So you’re visiting another place, weather isn’t great, and you’re looking for a museum to visit. Sure, you could go to another art museum, another national history museum, another science museum, -yawn-, but if – like me – you’ve already seen dozens of those museum all over the world you’ll probably be looking for something a bit different. In every country I go to I try to go and explore the smaller off-the-beaten-track museums, and Moscow presented me with a wonderful option. Not too far away from my hotel, 5-10 minutes walking distance from the red square, is the small Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines. It’s very interesting to see how the soviets were competing against the corrupt west in building game machines during the cold war. The museum has a collection of these old games, and they’re all functioning. Upon entry, you’ll receive tokens, and will be invited to go back in time to a time when technology wasn’t simple and straightforward requiring game builder a special effort in inventing something interactive and fun. And in some cases, they succeeded. Some of those machines are good fun. It’s not 3D multi-player network HDTV madness, but you’ll be able to spend two-three hours with these machines, trying to imagine a world where this was all that there was. Will future generations look at our technology the same way?
It’s not a large place, and only a few people coming in. I think perhaps the most interesting thing for me was to watch others interact with those machines…
And there’s plenty more, I must have tried all of them atleast once…
As a person who grew up with black and white TV screens, and no connected landline (yep, technology arrived late where I’m from), and witnessed technology evolve from cards and cassettes of Atari to floppy disks on XTs, ATs, CGA and EGA screens, I have a special appreciation for simplicity and making the most of the basic hardware.
Location:
For geeks like me and those who appreciate specialty off-the-beaten-track museums, this little place is not to be missed.