Russia under Vladimir Putin has seen a dramatic rollback of civil liberties, including free speech and free press. The government has little tolerance for anyone voicing opposition views, but the most recent action after a board game reached a new low for the Putin regime. The game is Kolejka or “Queue” which widely popular as a type of “Communist Monopoly.” It requires players to fight for limited resources under the prior Polish communist regime. In an ironic move, the Putin regime has banned the game for its critical depiction of communism — thereby showing the striking similarity between Putin’s regime and the one depicted in the game.
In the game, you try to buy everything on your shopping list. Yet, everything is in short supply in the planned, centralized economy. The game includes historical materials as well as the black market that raged in the Soviet economy.
Russia’s consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor declared the game “anti-Russian” and excessively critical of the Soviet system. The government told the company, Trefl, to either remove the direct historical references from it or risk getting the product banned. The company (operating under the name IPN) declined and the game was pulled from Russian shelves.
So a game that depicted the authoritarian rule of the Soviets have been banned by centralized authoritarian rule of Putin. That certainly makes a point.