Following its launch in 1969, Sesame Street began to branch out to different parts of the world in the form of localised versions of the show. The internationalization of "Sesame Street" was condemned as "a clear example of veiled neocolonialism in cultures" by a Soviet Communist Party publication in 1973. However after the Soviet Union shattered into 15 independent nations, Natasha Rogoff found the opportunity to take part in this turbulent time of change "too enticing" once the Soviet Union collapsed, opening the door to cultural interchange with the West. She believes it was "just an incredible opportunity to have the empire suddenly implode and then have this opportunity to create a program that would bring new skills and new ideas to children across the whole former Soviet Union."

"I didn't anticipate the level of difficulty that we'd have, or the dangers that we'd face," Rogoff added when he accepted the position. However, the Russian producers had difficulty sweeping the clouds away for Ulitsa Sezam because it seemed that Moscow didn’t want it to even happen and at one point a television journalist was killed not long after vowing to help production but the production’s offices were raided by AK-47 armed soldiers who stole scripts, equipment, set designs and an Elmo! Yet that didn’t stop production of the show and eventually in October 1996, Ulitsa Sezam made it debut on Russian television and made it way through former USSR member states. Ulitsa Sezam was one of 30 localised Sesame Street iterations with the first coming from Brazil! It was a complex time, both unstable and full of optimism that a new generation of kids would be raised in a more liberated society than the one that had come before it.

With Muppets acting as lovable representatives of democratic ideals,"Ulitsa Sezam," which was run by the Children's Television Workshop
(now called Sesame Workshop), the American group that created "Sesame Street," aimed to educate young viewers the skills they would
need to prosper in a fledgling market economy. The "Sesame Street" spinoff aimed to be the first Russian-language educational TV program
for preschoolers, receiving support from American and Russian government officials. Despite facing challenges like financing issues and
cultural clashes, the program was saved from collapse by passionate teams on both sides of the Atlantic. It followed the usual Sesame Street
format: street scenes with songs and skits relating to numeracy and literacy with a number and letter of the day in each episode. It had
localised characters with Zeliboba, an immense blue Muppet with shaggy hair, a large bulbous nose and oversized sneekers supposedly
being the Russian Sesame Street’s Big Bird despite not being an aviary at all.

The show featured contemporary musicians and ethnic minorities from the former Soviet Union. It aimed to teach valuable skills for life in a
market economy, such as politeness, through fun-loving Muppets. The show's cast included actors representing diverse ethnic minorities. However, much like democracy in Russia for as long as a certain dictator is around, Ulitsa Sezam is sadly no more. Those sunny days have passed.

According to the book Muppets in Moscow, Rogoff departed the CTW in 1998, but "Ulitsa Sezam" continued to run until 2010, when it lost the
favor of "Russian President Vladimir Putin's people at the television networks." In the end, optimistic ideas of a free, democratic society in
Russia—ideas that inspired "Ulitsa Sezam" and helped it get through difficult times—failed to come to pass.