The playground is supposed to be a happy place. Filled with kids running around, having fun, screaming with laughter and delight as they gambol and cavort about like beasts in the field. Sure you might get the occasional skinned knee, but mostly the playground is a place for kids to be kids and revel in all the happiness that the blissful ignorance of childhood affords. Unless, of course, you’re from one of the former Soviet republics. Then your playgrounds are filled with devils, impaled people, monsters, and bondage Little Red Riding Hood.
I’ve read the actual Grimm’s Fairy Tales (not the cleaned up children-friendly version), so I know just how creepy and disturing most of those cherished childhood tales actually are. I suppose in life under communism, you didn’t have to worry too much about the innocence of childhood as bread lines and ‘disappearances’ kind of took that away from them at an early age. You’d think that even in the hardened culture cultivated behind the Iron Curtain that impalings are not acceptable childhood scenes.
Tags: russia, playground, creepy, folk tales, bizarre parks