Russia Bans Queue

Kolejka (queue) is a Polish board game based on life under communism.

The players line up their pawns in front of the shops without knowing which shop will have a delivery. Tension mounts as the product delivery cards are uncovered and it turns out that there will be enough product cards only for the lucky few standing closest to the door of a store. Since everyone wants to be first, the queue starts to push up against the door. To get ahead, the people in the queue use a range of queuing cards, such as “Mother carrying small child”, “This is not your place, sir”, or “Under-the-counter goods”. But they have to watch out for “Closed for stocktaking”, “Delivery error”, and for the black pawns – the speculators – standing in the queue. Only those players who make the best use of the queuing cards in their hand will come home with full shopping bags.

…In this realistic game you really have to be savvy to get the goods.

The game was initially developed by Poland’s Institute for National Remembrance to teach about life under communism but the game became an unexpected hit and has since been translated into English, French, Japanese and Russian among other languages.

The Russian government, however, is not amused and have banned the game.

IPN reported that Russia’s consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor warned that the game is perceived as “anti-Russian” and excessively critical of the Soviet system. Russian authorities asked Trefl, the company who bought the game’s license from IPN, to either remove the direct historical references from it or risk getting the product banned.

“IPN did not agree to the implementation of these changes and that is why Kolejka is no longer in Russian shops,” a statement by IPN reads.

I imagine the Russians wouldn’t like Kremlin either.

Addendum: A lot of Americans could use some reminders about price controls and socialism, fortunately you can download and print Kolejka in English here (scroll down).