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Board games of the USSR that teach the correct way of life.


«We will give raw materials to the factories»


This game was released in 1930 and was distributed as a free supplement to the «Leningradsky Metalist» magazine.

[1]

The rules of the game written on the field:

You see the city plan. The river flows from corner to corner and on both sides of it city blocks are located densely. Long white stripes are streets.The city plan is divided into squares. This is done to make it easier to find the right street. The plans are always accompanied by explanations, they say which street is in which square. Young pioneers and schoolchildren walk around the city and collect scrap-raw materials. Junk is collected like this: a metal scrap, steel paper, torn galoshes, bottles, rags, worn out boots, bones. The guys hand over the collected trash to Gostorg and the metal scrap to Rudmetalltorg. There are warehouses in every district. The pioneers of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Moscow and Ukraine called each other to a competition - who will collect more scrap. The collected scrap goes to raw material factories. New machines come out of old iron and new clean notebooks come out of torn dirty paper. The pioneers are helping the state with this. The goal of the game is to collect junk. You will need to walk around the city and collect it. Two or three players can play at once. Every player takes a figurine: a cart, a carriage or a pioneer. The player takes turns putting his figurine in a cage in the lower corner to the right. Then roll the dice in turn. How many points have dropped out, the figure must be moved as many cells. The figures move along the longitudinal rows. In the first row you need to move to the left, in the second row - to the right, etc. The winner is the person who first reached the upper left cell.


If the figurine is on a square with a drawing, look here to see what it means.

1. The guys go on a hike to collect scrap.

4. The guys brought quite suitable things from home to the warehouse, there are a samovar and a primus.

Punishment is skip one move.

6. The guys collected old clothes and rags in «ZHAKT» (Housing and rental cooperative partnership).

You can roll the dice again.

9. The factory where the pioneers collected all the junk.

You can roll the dice again.

14. The guys collected old galoshes and boots from apartments.

You can roll the dice again.

17. The guy climbed into the trash heap for scrap.

Punishment is player exits the game.

20. The guys collected paper for apartments: books, newspapers, magazines.

You can roll the dice again.

23. The pioneer made an agreement with a housewife that she would collect raw materials. The pioneer promised to take him to the warehouse.

You can roll the dice again.

27. The guys dropped a metal scrap on the stairs and blocked the passage.

Punishment is to skip one move.

31. The guys collected unnecessary bottles.

You can roll the dice again.

36. The pioneers worked at the factory - they collected old iron in the yard.

You can roll the dice again.

39. Brought the scrap to the warehouse - from here in a freight car to the factory.

You can roll the dice again.

below:

Cut out these three figures and glue them after straightening the stands. Cut out both cube sweeps and glue the cubes out of them. It is good if you stick them on a thin folder.


The idea of ​​this board game is to teach how to collect recyclable materials and hand them over to factories and plants. The game also teaches not to carry everything as recyclable materials, but to disassemble which products can be useful in their intended purpose.



 

«For a healthy life»


The board game was released in 1926.

[2]

Two to six people take part in the game. Drawings on it are counted according to the number of points shown by the cube or spinning top. Getting on some pictures, the player additionally moves forward, but some pictures oblige him to move backward. The winner is the one who goes all the way (which is formed by the transmission belt) first.


Each drawing is dedicated to a different topic. When the player hits the cell, the number of which is indicated in the red circle, the player, depending on its content, either goes back or moves forward in accordance with the number of the square, which is additionally indicated in the figure. As an example: when moving to cell №35, where a person spitting on the floor is depicted, a man returns to cell №5, which shows where to perform this action

There are also cells on which two players cannot be located at the same time. A player who has fallen on such a cell, where another player is already located, returns to the beginning of the game. For example, cell №23 depicts a mug, plate and cutlery. The idea of ​​prohibiting being together on such a cage is that it’s impossible for two to eat from the same dish and use the same cutlery.


The goal of the game is to educate the rules of behavior in society, personal hygiene and a healthy lifestyle. The citizens of the USSR had to understand their mistakes and draw conclusions about the helpfulness of information in this game.



 

«Electrification»


This board game was released in 1928 and was distributed in the newspaper «Lenin's Grandchildren».

[1]

This game can be played by 2,3 or 4 players.

Before you start reading the rules of the game, stick it on cardboard and cut out each picture separately. The small pictures will serve as playing cards. Large pictures - a village, aul, a city and a port - should also be cut out and divided between the players. If four players are playing, then all four pictures are used, if three then three are used, two then two pictures.

The number of lights is the same in all pictures. They must be covered with the circles drawn here (cut out the circles).









Paired cards from the game Single cards from the game


The game: small pictures are mixed and distributed equally to the players, but so, that one player does not know which pictures the other has. The distributor will always have one less picture. If the player has paired, identical pictures, he puts them aside. Then the first person after the distributor pulls out one picture at random from the neighbor on the left. If the picture stretched out by him makes a pair with some picture already on his hand, then he again puts this pair aside. Then the one from whom the picture was drawn pulls out the picture from the third player, the third from the fourth, the fourth again from the first, and so on. When all the players put down paired pictures, in the end they will have cards with the image of electric bulbs in their hands, because it has no paired ones. Whoever has a card with one light bulb will open one lantern in the big picture, those who have two - two lanterns, those who have three then three. Whoever has no cards left at all does not open the lanterns.

Then the next one in turn deals all the cards again and the game resumes. The winner is the one who first opens all the lights in his big picture.


Lenin's phrase became winged: «Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country».




 

The post was made by the student of SPbPU under the direction of D.S. Bilyeva.


Sources:

1) The group in the social network VKontakte "HistoryPorn", May 12, 2020, "Soviet board games of the 20s-30s of the last century", retrieved from: https://vk.com/danilovaru?w=wall-68995594_248245&z=photo-68995594_457500169%2Fwall-68995594_248245

2) Author: Leningrad graphomaniac, August 27, 2020, "Early USSR propaganda board games", retrieved from: https://zen.yandex.ru/media/grafoman/propagandistskie-nastolnye-igry-rannego-sssr-5f460a58403bad6d22de1d0d

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