена Малышева): she talks about various daily-life subjects, including using appliances and cleaning the house.
Malysheva herself is a doctor—she grew up during the Soviet Union in a family of doctors, and has had a career as a cardiologist. She’s currently a professor at the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry, in addition to leading TV shows—which she’s been doing since 1993.
Despite her apparently impressive credentials, Malysheva and Live Well! are often the subject of strong criticisms—that they are subjective, not factual, misleading, dangerous, and even sometimes offensive and racist. She also once killed a rat during a live taping (though it was later claimed that she had only given it a tranquilizer, to demonstrate something or other). Malysheva personally has several medicine-related awards.
Producers: Yelena Malysheva (Елена Малышева), Aleksey Pimanov (Алексей Пиманов)
Host: Yelena Malysheva (Елена Малышева)
Production company: Pimanov and Partners (Пиманов и партнёры)
TV channel: Perviy Kanal (Первый канал)
The show’s official website, on Perviy Kanal.
A February 2017 episode of the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLryotTqlB0
