Steve Jackson Games

Steve Jackson Games has a longstanding relationship with our translation partners at Hobby World, so when they asked to make an original Munchkin game with a Russian theme, we said “da.” Designers Pavel Iliin and Dmitry Moldon worked with illustrator Sergey Dulin (Spyfall, Furnace) to create a Munchkin-y take on historic, modern, and folkloric Russian culture. The result was a unique, pun-filled, visually striking game … in Russian.

We needed a translation and our partners were happy to help. Julia Klokova, the International Project Manager at Hobby World, did the majority of the translation work, with assistance from James Higgins to get the English-language references just right.

The English version of Munchkin Russia will be released this fall, but we were fortunate to have a copy with us when we went to Gen Con in September. Fans had a very positive reaction to our rousing and rowdy demos, despite the complete lack of vodka. We got raves about the art, and Munchkin aficionados enjoyed the different flavor of this game as well as some new mechanics.

SJ Games and Hobby World staff were both at Gen Con, and we took the opportunity to interview Julia and James; they talked about the translation process and the sorts of decisions they had to make to keep the Munchkin humor and Russian references intact.

Julia: “We had a whole team creating that humor, so we had about eight people at the table, asking, ‘Will it play? What can we add here? How are we going to have the picture?’”

Some cards were simple to translate. New Munchkin Line Editor Will Schoonover recalled, “My very first demo Thursday morning was with someone who had lived in Russia. He explained to me what was funny about some of the cards that I didn’t understand. But even not understanding everything, I mean, Chekov is very obvious.” Cards such as Iron Curtain and the Oligarch are also easy for Americans to understand.

Not all of the changes were that straightforward.

Julia: “I do remember how I struggled with this one, Lone Wolf. It was originally Tambovsky Volk: “Tambov Wolf.” Tambov is a small Russian town. It’s really cold and far from Moscow. We have a saying: ‘In Tambov, wolf is your friend.’ I told James, ‘I actually have no idea why they say that!’ I had to look it up myself. You would say this to someone who is starting to call you a friend, and you really don’t want to interact with them, so you tell them, “I’m not your friend. A Tambov wolf is your friend.” After Julia researched the origins of the phrase and spent half an hour explaining it to James, the two decided it wouldn’t translate. They chose the English phrase “lone wolf” because it was a good match for the art. Wolves are a regular feature of Russian folklore, and are used to scare Russian children into behaving – even to this day. That may seem harsh to a modern Western audience, but as James noted, “If we look in the mirror and we think about some of our own stories, songs – Hansel and Gretel are getting baked in an oven. Rock-a-bye Baby – what is the baby doing in the tree? What we’re looking at here is a reflection of ourselves in a different culture, and what I found very interesting and compelling were the similarities.”

Want to learn more? Check out Julia’s Translator Diary at boardgamegeek.com.

Munchkin Russia is a 168-card stand-alone game, arriving late October 2021.

From Russia with Loot

Translating Munchkin Russia into English

by Alain H. Dawson