'You think again and again how to tell this story and show the scene from a new angle so that children would not be bored when they watch it for the 10th or 100th time.' 'Children are very discerning viewers,' Belyayev said in a recent interview. The animators are particular about even small pieces of the cartoon such as food in the refrigerator and flowers on the lawn. Senior animator Andrei Belyayev can spend hours trying on a myriad of expressions for Masha's face as she bursts into the bear's house to announce an unexpected guest. That costs money as well as time - up to $250,000 per six-minute episode. The images have a convincing 3-D effect, move fluidly and are so precise that viewers can count Masha's tiny teeth. It's slow work due to the highly detailed images, unusual for television series.

There, more than 70 animators each produce 2 to 4 seconds of screen time a day. Their real home is a former Soviet kindergarten in Moscow's northern outskirts. The cartoon is set in an idealized countryside, loaded with traditional bric-a-brac.

The cartoon, loosely based on a Russian fairy tale, centers on the mischievous and minuscule girl Masha and the towering Bear, a retired circus performer who falls victim to the green-eyed sprite's pranks. While Russia's mammoth oil and gas industries grunt under the weight of low energy prices, the cartoon's producer Animaccord has a steady 40 percent annual revenue increase. Its YouTube channel is in the top 10 most-viewed worldwide. Masha and the Bear, a Russian animated television series launched in 2009, now broadcasts in more than 120 countries including the United States. But the Russian who has taken the world by storm is a sweet goof who hasn't fired a single shot. A proverbial Russian bear has long alarmed Westerners as the symbol of Moscow's might and purported ferocity.

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