Soviet and Post-Soviet Era Gaming in Estonia | LVLUP! | Retro Road Trip

Today we take a virtual road trip to Estonia to explore the rise of video gaming and the LVLUP! video game museum, with thanks to Andrejs who gives us a tour today.
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[@ВалерияРоманова-ю1м]

I was born in the USSR and my first console was the DENDY! I only ever had 2 game cards for it, one was Dr. Mario and DuckHunt and the other one was one of those 999 in 1 famicom games thing! And my dad had one of the elektronika game&watch clones he would always play on the toilet

[@henrikmanitski1061]

My first and last console was a "Rambo TV Games" Atari 2600 Clone

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

So I should feel lucky for having an original atari 800xl while all my friends were buying 16bit machines!

[@ScottWozniak]

As a lifelong New Yorker, I find it super interesting to see how people experienced video games in different parts of the world. This guy's a hero. Great video! ❤️

[@sergo40]

As an Estonian, I was pleasantly surprised to see this pop up in my feed. Super nice content, thanks Andrejs and Neil. To add something from my own memories, being young but still vaguely remembering the later 90's and being told by older siblings and parents about the earlier 90's and late 80's, there were quite a few Amigas and also Atari STs and Amstrads CPCs that passed through our family and a lot of Famiclones in all shapes, plus IBM XT/ATs, when they were quite outdated already in the rest of the world, some bought locally from other people, some gotten from family friends who lived in other countries. Later also generic PC compatibles, specially remember a Commodore PC compatible. Also rampant game piracy, which is no surprise, parties where people meet up to trade software, games, hardware and knowledge. There were also huge markets where people would park their cars on huge parking lots or fields and sell all kinds of bootleg games and software, plus genuine hardware on the hoods of their cars, etc, the markets weren't specific to computers and video games though. Also seen pictures and posters about Amiga user gatherings in Estonia from as early as 1989, which surprised me a lot.

[@TNX255]

@Ergo A I remember when I was a teen in Finland in the 1990's, many Finns took trips to Tallinn not just because of the cheaper alcohol but because of those marketplaces, and from them they would get all sorts of pirated stuff like PC CD-ROM games, movies on VHS cassettes, music CD's, band clothes etc. The most famous of those marketplaces was one called "Mustamäen tori" (if I remember correctly) somewhere in Tallinn, as it was known in Finnish at least.

[@Feudorkannabro]

@@TNX255 The another famous pirate marketplace for Finns was Viipurin tori in Vyborg, Russia. The prices of the pirates were even cheaper there

[@boblowes]

I grew up on the remote Scottish island community of Shetland. We're just about equidistant between Scotland and Norway, and in the middle of some really rich fishing grounds. As a result of that, every summer, we ussed to get loads of Soviet fish factory ships arriving. These enormous vessels would catch loads of fish, and then clean, gut and freeze them - using the facilities they had aboard. The crews were relatively well paid, as far as most Soviet-era wages packets went, and every day, any of the crew who had the day off would come ashore in their lifeboats (and with multiple factory ships, that quickly meant hundreds of crew ashore every day), who would spend a chunk of their pay in the pubs. But they spent an awful lot more in the shops, buying Levi and Wrangler jeans, Nescafe instant coffee and whisky and vodka. You'd see them at the keyside, loading crates of booze bought from the supermarket and off-licences onto their lifeboats to take back to the factory ships - all to take back to the USSR and sell on the black market for many times what they paid for them in the UK. But if there was one thing the Soviet crews really went for, it was electronics and small electrical goods. Coffee machines, toasters, personal stereos, radio-cassette players... and computers and TVs. It was crazy. Every day, you'd see some of them buying two or three cheap TVs - Fergusons, Thorn, Pye - none of the good Japanese brands. The cheap British or European-made ones that weren't nearly as good. Small portable colour models seemed the most popular (I supose they could convert them to receive Secam or something), but also extremely popular were home computers. We were well into the mid-to-late 80s by this point. The Sega Mega Drive was available, as was the NES. But these guys weren't interested in them (presumably because it would be much harder to get other carts for them when they got back home). These guys were talking home 8bit home computers. Never C64s or Amstrads - always a ZX Spectrum +2A. Though they did offer a ridiculous amount of money to my mum for her aging Lada.

[@chriswareham]

At one point, Lada were re-importing unwanted cars from Western Europe to be used for spare parts in the Eastern Bloc. In the UK, and I expect in other Western European countries, Ladas were sold using an unusual hire-purchase scheme that meant many of the cars were returned to the dealers after a few years. Lada didn't make spare parts, only complete vehicles, which eventually meant they were no longer able to sell in Western Europe as car manufacturers were required to produce a certain amount of spare parts to ensure long term serviceability. The same lack of spares in the Eastern Bloc made it quite lucrative to re-import them from the West. It also reminds me of a classic police trick in the Soviet Union. People would remove the windscreen wipers from their car when they parked them to prevent them being stolen, but then the police would ticket cars for not being "street legal". So many people started leaving their windscreen wipers on the car. The police then would remove the wipers, and wait for the driver to show up. They'd then threaten to ticket the driver, unless they bought the pair of wipers that they just happened to have on the backseat of their police car...

[@tithund]

@@chriswareham So that's where all the Ladas went... I remember lots of them being around when I was a kid, and now it's a rarity to see one, I always assumed it was because they rusted away.

[@OneSmallStepWeb]

This guy was great, enthusiastic and passionate. I wish him all the success in the future. Great video, Neil. A niche within a niche.

[@aeiouxs]

Agreed, he delivered so much clear history in a few short sentences, and in his second language, really impressive.

[@ANDREJSRUSINOVSKISfromEstonia]

Thank you, international youth work experience helps a lot.

[@Slamgod]

Exactly what I was going to say! Wishing LVLUP great success. This was a great pleasure to watch, Neil! Cheers from the US!!

[@BertGrink]

@@ANDREJSRUSINOVSKISfromEstonia Greetings from Denmark; I was really impressed by your English! Keep up the great work, man. 👍

[@woox2k]

@@aeiouxs Third, actually. Pretty sure he speaks both estonian and russian fluently. I can hear some hints of a accent that no only-estonian-speaking person has :)

[@cheaterman49]

Whoa! To be perfectly honest I didn't expect that much going into it, but this is really fascinating! Thanks Neil and thanks Andrejs!

[@sonyericssoner]

It was the year 1993 summer holidays, i was 8 years old and i was bored at my grandmas house for a month. It was then whem i tried to tune the TV and a clear picture came up off someone playing his glorious NES clone. The graphics were outstanding and the loading times were instant, offcourse i didnt knew anything about NES or any console at that time. We had only a ZX Spectrum clone at home. And it was then in 1993 when letst play streaming was accidently invented. I tuned to the stream every evening eager to see more games. Now i am a collector . Slovakia 1993 o/

[@НиколаГеоргиев-ш2б]

Haha, greetings from Bulgaria. As cheap as those clones were, they had too poor EMI insulation (or non at all). I remember having the same experience while tuning the TV channels so many years ago. Back then I thought somebody was using the provided RF antennae to play (I've never done that - the quality was too bad).

[@munxcorp]

Here in Lithuania my uncle bought a famiclone called "Zhiliton" sometime in early 90s. It was in a shell of a Model1 Megadrive. It was soon handed to me and much fun was had. Later on in mid to late 90's you could also get Megadrive clones, which were basically a system-on-a-chip type deals.

[@povilasstaniulis9484]

Yep, I had a lot of those consoles too. They were quite unreliable though (I went through 5 or 6 of them before getting my first PC). And cartridges were quite expensive.

[@ElektronikLabor]

Thanks for that interview. I grew up in Estonia in the 90's and that video brought back a little bit of my childhood

[@neddreadmaynard]

Well, what a great video, a real eye opener. Really makes you realise how lucky we all were in the UK. And thank you Neil for bringing attention to this dedicated guy and his museum. Loved the authentic furniture settings . Very original content mate, well done.

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you Ned

[@oprion]

There was a another hand-held in the early 90’s that was incredibly popular in the post-Soviet world. A “Brick Game 9999 in 1” brand that included a selection of games like Tetris, a Racing game, Snake, and an Arkanoid-like title.

[@FlackoWeasel]

Yeees I had that one too!!!

[@eddiehimself]

That awkward moment when someone in a shed in Estonia managed to make a better controller than the Atari 5200 lol.

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

My old toaster was more advanced than a 5200 lol

[@MikeStavola]

It really isn't hard to make something as crappy as the 5200 controller. Let me demonstrate. Take an Xbox 1 controller. Then, replace all of the switches with plastic membranes, and the buttons with rubber. Pull the joysticks, and replace them with Chinese bootleg 1980s RC gimbal joysticks. Then replace the curves with edges, and bam. Crappiest controller ever. I feel bad for the designer of the 5200 controller. The prototypes were reportedly great, but the higher ups wanted them manufactured for as little cost as possible.

[@georgf9279]

@@TheKayliedGamerChannel-KZbin Was it a Sunbeam Radiant Control?

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

@@georgf9279 Oh no, it was a Delongi 4 slice 🤪 But it did have a very nice defrost function lol

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

@@MikeStavola whoa, that sounds like a Quickshot Soulja Boy Edition 😂

[@RMCRetro]

It's good to be on another Retro Road Trip! - Here are the links from the episode: LVLUP! Instagram: instagram.com/lvlupmuseum/ Facebook: facebook.com/lvlupmuseum/ Website: lvlup.ee/ Patreon: patreon.com/lvlupmuseum You may also be interested in this look at the Nintendo G&W clones by @backofficeshow at: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnS8gYCrlLBoldE Thanks for watching, Neil - RMC

[@OneSmallStepWeb]

You mentioned patreon in the video. I don't see a link. I'd love to throw a few bob to the museum. Apologies if it's in their FB or Insta pages - I have neither so can't check myself.

[@ANDREJSRUSINOVSKISfromEstonia]

Andrew McLean hello! Here it is - www.patreon.com/Lvlupmuseum

[@RMCRetro]

@@OneSmallStepWeb Thanks, I've added it to the link list

[@TheMegaross91]

Blimey, I remember those 100 in 1 type cartridges. It's interesting to me now how big a difference in quality there is between the genuine Tetris my parents bought back when the Gameboy was released, and the Tetris on a 64 in 1 cartridge 8 year old me was bought on our first foreign holiday to play around the pool. Both of which I'm glad to say, I still have.

[@mphelps1013]

I can totally identify with this guy's experience of knocked off Nintendo consoles and carts, due to moving to South Africa in '91 as a young kid. I also started on a black and white TV as the main family colour TV was basically off limits (unless of course I was feeling "unwell" and skipped a day of school so I could hook up my Famicon clone while the parents were at work). Then I made the fatal mistake of showing my older sister Tetris, and my dad Arkanoid. All of a sudden *my* famicon became the *family* console (living up to it's name). The only upshot being that it was granted full access to the main TV. By the time I got my Megadrive I had my own TV and I kept the best games quiet from the rest of the family.

[@P5ychoFox]

The familiar decor and unfamiliar games systems will enable visitors to experience glimpses of an alternate childhood. Great stuff. The Baltic states had it tough under Soviet rule and missed out on a lot but certainly worked with what they had.

[@NeverlandSystemZor]

The retro restorations are so cool... but this, this is a whole different level of intriguing... to see the history of places generally closed to "the west" like this is very neat. Loved this episode!

[@josvandoesburg8746]

What a cool dude! Lots of energy and interesting stories about the history of gaming in the (Post) Soviet Era. Man, these people were bad-ass. Building custom controllers and such. Also a fine lookin' website if i might say so. Truly shows a lot of love and dedication to this Museum. Keep up the good work! Greetings from The Nederlands.

[@Vuusteri]

In a way Estonian kids were lucky with their cheap bootlegs. In Finland we had to pay the full price for games and therefore I only had like 8 games for the NES. I know many people visited 'Mustamäen tori' in Tallinn to buy some pirated products.

[@digiowl9599]

What is funny is that apparently NES and SNES was more popular in the Nordics than the rest of (western) Europe, where Sega ruled the market. Supposedly has something to do with the Swedish importer of Nintendo products being a serious fan.

[@snooks5607]

@@digiowl9599 this guy kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXzKfWuraaiDgJo

[@GadgetUK164]

Excellent =D Been to Estonia - loved it!!! There's a Depeche Mode pub there - went in there for lunch one day!

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

Bet finding that pub is 'some great reward'... pint and some food and 'You just can't get enough' lol

[@chriswareham]

I went to Estonia as a student in the early 1990s just as the last Soviet garrison left. I was staying with some punks, and we went to look at the freshly abandoned barracks in the air force section of the camp. The mess was shocking, excrement smeared on the walls and everything that could not be taken was smashed to bits. The ground was also badly polluted with aviation fuel. The pilots were supposed to fly a certain number of hours a month to maintain flight readiness, but what happened was that they were emptying the fuel onto the ground and pretending they'd done their flying hours!

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

@@chriswareham don't drink the tea lol :/

[@wilkebitter5742]

Love this. I feel when you look at a country's history, it makes sense to focus on a very specific area of culture - exactly like this, thank you.

[@fensoxx]

Oh man! My favorite video yet! History/tech/gaming/travel! You killed it this time! Thanks!

[@talideon]

IIRC, the Soviet Union used a variation on SECAM, hence the issues with colour information in the signal, even though the luminance data is pretty compatible. Interestingly, PAL is used for studio work even in countries that use SECAM as it's easier to mix PAL colour information without going through a demodulation/remodulation process, which adds a lot of complexity to the process and leads to a drop in signal quality. In a lot of ways, PAL can be seen as a cleaned up version of NTSC (lacking the colour encoding quirks NTSC has) with a lot of the really good ideas from SECAM.

[@iscander_s]

Generally speaking, PAL had higher picture quality, but SECAM had more reliable colur picture in places with poor aerial reception.

[@mapesdhs597]

@@iscander_s The curious thing is that in the UK for many years (1980s through 1990s) most CRT TVs supported all three formats, and it was possible to buy VCRs which could record as well as play back NTSC. By contrast, TVs, etc. in the US that could handle anything other than NTSC were relatively rare. I'm not sure why it was like this in the UK, possibly so that people could buy imported NTSC VHS titles. Likewise, it was quite common for early DVD players to support any region (I have an old CyberHome player that does this).

[@Shymon87]

In 1992 I had such a console "ELEKTRONIKA" in Poland.

[@jameslewis2635]

In the 1980's many in the west were listening to a music genre of the same name. I did have a couple of similar devices but since I live in the UK I doubt there is any real relation to them other than one copying the other.

[@snooks5607]

in mid to late 90s we used to visit tallinn from southern finland, as few comments mentioned, the marketplace was full of hundreds of different cd-rom collections of games and software. back then everyone still had dialup modems and downloading was slow so this was quick and cheap way of getting interesting titles (and interesting viruses sometimes). being young I assumed PC was commonplace but hearing 29:24 perhaps it was Russian "businessmen" supplying them largely for tourists?

[@MegaManNeo]

I love these computer museums with the flair of a giant public nerd cave. He even keeps the rides from the amusement parks he visited as a kid! Really nice to watch and also that intro was awesome for me as a VR player :D

[@colum1977]

Awesome, going next week... looks great. Hope the Finland/Estonia ferries keep going. Can't believe i was on the other side of that very chimney two weeks ago and did not notice this place, i blame the nearby craft-beer places :P

[@jamesbowman4667]

Great day to publish this, as it's the anniversary of the Estonian Restoration of Independence. Thanks for this video, really great stuff!

[@JaredConnell]

I love these museum tour videos and they actually allowed me to connect to my own family's history because it inspired me to check out museums when I visited my grandma earlier this year. I had planned on going to the national computer museum in bletchley Park and when I mentioned it to my mom, I found out that that is where my granddad had worked while they were doing all their groundbreaking work during ww2. My mom told me about how she had visited in the past and met people who worked with my grandad and they showed her his actual desk he used while working there. Not to mention I got to see and learn about so much and it was all inspired by your videos! So thank you!

[@Estmusic323]

Im estonian and i remember when growing up, i had black and white soviet tv. A famiclone named polystation which looked like ps1 first model. There were tetris handhelds which were also very common back in the day. First games i managed to play were, contra, tank, mario, exite bike. Good video. I gave them my trinitron. It’s good place just to hang and have fun. Well done little preview of the museum! Now i have high def famicom with everdrive N8.

[@knobbymcfeck]

Such a similar story to South Africa, with the Apartheid restrictions meaning we only got the NES clones in around 1995. And then we got Toys 'R Us, which would officially sell those bazillion-in-1 carts. Good times.

[@rickylovesyou]

Imagine being a gamer and finding out there was this whole new world of consoles and video game titles to discover and what you knew of video games was just the tip of the iceberg. The excitement would just be off the charts!

[@CaffeinatedTech]

Yeah, the whole new world of gaming for us, is the soviet consoles and computers.

[@PH_78]

Actually there was a (first) computer magazine in Estonia at mid 90's called ".Exe". I don't know how widely it was sold but i have all of them. It wasn't that much of a games magazine but computers in general, maybe even a bit "professional". I had my first C64 in 91, bought from Finland (i wasn't "a rich kid", my mom's work helped though), and A500 in 92 also from Finland. My classmate had then a Spectrum handmade copy. I think we were the only ones in our class (2 from 30) to have "own" computers. Around 91 the borders started to open but you had to have a visa to go to "western" countries. I bought A1200 from Estonian local Amiga importer at 94. We even got a little graphics job from Estonian TV (ETV) because they used Amigas, 2000's ang 4000's with Scala and Real3D, for making all graphics to TV (news, weather etc). I still have some news backrounds from that. So the progress went fast after the USSR died and borders opened. I think maybe 95% of people haven't seen a computer before that... and even then only at work. Many small stores used pearlboards till mid 90's...

[@connectorxp]

I grew up in the early 90s and all of these represent my childhood, starting with those LCD consoles and continuing with those Famiclones.

[@Blazs120gl]

7:12 I've had one of those 'wolf that collects eggs' handhleds when I was a kid, I still remember the red box with the blond kid, seen behind the units. :D But in Hungary we called these fixed-function segmented LCD units _quartz games_ (TV consoles were referred as _video games_ ). These ELEKTRONIKA units were considered the low-tier, low-cost units of the 80's, kids of wealthier parents always had better Western handhelds (no Game & watch :D) smuggled from Austria.

[@aatheus]

Very cool visit to a bit of Estonian history. Thanks Andrejs and Neil! I am now excited to visit Estonia some day. Will visit if I can.

[@allenslucher8555]

Dude. This is so damn cool. For such a small country, they came together to show their love for gaming! Gaming is an art form! :)

[@gorkygl]

This video reminds me of my childhood, growing up in early 90s in Romania. We had the same famiclones and bootleg cartridges, most of them made in Taiwan and branded for former Soviet countries (russian Dendy, polish Pegasus...). For the games we would go to the local market where among the fake jeans, perfume and shoes we would find the vendors. I remember the price was around 1 USD for a cartridge (50.000 LEI - gotta love the post communism inflation-), which was a bit much for those days (you would buy a lot o veggies for that money) and the only choosing criteria was the label design and amount of games on it :) I still have my Pegasus Famiclone from 1995 in fully working condition and I still collect for it, altough I moved to collecting for the original Famicom. With the exception of the Famicom Disk System, all the games and accessories are compatible with it. You can still find the bootleg console and games around and there are a lot people who look for them. The museum looks awesome and if I ever visit Estonia I'll most likely spend an entire day there.

[@GigAHerZ64]

Thank you for this episode! Very correct day, as today is the restoration of independence day for us!

[@Horos_de_Vega]

Awesome video and great interview. Thanks! I don’t know why but I’ve always found these famiclones charming!

[@konnaisand]

Actually i believe we had arcades in Estonia, even in a small town where i was born we had one, although it went out of business in early 90s, i would imagine that happened to others similar places in other towns. I think the machines broke a lot (a common theme with soviet electronics) and availability of spares would have been scarce. Also the advent of 8-bits would have killed such arcades quickly, as the games were subpar compared to those. The one i went to had about 6 machines, as i was about 8 at the time, the only ones i remember are some kind of submarine ship shooting game, where you stared down into a periscope looking thing and tried to shoot ships, the other i remember is a shooting game, where there was a rifle like thing attached to the machine with which you had to shoot something. I vaguely also remember some kind light-gun based shoot-a-gray-box game. The others were either broken or boring, as i have no memory of them.

[@povilasstaniulis9484]

Here in Lithuania, arcade machines were also quite popular. There were a few even in my small town, in a shop right across the street from the apartment building where I lived. IIRC, most games were either fighters or vertical shot-em-ups. Those machines were legit cabinets imported from the west, not Soviet arcades.

[@petergorelov418]

...and to play a single round you had to drop in a 15 copecks coin.

[@Waremonger]

The submarine game you described sounds like Sea Wolf (or a clone of it).

[@theul100]

yes, there were arcades and they were quite popular. well, at least some machines, quite a lot of them sucked. the more high-tech ones even had some actual electronics in them, but most were electromechanical, like the famous "sea wolf" clone. it was 50-60s tech but under soviet occupation 80s kids were happy to have even that. have to stop rambling by now, perhaps i'll return later to fill some gaps in the video

[@marslane1]

yes.... i cant remeber exactly when it was, it is so long time a go, put there was one "game center" near Kaubahal in old town in Tallin. can somone remeber when it was?! i was like really small one ....

[@Pengwort]

Well, now you have done it. Guess I'll have to watch all of Kinamania's Dendy chronicles...again.

[@whatiskensworth]

Such a cool place and an interesting look into gaming history in another part of the world. Thanks to RMC and LVLUP! for putting this virtual tour together :)

[@jcardboard]

This stuff is fascinating. Estonia seems like an interesting country all round, one in the UK you only really hear about when one of the countries plays them at football. I love the ambience of that museum, all the furniture and decor other electronics and such. That homemade controller is amazing!

[@Senblch]

One of the most digitally and technologically developed countries nowadays.

[@darkfalzx]

I SO wish places like this would intrigue western retro console and computer enthusiasts, as former Soviet Union had a fascinating gaming culture completely separate from the rest of the world, but there is very little information on any of it, especially from outsiders' perspective. There were unique, non-clone Soviet arcade machines, computers and even consoles, all with unique games totally worth exploring.

[@BertGrink]

Let's hope Neil can delve into this side of video game history some more in future videos.

[@Inject0r]

Thank you for checking out the world, one country at a time, in this COVID-19 period! While we’re currently unable to travel as much as we’d like to, this still makes us able to take a look at the world in places we wouldn’t normally go to. Again, thanks!

[@MarcosCodas]

It's pretty amazing to see how similar our gaming experience in the 80s in 90s are, considering I grew up in Paraguay and this is in Estonia. Same Famiclones, same lackluster selection... we got some more stuff early on, but as we had a military dictatorship until 1989, until at leaast the mid 90s we were just as cut off. Similar country size, too. Amazing to see.

[@stephenlamb90]

What an amazing museum. Loved it ! Definitely one for the bucket list...

[@RussellRiker]

Awesome video. Thank you for making this.

[@verficationaccount]

One of my favourites of my collection is an Elektronika Pong (Turnir 13:20 . lower shelf in the middle). I found it in eastern germany by the roadside in the 90s. Still works, is very popular with families when I bring it to events...

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

one can read amazing stories in the comments about people's experiences as kids all around Europe! Great video for such type of discussions.

[@TheHighlander71]

Wonderful to see. The ingenuity involved in making those clones when nothing else was available is astounding. The cloned spectrums take the cake though..amazing. The influence of the Soviet Union is something that is hard to understand for people from the west. Much respect for creating this museum.

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

That speccy controller reminds me of a mates Dragon 32 lol

[@jameslewis2635]

This sounds like a really cool museum. The fact that the displays are divided by the era they were in with environments to match makes it very easy to relate as to when they were around. It does sound like the people in Estonia had a really hard time with the end of the Soviet Union as well as having been held back by the politics of the time. I can only aplaud Andrejs' efforts in creating all this when it sounds like Estonian society has not yet got the point of how important the video game industry is and how in modern times it transcends age ranges.

[@povilasstaniulis9484]

This video brings back memories. My main console at the time was also a Famiclone (I had a couple of those Game & Watch clones too) and I had a lot of bootleg cartridges like those shown in the video. Legitimate video game market was pretty much nonexistent in the Baltics in the 90s. Only games we could buy were bootlegs, mostly imported from China. And pretty much only consoles you could buy were various Famiclones (fortunately, all of them used compatible cartridges). When PCs became more widespread (late 90's-early 2000's), most bootleg cartridge sellers switched to selling bootleg CD-ROMs (actual factory pressed silver CDs), mostly imported from Russia. Most of those releases were localized Russian versions of popular western games (localization quality varied greatly from release to release). Original English language releases were quite hard to find. Only from mid 2000s legitimate game releases became more widespread.

[@jonhoyles714]

Wow 😮 that was a blast from the past I had quite a few of those little LCD type games Disney defo Iam sure it was a close case dual screen one had to put out flames on the burning building I loved it x cheers Neil great video

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Jon! I think the LCD game you're referring to is just called "Fireman"

[@jonhoyles714]

RetroManCave thanks for the heads up mate awesome 👏

[@jonhoyles714]

RetroManCave remember the Casio game watch had a racing f1 🏎 style game ?

[@Belznis]

Things in Estonia were more interesting than in Latvia then. Thumbs up for the great story and awesome museum. In Latvia there were also not many arcades, but we did not have old casino machines rebuilt as arcade machines. We had a large arcade in our capital in the 90's and one smaller in the train station. We had old computers (soviet type) already in schools in the late 80's and early 90's, so people could learn quite a bit. I did not see many zx spectrums or those tv type computers here, but there were a few people who used them. In the mid 90's consoles and Russian/Chinese made consoles were quite popular, because only few people could afford a PC at home. And a lot of kids not having consoles would go to a kind of arcade, where a guy rented the consoles or you could just play them there. They even had a panasonic. Buying the consoles on the market was quite risky because you could not check if they work, so most people bought them from specialized stores. We also have an old computer/tech museum here, the guy is quite a collector - www.pchistory.lv/ka-izskatas-muzejs sadly he does not have eng language, but you can see the pictures and get a glimpse.

[@GuybrushThriftweed]

Really enjoyed this video. Gl with the museum!!!

[@ligius3]

The early part of my childhood was spent behind the iron curtain, so I could immediately spot some memories. Just to be clear, back then it was illegal to own foreign currency, and, even if you could get it, the wages were extraordinarily low. I think at the beginning of 90s my parents were making

[@DrBagPhD]

What a fabulous video, thanks so so much to both of you for this! I doubt I'll ever have the chance to visit the museum in person so this is q genuine treat!

[@witeshade]

That place looks awesome. Seeing all that amazing stuff just laying around is scary though, I would be so worried about things walking away!

[@Dev_olution]

Absolutely love the look of this museum, so well done. Great video, appreciate the effort you all put into this one 😀

[@ilusha88]

I was lucky to immigrate out of Moscow in 1992, but it's very interesting to see an alternate version of my childhood.

[@webbo73]

yes...the Retro Roadtrip music is back!

[@aguijon6]

Congratulations. What a wonderful video!

He seems so friendly, hope some day can visit the museum, looks awesome. Btw in Costa Rica (Latin America) the clones ones were pretty much everywhere, some reminds you the PSOne others the original NES, but at the end they were fun ⚡️

[@datassetteuser356]

Fascinating video, thank you very much! I love how the word "authentic experience" is used here, but joking aside, it makes perfekt sense. They were experiencing a kinda similar, yet quite different video game world. I'd love to visit the place and talk to the people over there. Great such a place exists!

[@Martin_Skywatcher]

If you like, you could do a virtual retro roadtrip to the Home Computer Museum in the Netherlands. They have a huge collection of (micro)computers. The owner Bart van den Akker is very knowledgeable about them and is experienced in doing livestreams from the museum. He speaks English well too.

[@RMCRetro]

It's a museum that we (the Cave Dwellers) have talked about making a road trip to one day. So hopefully when the world is a bit more normal we can hire a mini-bus and come to visit

[@Martin_Skywatcher]

That would be great, but make sure it's safe, number's are on the rise again, it will be worse before it gets better I am afraid.

[@RobA500]

That’s a great looking museum, I really like the use of furniture and other props from the era of the computers and consoles to help people feel at home. It’s hard for me to imagine just how strange the real machines would be to people in such countries as I grew up with them all around. It’s fascinating to see home made machines etc. Great interview.👍

[@Colin_Ames]

Absolutely fascinating. Thanks Neil and Andrejs.

[@wrmusic8736]

I had a "terminator" famiclone at first but it died rather fast - extremely bad quality. Then parents bought me a replacement - which was Subor (top left at 4:46) and once I poured an oil from a salad right onto a cartridge slot and ventilation openings - and I thought it's over for another one. But then it dried up and worked as before. But, damn it, I should've asked for a Mega Drive at that point, heh. Also neighbors outright hated me because Subor famiclone came not just with cables to connect to a TV - but with an RF antenna so you could put it anywhere in your room. And, naturally, it was overtaking a whole TV channel out of 5 available at that point in time due to broadcasting on the same frequency... which is also kinda a testament to how "well" chinese made it - it had a really wimpy antenna that looked like something that would break the moment you as much as breathe on it - yet the signal it blasted out penetrated through concrete floors above and below like they were nothing. Something your wifi router is incapable of doing.

[@C2H5OHist]

As a finn I remember mustamäe market being absolutely full of pirated PC cd games from around 1995 to 1998

[@Seatux]

I remember the mall even. Had to go to a front shop, then be led into a usually closed shop nearby where one actually see the real CD/DVD/etc. Many nights at the market and random pop up stalls out of nowhere. Interesting how Finland isn't all that different to SE Asia.

[@FlackoWeasel]

That was the most common place we went to buy games too. It was called Kadaka Turg back then. I remember the shops were full of clothes (Like every diff seller had their box) and jewerly and shit and you had to go through bunch of them to find the stuff you cared haha.. I remember when I saw sega mega drive part with wall full of these games, my eyes went big and I was so happy. The guy even showed the game and let you play a bit before you buy. I remember some games costed 80 kroons some were 150 kroons. You could trade them after you finished a game. Bring it back and choose new game instead :)

[@e125]

It was "Kadaka turg".

[@mushroomsamba82]

This museum is amazing! I have never seen so many famiclones in one place.

[@BOBXFILES2374a]

Thank you for showing LVLUP, Good Luck to that young man and his museum!

[@eebaker699]

Great video. I Like this format. Gets a good look around the world at what people are doing.

[@tonicblue]

What a cool museum. They've obviously got a passion and even from just this video you can see the love of the technology, history, and gaming. I'm glad you brought up the furniture. It was the first thing that struck me. Such a great attention to detail plus from a décor/aesthetic perspective it looks awesome. Thanks for this. If I'm ever back in Estonia I'll be sure to visit. ETA: nostalgic authenticity is totally subjective and this video is proof

[@Neffers_UK]

During the current pandemic, I've suffered with remote content from much, much larger youtubers (no offence) trying this approach. And this, this turned out very well. It may as well have been a normal vid not possible due to travel expenses. I don't suppose you would consider an uncut (but still some bits cut out for reasons) edit of these types of vids by any chance Neil?

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you! To be honest you get pretty much everything in the edited video. What was cut was mostly the walking from room to room while the camera was shaking around. I can't think of anything you've missed out on other than perhaps the two of us giggling like school boys because there was a console called "Uranus". That's about it!

[@Neffers_UK]

@@RMCRetro I mean, futile humour is fun at the end of the day lol. You take care Neil :)

[@frankiebhoyify]

I want that couch😅. His set up is amazing.

[@TPau65]

This was a really interesting "road trip". Great to see the eastern console-market, with it's diversity! 😃

[@angusmclaren6257]

This was so awesome. I'd love to see more of these clones at some point in the future

[@Neobelmont1]

Saw your vid on discord, interesting, learning more than just about gaming here. I just started my yt on and off about maybe a year ago,but this makes me want to learn about video editing, camera work, audio design. It's just well done and makes me realize I got along way to go.

[@Kee-Lo]

Cool concept Neil like retro tea break with the road trip collection tour.

[@PeranMe]

Great stuff, thanks for sharing this!

[@p_mouse8676]

"retro-roadtrip" say that a couple of times in a row, lol! Btw, there is an absolutely excellent computer museum in Helmond, the Netherlands, called HomeComputerMuseum. You should definitely contact them for an interview.

[@BertGrink]

I think Nostalgia Nerd and Octav1us made a video about that museum a while ago; great place which i'd love to visit.

[@kacpreusz9911]

I remember getting one from my dad as a kid. Fun fact: In my country of Poland we called these games "Ruskie jajka" wich can translate either to Russian Eggs or Russian Balls

[@jasoncowley4718]

How awesome is that, what a cool museum.

[@truenobzr]

Thx for this awesome interview, very interesting.

[@Retromicky82]

Fantastic love these types places

[@the_holy_forestfairy]

Very interesting video! Thank you!

[@NonNewtonianAnything]

Lovely stuff, as usual! 👍

[@46danz]

Wonderful story.The museum is brilliant.

[@syrus3k]

I would love to visit this museum, looks awesome.

[@Phoenix_1982_MD]

The video game history of every eastern-european country in a nutshell ;) In poland it was the same... and i lived trough it even that i grown up in germany. I was years behind my german friends, and even as the "pegasus" clone nes was a hit in poland, snes was in high demand in germany at this time. I still got a fake of a fake nes, but hey, i loved it and it formed my love to video games back in the days ...

[@RetroDream]

I remember back in the 80s my cousins in Moscow had those Nintendo G&W clones. And there was an arcade center in Gorky Park were the machines were... C64s!

[@MuffinHop]

Interesting story! Should give a visit to the Estonian video game museum here from Finland.

[@dicioest9356]

As a Estonian the only thing I don't agree with is that PC gaming was "that expensive". I'm in the same age bracket and as a fairly small kid my first home PC was a 486. So I had basic games for that system that I mostly forgot but could possibly remember if I saw the. I remember I could run doom if I bought the resolution way down, basically to like a 40x40 pixel mini window, so it run in some meaningful FPS, also I remember some game that was with the exact point of rollercoaster tycoon, but not rollercoaster tycoon. Then it gets fuzzy, I think we had some pentium, I played Duke 3D on it mainly. Well from there it was already "golden era" for PC gaming so at some point we got a Pentium 3 and broadband internet with it. With it opened up the internet gaming for me. But I do remember that my first first gaming console was one of those fake chinese knockoffs. Lots of great games to experience, from mario to contra. Many controllers were broken that thankfully sold separately. My friend had one of those "SEGA" console and then the likes of PS1 came etc. By that time I was more of a PC person anyway. I also kind of don't agree on the "video games hall's were very expensive". I basically was living in one of those places. I went to my local hall at least once a week. Begged for "candy money" from my parents. It was the place to experience new games and play with other in local net or online. As usually my computer was behind the scene so this is where I met Duke 3D , later buying Duke 3D for myself. This is also where I experienced mostly online Star Craft, Warcraft II, Diablo 1 etc.

[@gavinc74]

That place is cool, love the decor 👍

[@ctrlaltdude]

Awesome video! Really like it.

[@stevencarlson5422]

thats so cool that he has such a good collection

[@comagnum1]

That intro song is amazing.

[@asgerms]

Interesting and pleasent fellow!