Last year, the blog A Dangerous Business published a series of photos and stories from an old Russian arcade with Soviet era games.  The story popped back up this week via Kotaku and it’s still amazing. Take a look at the old photos on Flickr.  The photo above:

This was one of the first games we tried. It’s called “????? ???????” (Repka Silomer) or “Turnip Strength Tester.” Later that night, we showed the photos to our homestay host, hoping for some sort of explanation. She had never played the game but told us that the concept was based on an old Russian children’s story.

The tale is called “The Giant Turnip” and is about a family who planted a turnip that grew so large that they couldn’t get it out of the ground. The Old Man tries pulling on it, but it won’t budge. The Old Woman grabs on to him, but still no luck. Then the Granddaughter grabs hold, the dog, the cat and finally, with the help of the mouse, they’re able to pull it out.