Smuta (2024): “Let Us Pawn Our Wives and Children” — Streamers React (in Russian)
As someone who rarely buys games at launch, I decided to “play Smuta on YouTube” — that is, to watch playthroughs by other gamers via video streams. And while doing so, I became particularly interested in how players reacted to the now-infamous scene in Smuta where Kuzma Minin proposes that the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod
As someone who rarely buys games at launch, I decided to “play Smuta on YouTube” — that is, to watch playthroughs by other gamers via video streams. And while doing so, I became particularly interested in how players reacted to the now-infamous scene in Smuta where Kuzma Minin proposes that the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod sell their wives and children to fund the army.
After watching a wide range of streams — from well-known bloggers to smaller channels — I compiled a short video montage capturing their reactions to Minin’s speech in the game.
I’ll leave the conclusions to you. But one thing is certain: you can’t simply transplant a narrative and its values from one era into another without consequences. When such a reinterpretation is done in service of the state — but not in line with the values or lived realities of its audience — it simply doesn’t fit.
P.S. Particularly striking is the response from women in the streaming community — after all, they’re the ones being “offered for sale.”
