I think the English wiki article is brilliant because the article itself is what it's describing.
Kuryokhin told a tall tale on the TV and people enjoyed its absurdity and humor. I would not say nobody believed it (you can find somebody who believes any given bs) but I'd bet the 11.25M number in the wiki is exaggerated many orders of magnitude. The whole statement of the article about many Soviet people falling for this is as true as that a lot of Americans believed that the film Borat is a documentary. Or, that Lenin was, indeed, a mushroom)).
Kuryokhin told a tall tale on the TV and people enjoyed its absurdity and humor. I would not say nobody believed it (you can find somebody who believes any given bs) but I'd bet the 11.25M number in the wiki is exaggerated many orders of magnitude. The whole statement of the article about many Soviet people falling for this is as true as that a lot of Americans believed that the film Borat is a documentary. Or, that Lenin was, indeed, a mushroom)).