Elektronorgtechnica (also spelled ''Electronorgtechnica'', ), better known abbreviated as ELORG (Элорг), was a

state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

organization with a monopoly on the import and export of computer support and hardware and software in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. It was controlled by the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR from 1971 to 1989. The company was associated with the export of Soviet design calculators, Electronika being one brand that was exported, rebranding them as ELORG products. Elorg also marketed the

Agat computer The Agat () was a series of 8-bit computers produced in the Soviet Union. It used the same MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor as Apple II and BBC Micro, among many others. Commissioned by the Ministry of Radio Technology (Soviet Union), USSR Minis ...

, and imported IBM computers into the Soviet Union, starting with the

IBM System/360 Model 50 The IBM System/360 Model 50 is a member of the IBM System/360 family of computers. The Model 50 was announced in April 1964 with the other initial models of the family, and first shipped in August 1965 to the Bank of America. Models There are fo ...

in 1971.

Robert Maxwell Ian Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor, politician and fraudster. After escaping the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, ...

pressured Soviet Union leader

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

to cancel the contract between Elorg and

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

concerning the rights to the game franchise ''Tetris''. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was being dissolved, Elorg was turned into a private business by its director, Nikolai Belikov. Elorg was sold to

The Tetris Company The Tetris Company, Inc. (TTC) is the manager and licensor for the ''Tetris'' brand to third parties. It is an American company based in Nevada and owned by the ''Tetris'' creator Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers. The company is the exclusive lic ...

in January 2005 for $15 million.

Tetris

ELORG was responsible for the licensing of the popular

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

series ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

''. ''Tetris'' was written by salaried programmers at the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (un ...

, which was not allowed to carry out commercial activities directly. As the game was owned by the state, all rights to the game worldwide were handled by ELORG. In 1996 ELORG was reportedly a privatised Russian company which retained the rights to the ''

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

.PR Newswire - "Tetris Inventor Gets His Due in Historic Russia/US Joint Venture"
, accessed June 1, 2006
, accessed June 1, 2006 ELORG was a partner in

which licenses the ''Tetris'' name to game companies, along with ''Tetris'' creator

Alexey Pajitnov Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov (born April 16, 1955) is a Russian-American computer engineer and video game designer. He is best known for creating, designing, and developing ''Tetris'' in 1985 while working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre un ...

and businessman

Henk Rogers Henk Rogers is a Dutch-born American video game designer and entrepreneur. He is known for producing Japan's first major turn-based role-playing video game '' The Black Onyx'', securing the rights to distribute the Russian puzzle video game ''Tet ...

. Elorg was a 50 percent owner in the company until Rogers and Pajitnov bought ELORG's remaining rights around 2005.

References

{{Authority control Service companies of the Soviet Union Computing in the Soviet Union Computer companies of Russia Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies Companies based in Moscow Defunct companies of Russia Electronics companies disestablished in 2005 Electronics companies established in 1971 Ministry of Foreign Trade (Soviet Union) 1971 establishments in the Soviet Union 2005 disestablishments in Russia