Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Polish Board Game Recreates Communist Shopping Hell


The game's functional box also mimics no-frills communist shopping.

Poles have been queuing to buy a new board game called "Kolejka" (The Queue), which recreates the tedious shopping experience of communist-era Poland, reports the BBC.

Crowds of people, including those who remember standing for days in queues and teenagers who were not even born in the 1980s, lined up at the state-run Institute of National Remembrance to buy the game.

The IPN is the home of Poland's communist-era archives and investigates crimes from that period. It also promotes awareness of that time and devised the game as an educational tool, to teach young Poles about history in an entertaining way. Half of the first batch is being reserved for schools.

I had the opportunity to travel in East Berlin a year before the Wall came down. If someone could somehow recreate the sense of despair, shoddy products and gloom that I witnessed in East Berlin, especially after first being for a few days in the lively free market city of West Berlin, no one would ever be for central planning.

On another note, I wonder if in 20 years we will have a TSA travel board game in the U.S.?

(ViaMarkPerry)

1 comment:

  1. What a wonderful idea for a gift for all of your socialist and extreme-left wing freinds.

    ReplyDelete