Step into This Soviet Arcade Time Machine

While American teens in the ’80s were obsessing over Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, their Soviet counterparts were playing arcade games meant to prepare them for war. At the time, video games weren’t easily accessible in the Soviet Union. So the government fashioned them from refrigerators and calculators with the goal of training young Soviets for combat. St. Petersburg resident Alexander Stakhanov remembers those games fondly. So he did what any nostalgic gamer would do—he opened the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines.

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This story is a part of our Frontiers series, where we bring you front and center to the dreamers, pioneers, and innovators leading society at the cutting edge. Let us take you along for a trip to the oft-imagined but rarely accomplished.

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