Dirty Games

On Saturday I was visiting Timisoara with Kirstin (a volunteer from the area), and we happened upon a pile of garbage on the side of the road. It immediately appeared more interesting than your typical trash heap, containing a very old television, a number of old books, and lots of communist-era newspapers.

We walked over to it, and rummaged through some of the books. There were a couple 1974 Dacia owner's manuals (Dacia is a Romanian car company), there was a school notebook from the 60's, and a rather unassuming piece of folded cardboard.

Kirstin picked up the board and dusted it off to reveal red block letters that spelt "Capitaly." What could this be? She unfolded it, and discovered board was in fact a game, a Monopoly knock-off! The railroad company was CFR (Romania's train company). All the real estate spaces were famous parks and streets in Romania. Instead of Jail, there was a psychiatric ward. When passing "start," the player would be paid the equivalent of something like a few cents in today's money.

It was quite an interesting find. Kirstin decided to keep the board. It's funny to think that perhaps people were playing this game during communism. Perhaps they modified the rules so that the one who 'wins' would automatically be forced to redistribute his wealth among the rest of the players (thus the game would never end!). We joked about making up rules about food rationing, collectivization of property and nationalization of businesses.

I did a google search on 'Capitaly,' and found out it was originally a Hungarian take on Monopoly. This particular board, however, was a Romanian version.