Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines
 Entrance of the museum in Moscow. | |
  Location within Moscow | |
| Established | 2007 |
|---|---|
| Location | Moscow |
| Coordinates | 55°46′35″N 37°40′35″E / 55.776255°N 37.676480°E |
| Website |
www |
The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines (Russian: Музей советских игровых автоматов) is a private interactive historical museum, where a unique collection of playable arcade machines from the Soviet Union is presented. The museum was founded by three enthusiasts, who collected arcade machines from the former Soviet Union, transported and restored them with love and care so they can be played. The collection continues to grow constantly. The first Museum of the Soviet Arcade Machines was opened in Moscow in 2007, and had a great amount of success among Moscow citizens and foreign visitors who found there exactly what they looking for: exciting time machines.
Based on the success of the initial Moscow Museum, two more Soviet arcade museums were later founded in St. Petersburg and Kazan.
Arcade machines in the Soviet Union
USSR’s Ministry of Culture finally started to reproduce adapted copies of American and Japanese arcade machines in 1975. This was followed by locally made machines machines like ‘Pepka’ (the Turnip) and ‘Konyok-Gorbunok’ (the Little Humpacked Horses) based on Russian fairy tales of the same names.
22 military factories made machines for the whole Union from the seventies up to the Perestoika. There were more than 100 different types of arcade machines. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the production stopped and the computer era had something new to offer, so these machines were broken, sold for spare parts, forgotten.
History of the Museum
In the 21st century three young people got an idea to create a museum to save the machines for future generations. Today forgotten and broken down Soviet-era arcade machines are being restored for the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines and it is now possible to play and feel the atmosphere of childhood and youth in the former Soviet nation during its last two decades. The museum was founded in 2007 and continues to grow.
Most of the machines are working ones so visitors can challenge themselves to games like ‘Morskoi Boy’ (Sea Battle), ‘Tankodrom’ (Tank Battle), a shooting game called ‘Sniper’, early video games like ‘Skachki’ (Horde Races) and many others.