The pace of change in Moscow over the past quarter of a century has seen hundreds of the city’s buildings knocked down, taking their history with them.
The buildings are demolished for various reasons, sometimes because they have been badly preserved and other times to make way for offices and other developments.
A group of journalists in Russia have created a mobile game for the Russian news website Meduza to highlight and document the loss of heritage in the Russian capital between 1992 and 2015.
Underlying the game is an impressive database of more than 400 buildings lost during the period, with at least basic information about all of them including name, address and the dates of constructions and demolition.
Called Archanoid (it is based on a Taito game called Arkanoid, similar to the seminal game Breakout), it invites players to ricochet a ball against blocks to destroy them. Each of the blocks represents a lost building or complex, the details of which you get at the top of the screen after they disappear.
An encyclopaedia is available within the app giving all the information available on each of the buildings, including, in some cases, photos. Players may, for example, have destroyed the Voentorg art deco ensemble which was built between 1910 and 1913. It was destroyed in 2003 and replaced by an office voted Moscow’s worst building in a 2010 poll by Forbes.
Another featured loss is the Bolkonsky house, which was the former mansion of Leo Tolstoy’s grandfather Nikolay Sergeyevich Volkonsky (1753-1821). In total, the game features 10 levels covering each of Moscow’s historic districts.
The rewards players get for playing the game well are related to the context, too: if you destroy all the buildings lost during Yury Luzhkov’s 18-year tenure as mayor, the Russian politician’s famous cap is unlocked to mark your achievement.
The game’s editor (and former editor-in-chief of Esquire Russia), Dmitry Golubovsky, said: “We’re trying to raise awareness, but in a new way – educate people, but also engage them in the issue on a new level.
“There’s the gameplay, which we hope is engaging enough, but we constantly remind our potential users about the nature of this data, with a log of the names, addresses, and dates of real-life destruction of the buildings in each level, and more detailed information in the encyclopaedia.
“The power of gaming as a tool of enlightenment and education is enormous. We’re just trying to use it, adding a bit of satire.”
You can find the link to download the game here.
