I remember “Flipper”. I don’t remember “Kojak”. There were only two stations - I would have remembered if it was shown.
They’d perhaps concluded that honey was more effective than vinegar?
What about non-formerly-Christian parts of the USSR? Like Azerbaijan was Muslim rather than Orthodox. I understand that Azerbaijan nowadays is mostly only culturally Muslim, which says to me that being religious was* probably frowned upon. (Honestly, I should just ask my Azeri friend, but for one she’s too young to really remember life under the USSR, and two, it seems on topic here and I’m feeling lazy).
- or is, because the leadership now is of the “corrupt communist-party-derived familial dynasty” sort
After the war with Hitler began, Stalin had to play the Russian nationalism card (absurd, considering he wasn’t Russian and spoke Russian with a heavy Georgian accent), which entailed making peace with one specific religion: Russian Orthodoxy.
The tsarist motto was "Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality (i.e. nationalism). That worked for Joe Stalin just fine and it works for Putin today. To the extent that Orthodox Christianity ties in with fervent Russian patriotism, any Russian/Soviet leader can see its benefits…