Biography

In 2002 he was awarded the highest honor of the Academy of Russian Television, the TEFI For individual contribution to the development of domestic television.

Maslyakov had been working in television since 1964. He had hosted numerous game shows in this time, including Hello, we're looking for talents, Addresses of young ones, Fun kids, the long-running Come on, girls, in which young women competed against one another in skills such as cooking, dancing, or milking cows, and its short-lived counterpart for young men, Come on, guys.

Maslyakov was most famous, however, for his involvement in the game show KVN (Club of the happy and inventive), a game show nearly as long-lived as What? Where? When?, in which teams of enthusiastic and clever young people (usually university students) compete against one another in a series of improvised and rehearsed comedic and musical skits and witty repartee (and occasionally cutting-edge politically risque satire and social commentary) in front of a live audience and a jury of stars of stage and screen. KVN went on the air in 1961, and Maslyakov became its host in 1964, while still a student himself. In 2006, in commemoration of the 45th anniversary of KVN, the then-president of the Russian Federation conferred the Order of Merit for the Fatherland Grade IV on Maslyakov for a significant contribution to the development of domestic television and many years of creative activity.

Alexander Maslyakov was a prominent Soviet and Russian television game show host.

He was a Merited Figure of the Arts of the Russian Federation, 1994 laureate of the Ovation prize, and a member of the Academy of Russian Television.