In light of the pending Bernie Madoff indictment, we thought we’d revisit one of our favorite Ponzi schemes: MMM. The Mavrodi brothers, Sergei and Vyacheslav, along with third “M” Marina Muravieva, scammed their countrymen out of roughly $1.5 billion in the mid-’90s by promising investors a ridiculous 1,000% return on what would now be called "micro" investments. They were so good at promotion that by 1994, Boris Yeltsin had to issue a decree forbidding companies to advertise based on projected earnings. But while Madoff’s securities fraudulence leaves us with only sorrow, anger and debt, MMM left behind a rich cultural legacy in addition to those things. We’re talking, of course, about their TV commercials.

The ads look and sound primitive by any 21st-century standard: most involve people interacting on a tacky apartment set with featureless white walls as cheesy synthesizer music nearly drowns out the dialogue. The brilliant hook was that their recurring characters, in particular one Lenya Golubkov, were instantly recognizable average Joes (well, Ivans) just like the suckers the ads targeted. They wanted the things we all want: boots with a zipper, a fur coat, and maybe a trip to America once in a while. Helpless viewers, still new to the ways of capitalism, were convinced. Sure, it seemed too good to be true, but as Lenya explains to his brother Vanya, “With MMM, I’m not a freeloader, I’m a partner!”

Eventually, success caught up with the Mavrodi brothers, but not before Sergei got himself elected to the Duma on a reform platform, concocted to redirect his investors’ outrage away from him and toward the government. He later went into hiding, but was found and arrested in 2003.

Here is one of our favorite MMM commercials, with the translation below. Also, YouTube user elstajk has uploaded all 16 commercials for your viewing enjoyment, although there are no subtitles.

This is San Francisco.
And these are our guys. Lenya and Vanya.
Our guys — on a trolley car!
Our guys — on the beach.
Our guys — getting to know the ladies.
Rejected!
Our guys — sharing their impressions:
“The girls here sure are pretty.”
“Yeah, but our girls are better.”
Ours are always better! Joint-stock company MMM.

Photo: Detail of an MMM bill worth 50 shares, depicting Sergei Mavrodi.