During an interview with NBC, Vladimir Putin quoted the hero of the novel “The Golden Calf” Ostap Bender. He said, ” You can complain to the International League for Sexual Reform.” NBC translated “classic” literally and without quotation marks.
The interview was given on the eve of the summit with US President Joe Biden. The TV channel translated most of the quotes and phraseological units used by the head of state during the conversation with the journalist verbatim.
The phrase “you can complain to the International League of Sexual Reform” was translated by NBC as “you can take your complaint to the International League of Sexual Reform”. No explanation was given.
In the film, these words in the novel “The Golden Calf” are said by Ostap Bender to Mikhail Panikovsky, who said that girls do not like him. Putin used this expression to stop the flow of accusations against Russia on the topic of cyber attacks.