Masha and the Bear (, ) is a Russian preschool comedy animated television series created by Oleg Kuzovkov and produced by Animaccord Animation Studio, loosely based on the oral children's folk story of the same name. The series focuses on the adventures of a very young girl named Masha and a bear (whom she dubs "Mishka"), her caring friend who always keeps her safe from disasters.
The episode "Recipe for Disaster" () has over 4.6 billion views on YouTube as of June 2026, making it the site's sixteenth most viewed video of all time.
The show was first launched on 7 January 2009.
The show provides the basis for the Masha and The Bear Land of Laughter, an area with attractions aimed at younger children at the theme park The Land of Legends, near Antalya, Turkey.
Plot Masha is a four-year-old girl who lives in the forest in an unspecified location in Russia (possibly in Tver Oblast) with her pig, goat, and dog. In the first episode, it is shown that all the animals in the forest are afraid of her, as she is constantly forcing them to play with her. Then Masha sees a butterfly and inadvertently follows it inside the home of the Bear, who has gone fishing. While playing there, she makes a big mess. When he returns, he sees the disaster caused by Masha. The Bear tries to get rid of Masha but after multiple failed attempts, the unlikely duo become friends.
In each episode of the show, Masha is portrayed as a bright little girl who loves exploring the world around her. Masha's shenanigans result in unexpected but entertaining situations that are at the heart of the show's episodes. The kind-hearted Bear is always trying to keep Masha out of trouble. There are several supporting characters in the series, including Masha's cousin Dasha, a penguin adopted by the Bear, a young panda cub from China (the Bear's cousin), two wolves who live in an old UAZ ambulance, a tiger that used to work with the Bear in the circus, and a Female Bear that is the object of the Bear's affections. Characters also include a hare, squirrels and hedgehogs, a pig called Rosie, a goat, and a dog who all live in Masha's front yard.
Characters Main characters Masha
Masha is a 4-year-old girl who is portrayed as naughty and hyperactive, and always thinks about playing. She lives in a house near a railway station; near her house there is a path that leads to the Bear's house. Masha loves the bear very much, but in her games she tends to create problems for him. She loves sweets, jumping in a bucket, and looking at drawings of her and Bear. Masha's character combines the characteristics of 4-year-old (making grammatical errors when speaking, crying when she is not given what she wants, throwing tantrums) with adult skills (playing tennis, fishing, making preserves, playing electric guitar and speaking perfectly). In the episode "God Save the Queen", it is revealed that Masha has super strength, as she managed to pull a multi-ton train near her house just to give an elephant reception for the Lion King. She is voiced by Alina Kukushkina in Russian, and in English by Elsie Fisher. In subsequent seasons, Masha was dubbed by Rebecca Bloom (ep. 28–39), Angelica Keamy (ep. 40–52), Kaitlyn McCormick (53–78, Masha’s Songs S4 EP 1), Adriana Figuredo (79-84) and now dubbed by West Rubin and Sofia Calasso. She is usually shown wearing a white shirt under a reddish-magenta dress with a reddish-magenta kerchief covering her short blonde hair.
Bear The bear is a retired circus brown bear in Moscow who lives in a house hollowed out of a tree in the forest. His past occupation makes him very talented in performing arts (like juggling, unicycling, and even stage magic) although he's also known to dabble into other hobbies and even some intellectual pursuits. Some episodes feature flashbacks in which he remembers his childhood as a cub in the same house. In the Russian-language version, Masha calls him "Mishka" (, or named Medved in the intro), a diminutive form of the name Mikhail (i.e. "Mikey"), which is also the traditional name given to bears in Russian tales. He is a huge bear with a big heart and he is Masha's father-like figure, as well as a friendly figure to her. He was voiced by Boris Kutnevich, Denis Naskarov and Irina Kukushkina. He became as pink as he is (a Barbie-styled Bear) with his hair flipped at the end of "Shower Power".
Masha's pets A terrier (dog), a goat and a pig (and in the episode "How They Met", three chickens) who live outside Masha's house in her front yard (currently live in a well), but almost every time Masha comes out, they hide themselves to avoid her. The Pig is often forced to play with Masha, who makes it dress up like a baby in a stroller. In the episode "Dance Fever" it is revealed that the pig's name is Rosie. In the episodes "Laundry Day", "Growing Potion", "New Kids on the Block" and other episodes, it is revealed that the pig (Rosie) is a baby.
The wild animals The wild animals are a rabbit, red squirrels, hedgehogs and two wolves. Masha and a certain Hare—in "One, two three! Light the Christmas Tree", Father Frost's list calls him 'Bunny' (he was also named Bunny in "Tracks of Unknown Animals" and "No Trespassing"), and in "Surprise! Surprise!" he delivers painted eggs—often play hockey together. Bunny is occasionally an antagonist of the Bear, due to stealing carrots from the Bear's garden. The two Wolves live in a derelict ambulance car on top of a hill, often looking for something to eat, and act as medics for any apparent injuries or illnesses, though they sometimes fear Masha (living in an ambulance cab and acting as medics is a pun on the idiomatic expression, "wolves are orderlies of the woods").
Lady Bear The Lady Bear is a female brown bear. The Bear has a crush on her and sometimes goes out of his way to impress her. The first time she rebuffed him in favor of the Black Bear, only to later realize how self-absorbed the Rival Bear is. Another time, she turned her nose up at the Bear's classical guitar playing as she preferred more modern music. Even so, the She-Bear usually opens up to the Bear, such as the time she agreed to have a dinner with him, and she is sometimes kind to Masha, such as giving her a fashion magazine, helping to train her for her tennis match against the Black Bear, and helping her learn to ice-skate.
Dasha Dasha is Masha's cousin from Moscow, who looks exactly like Masha, but is more "ladylike", has platinum-blonde hair and blue eyes (Masha's are green), wears boxy, blue-rimmed glasses and a red-orange dress. She is afraid of the Bear and calls him "Shaggy", "Monster" and "Beast". She is voiced by Alina Kukushkina.
Panda Panda is a panda cub and the Bear's young cousin from China. He and Masha are rivals, often bickering every time he comes for a visit, but they occasionally get along and have fun together.
Recurring characters King Lion III A lion wearing a crown, who is a good friend of the bear. He sometimes visits the bear, to play together the game of chess or for collective outdoor adventures. He was always disturbed by Masha, sometimes being advised to him not to help bear as a king is not supposed to help anyone. Once the lion offered his crown to Masha, making her a queen for temporary basis.
Whiskers n' Stripes A Siberian tiger who is Bear's best friend from their days performing together in the Moscow circus.
Rival Bear A Himalayan black bear, who is Bear's worst enemy and Bear's chief rival for the attentions of the Lady Bear. The Rival Bear has an arrogant and unsportsmanlike personality, cheating to win against Masha in a tennis game, and laughing at her when she grows gigantic. Bear's biggest fear is if Black Bear and Lady Bear marry, which is shown in Game Over when Bear imagines what will happen if he plays games his whole life.
Penguin An Adélie penguin that first appears in "The Foundling", as an egg that Masha finds and makes the Bear hatch. The Penguin quickly imprints on the Bear as his parental-figure and the Bear forms a sincere bond with him, but chooses to send the Penguin to live in Antarctica for his own health. Even so, they stay in touch and the Penguin once visited.
Santa Claus (Father Frost) Santa Claus appears in Christmas-themed episodes.
Four-eyed aliens A trio of alien specimens who accidentally crashed on Earth. They were helped by Bear and Masha to get back to their spaceship.
January and Winter They appeared in "The Legend of the Twelve Months". January only appeared in one Season 7 episode.
Other Months They also appeared in "The Legend of the Twelve Months". February and March only appeared in "Masha and the Bear Shorties" (April will appear in the 8th season of Masha and the Bear).
Tourists They appear in "Princess and the Beast" (as usual appearances, they only did one).
Bear Impostor and His Assistant They only appear in two episodes from Season 7.
Sources According to the project's director, Denis Chervyatsov,
Production
The series' production has been handled domestically at Animaccord Animation Studio since 2008.Date of publication not specified in online article. The scenario for each episode is written by Oleg Kuzovkov, creator of the cartoon. Then the storyboarding is developed in accordance with the script and, in general, consists of at least 2000 slides. After the team finalizes the plot of an episode, the work for the 2D animatic kicks off. At this stage, animators define the duration of each scene in an episode, how characters are placed in it and interact with each other. After this step of the production is finished, the episode is passed for dubbing. Dubbing must be completed before 3D animation is applied, as the 3D animators need to know the characters' dialogue, intonations, and emotions in advance in order to keep their lip movements synchronized to the audio and make their facial expressions look realistic.
Actors Masha, her cousin Dasha, and Father Frost are the only characters who speak. The others communicate through gibberish or wordless sounds.
For the first two seasons, Masha's voice in the original Russian version was performed by Alina Kukushkina, who was 6 years old when she began to dub Masha. For the third season (seven years later in 2015), the officials of Animaccord animation studio confirmed that the new voice of Masha would be 6-year-old Barbara Sarantseva and then replaced again by Yulia Zunikova in 2020. The show's sound designer, Boris Kutnevich and Denis Naskarov, provide voices of Bear. Mark Kutnevich provides the voice of Bunny.
For the English version, Elsie Fisher – the voice of Agnes Gru in the Despicable Me films – dubbed the voice of Masha in the first season. In subsequent seasons Masha was dubbed by Rebecca Bloom (ep. 27-39) and Angelica Keamy (ep. 40–52), Kaitlyn McCormick (ep. 53-78), Adriana Figuredo (ep. 78-84) and now dubbed by West Rubin and Sofia Calasso.
Soundtrack The soundtrack for each episode is written by Russian composer Vasily Bogatyrev. Many compositions are stylized for famous works: Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, a circus theme from the film Circus, and in the episode "One-Hit Wonder" the rockstar Masha performs a song in the style of the group AC/DC. Most of the songs used in the cartoon, such as the soundtracks of "Laundry Day" and "The Grand Piano Lesson" episodes, became popular in Russia and abroad.
Reception