рояль в кустах

After seeing the Soviet television movie The Very Same Munchausen, "совершенно случайно" I met the Russian expression "рояль в кустах".
I found a good analysis of this expression in http://www.gramota.ru/spravka/hardwords/25_270

N. Bereznikova says, among other things,:
И процентов на 90 уверена - это фраза Горина. Это была пародия на телепередачу.
It comes from a 1960-s short story, a parody on TV interviews.
There, a reporter with strained ease “accidentally" interviewed a guy on the street who happened to be a foremost worker (worker winning distinction for initiative and exemplary work?). The word "accidentally"/”quite by chance” is a refrain throughout the text.
And finally the reporter says: "Да, кстати, вот тут в кустах совершенно случайно оказался рояль! Вы можете нам сыграть что-нибудь!"

В общих чертах, I’ve understood the overall meaning of this long answer.
And I think that Gorin’s sarcasm is still a living matter in everyday’s life.
So, when I see all those serious faces on TV or in the newspapers, I, too, should be tempted to say:
"Серьезное лицо - еще не признак ума. Все глупости на земле делались именно с этим выражением лица. Так что улыбайтесь, господа!"

My question: How popular is the expression рояль в кустах in Russia, nowadays?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vbar

My question: How popular is the expression рояль в кустах in Russia, nowadays?

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Very much. It's just a part of Russian language, one of its (commonly used) expressions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vbar

My question: How popular is the expression рояль в кустах in Russia, nowadays?

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Quite popular. You can see it very often in book reviews by readers of online libraries (lib.aldebaran.ru, fenzin.ru, etc.)

Thank you, Оля and translationsnmru.

I think that in Italy, too, that expression is rather ‘popular’ and is put into practice in a great variety of cases.
But I’ve not yet found out ‘one’ equivalent Italian expression: perhaps in our Mediterranean koiné that expression lives in too many variants.

it's funny, I've seen this phenomenon often in Russian movies and serials but I never had a word for it; my own description was outrageous coincidence. These kind of coincidences never occur in western movies buy are apparently common in Russian video sources.