This Russian comedian grew up super rich - and she’s not afraid to laugh about it

Many comedians squeeze material from hard-luck origin stories. Not Olga Koch. She grew up wealthy and privileged and, instead of avoiding the issue, she leans right into it.

The title of the show she is bringing to the Sydney Comedy Festival, which began this week, gives it away – Olga Koch Comes From Money. It comes to town just a week after it earned a nomination for most outstanding show at the 2025 Melbourne International Comedy Festival and promises scathing insight.

Olga Koch had a very different childhood to most and is sharing her insights at the Sydney Comedy Festival.Credit: Simon Schluter

“The fact we don’t talk about privilege only works for the powerful and the privileged … the only people forced to talk about it are the working class,” she says.

“I wanted to write about privilege and confront it in a way that was unemotional – it wasn’t an endorsement but wasn’t bragging or even self-flagellation. I wanted to discuss it in a neutral way … it’s not about having privilege but what you do with it.

“[The show is] an examination of privilege and culture in three different countries.”

That’s another thing. Koch, 31, was born in Russia but educated in London – at an American international school, so she speaks with an American accent. Then she went to New York for university and studied computer science. And, she notes, she has lived through pretty interesting times.

Olga Koch says those who are privileged should be talking about it.Credit: Simon Schluter

“How they lived in Russia at a specific time in the early 2000s was this neoliberal golden egg era, where everyone was really excited about what we could be, but then it took such a dark turn,” she says.

“And also I was in the US when Obama got elected. I have lived at some very specific times.”

Koch’s father, Alfred Koch, was deputy prime minister under former Russian president Boris Yeltsin and was responsible for driving the privatisation of valuable state assets during the late 1990s – effectively helping to create the oligarch class.

As Vladimir Putin rose to power, the family found themselves without allies in the new regime and, with the prospect of arrest looming, her parents eventually left for Germany in 2014. Her dad is technically still on the run, although as she observes the Putin regime currently has “bigger fish to fry”.

As all that was unfolding, Koch was in New York studying and doing improv with sketch group Upright Citizens Brigade. Her dabbling in comedy continued when she returned to the UK.

Eventually she plunged in, debuting with a full-length solo show in 2018. Called Fight, it detailed her intriguing family history and the challenges it brought.

Since then, she matched her expertise in computer science with her work in comedy via BBC radio shows, podcasts and her next three live shows, which did not address her unique family history.

“I have people who have seen me for three years do a show every year and this is the first time they’ve found out I was Russian – I think it’s interesting, but it is not my entire identity.”

Koch has finished a masters in social science and is now doing a PhD in computer-human interaction,“a joint venture between psychology and computer science”, and is keen on using her comic skills in science communication.

And what do her parents make of her career so far?

“My parents do not know really what I do … they know I’m doing a part-time PhD, but they don’t speak English [or understand] these touchstones, such as doing the Edinburgh Fringe,” Koch says.

Olga Koch Comes From Money is on at the Comedy Store April 26-27 as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival.