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	Grigory Tambulov / For MT The museum is currently housed in the basement of a student dormitory.

Back in the Fight

Students from Moscow scoured amusement parks to set up the first museum of Soviet arcade games.

By Maria Antonova
Published: May 11, 2007

Once upon a time, a 15-kopek coin had a Soviet emblem on one side and could buy you a few sweaty-handed minutes at a submarine console. You looked into a rubber-bound periscope over the foggy ocean horizon, aimed at the silhouettes of distant ships and tried to push the button at the right moment. If enough of your missiles collided with their targets, you would win an extra game.

"The purpose of the amusement game is for entertainment and active leisure, as well as the development of visual-estimation abilities and shooting precision," stated the factory manual for "Morskoi Boi," or Sea Attack, one of the most popular arcade games of the Soviet Union. Acquiring this machine was the first step toward creating the Museum of Soviet Arcade Games, which opened last month in northeast Moscow.

Located in the basement of the dormitory at MAMI State Technical University, the museum now has 32 different machines. The entryway looks like it belongs in an armed submarine itself, with its imposing metal door and levers that unlock it. But inside, three rooms with eclectically painted walls are heaven for nostalgic children of the 1980s.

Soviet arcade games first appeared in the late 1970s and were produced until the early 1990s. All of them were built by military factories and then installed in public places such as parks, department stores, gyms, pools, movie theaters or "palaces of culture." At the time, only the military had the means to create such machines, some of which operated electronically, some mechanically, and some of which had both manual and electronic elements.

"We estimate there were 70 different kinds of machines, although it's difficult to know for sure since they were made at facilities that were closed to the public," said Maxim Pinigin, the museum's custodian. To set up the museum, Pinigin, along with three other people, investigated amusement parks and other natural habitats for arcade games in Moscow, the Tula region and even Uzbekistan.

Grigory Tambulov / For MT Some of the 32 games are now working, but many still lack vital parts such as guns.

In terms of technology and aesthetics, a typical Soviet arcade game is what you get when you put Mario Brothers into a ZiL refrigerator and slap a coin slot on it. Side by side, the 32 machines look like fossils from the late Leonid Brezhnev era. Besides Morskoi Boi, there is a mechanical hockey game and two car racing games, "Obgon" and "Virazh," as well as a hunting game that consists of a glowing plastic screen with the image of a winter landscape. When duck shapes appear on the screen, the player is supposed to shoot them with an infrared gun. "Unfortunately, there is no gun yet," Pinigin said, "but we'll find one."

Most Soviet arcade game machines have led difficult lives, losing working parts such as guns and suffering other damage. They were phased out when the Soviet Union fell apart and computer games began filling the need for "entertainment and active leisure." Thrown away or rusting in storage rooms across Russia and the former Soviet republics, the machines are unknown relics to most people under 20.

"They were meant to last only about seven years, so now we have to constantly repair them," Pinigin said. Although the museum's four employees are engineers by training, they still can't get some of the machines to work. A lack of documentation and spare parts for some of the machines is no help either.

Still, the little museum has big plans. "We eventually want to be open three nights a week, show old cartoons such as 'Macron 1,' participate in city events and move closer to the surface in a more central location," said Alexander Stakhanov, the museum's project manager.

Of course, the hunt for more items is still on, too. "We got pretty much everything we could in Moscow," Pinigin said. "I think now we need to go beyond Russia -- I heard there are still Soviet fizzy-drink machines in some of the former republics. We should get one for the coffee room."

The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines is located at 9/26 7th Parkovaya Ulitsa in Building I of MAMI State Technical University. Metro Pervomaiskaya. Currently, the museum is open only on Wednesdays after 7:30 p.m. and visits must be arranged in advance. To arrange a visit, email kupibilet@15kop.ru or call 8-916-167-1925. Entrance costs 300 rubles and includes tea and unlimited 15-kopek coins. For more information, visit www.15kop.ru.

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