Masha's tales (Seasons 1–2)

Masha's Tales (Mashiny Skazki, 2012) is a Russian animated children's series you can watch online on iFILM. Masha — the same little whirlwind from Masha and the Bear — gathers her toys in a circle and retells classic folk tales her own way.

And her own way is something else: the heroes get mixed up, the plots wander off course, the wrong characters bump into each other, and every story ends with a conclusion no grown-up would ever reach. Alina Kukushkina voices Masha, and the director is Oleg Kuzovkov, the creator of the whole Masha and the Bear universe. Each episode runs just a couple of minutes and flies right by.

The charm is that beneath all the chatter sit real fairy tales from around the world — the turnip, the frog princess, the ugly duckling — so a child laughs and meets the classics at the same time. A calm alternative to louder cartoons: bright, kind-hearted and easy to follow. Stream Masha's Tales (2012) online on iFILM.