Watch a man unlock a Tetris Easter egg on the dashboard display of a Volga

By Chris Chin Published October 19, 2017

Imagine this: you’re stuck in gridlock and at best, you moved only several inches in the last hour. You’re sitting in your car and looking for ways to kill some time until the obstruction ahead gets resolved. If you, like me, find yourself playing around with all the buttons and gadgets in the car you’re in, you might be in for a surprise treat if that car is a new Volga.

Volga is one of the oldest automakers operating in Russia today with origins dating back to the Soviet era in the 1950s. The firm is still alive and well, producing mass-market automobiles and trucks for East European markets. And if you happen to be in a new one, there’s a bit of a hidden Easter egg in the cars on-board trip computer and gauge cluster display.

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A new video surfaced of what appears to be a Russian man discovering this Easter egg in a Volga that’s fresh off the assembly line. After turning the vehicle on, he conducts a number of actions in a sequence, such as pumping the brakes, revving the engine, flashing the high beams and turn signals, then tapping the gauge cluster display’s option and odometer reset buttons—and voila! Tetris is surprisingly programmed into the gauge cluster’s on-board computer.

While it might prove to be a time killer in gridlock, this certainly wouldn’t be the safest thing to do if you’re actually driving and in motion. And it’s probably the worst possible way to play Tetris, given that you’re limited to using the car’s tiny adjustment and selector knobs on the gauge cluster to play the game.

We guess this is one of the reasons why there are so many YouTube videos of car crashes caught on Russian dash-cams (just kidding). But really, we’re partly glad that this Easter egg is hidden well away from the casual driver, thanks to the cryptic sequence of actions needed to enable the game.

We’re not exactly sure how this made it past the regulatory teams. But at least we know that Russian engineers still have a sense of humor and fun.

See what we mean in the video above.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Since picking up his first MicroMachine, Chris Chin knew his passion for automobiles was embedded into his soul. Based in…

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