Sberkassa No. 2 (1996): Memory of the Russian turbulent 1990s
We continue our journey through the memory of the “wild ’90s” and early Belarusian game development. This time, our focus is on a game from 1996 by Aleksandr Moltsev from Gomel — a title that was lost for many years and only recently rediscovered. His project tells the difficult story of a security guard who stands in
We continue our journey through the memory of the “wild ’90s” and early Belarusian game development. This time, our focus is on a game from 1996 by Aleksandr Moltsev from Gomel — a title that was lost for many years and only recently rediscovered. His project tells the difficult story of a security guard who stands in the way of robbers targeting his beloved Sberkassa (“Saving bank”) No. 2.
What we have here is a classic virtual shooting simulator. Your job is to take out armed robbers who pop up in doorways. From time to time, however, civilians also appear in the doorframes — they should not be shot. Occasionally, forgotten suitcases full of cash show up. You should shoot those — doing so earns you extra points (or, as the game puts it, “babki” — cash).
But doesn’t it all seem a bit familiar? Of course! What we’re looking at is a direct descendant of a classic: the Spanish game West Bank (1985), where the player had to take down bank robbers somewhere in the Wild West. We’ve previously written here about how West Bank also inspired another Russian title — President’s Guard (1994), in which the player had to protect Mikhail Gorbachev from the bullets of hired assassins.
But Sberkassa No. 2 goes even further — it’s almost a full-on clone of West Bank, but “localized” to fit the grim realities of the 1990s, with rampant crime and armed robberies. At the same time, the developer of Sberkassa No. 2 quite openly admitted — in true Russian ‘90s fashion — that both the idea and the code were “honestly stolen” from West Bank:
Yet the game contains another layer, not immediately visible to those unfamiliar with the culture of the time — an ironic one. So, where’s the irony, you may ask? It’s all in the name.
Between 1992 and 1997, Russian director Timur Bekmambetov created a series of commercials for the private Bank “Imperial” under the title World History. Bank “Imperial”. These ads would go on to achieve cult status:
Later, two no less Russian iconic comedians from Saint-Petersburg — Ilya Oleynikov and Yuri Stoyanov — parodied these commercials in their sketch show Gorodok (“Little Town”), creating a spoof series titled World History. Sberkassa No. 2 (“Saving bank”). Their version mercilessly ridiculed the pomp and pathos of Bekmambetov’s originals. Since then, both the Bank “Imperial” ads and the Sberkassa No. 2 parodies have remained firmly linked in Russian popular memory — you can’t think of one without the other.
