Moscow on the Hudson

Moscow on the Hudson is a 1984 American romantic comedydrama film written and directed by Paul Mazursky, and stars Robin Williams as a Soviet circus musician who defects while on a visit to the United States. The film was released on April 6, 1984.

Set against the backdrop of the Cold War and Soviet political repression of the early 1980s prior to perestroika, Vladimir Ivanoff Robin Williams, a saxophonist with the Moscow circus, lives in a crowded apartment with his extended family. He stands in lines for hours to buy toilet paper and shoes. When the apparatchik assigned to the circus Kramarov as Boris criticizes Vladimir for being late to rehearsal and suggests Vladimir may miss the approaching trip to New York, Vladimir gives Boris a pair of shoes from the queue that made Vladimir late. While Ivanoff is riding in his friend Anatolys Baskin as the circus clown Lada, Anatoly stops to buy fuel for his car from a mobile black market gasoline dealer. While the friends wait for the gasoline seller to fill Anatolys jerrycans, the two practice their English.Vladimir acts as gobetween for his crazy grandfather and KGB agents who want to arrest the old man for shouting antiSoviet slogans out the apartment window. Vladimir defends his grandfather to the agents as a harmless comedian who is a war hero. ........

Source: Wikipedia