The Spanish term for rollercoaster, montaña rusa, or “Russian mountain,” refers to the earliest versions of rollercoasters, which were sledding Russian slopes built from wood and covered with ice. Oddly enough, the Russian for roller coaster, ???????????? ?????, literally translates as “American slides.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Russian Moutnain”
I was once traveling around in Argentina and my friends said, let’s go to the Montaña Rusa.
And I’m thinking, why would we go to a Russian mountain here in Argentina?
Do you know what that term is?
Yeah, yeah.
It’s a roller coaster.
Yeah, it’s a roller coaster.
Do you know why?
Because it looks like mountains?
It goes up and down?
It looks like mountains, yeah.
But the earliest roller coasters were Russian winter sled rides that were specifically constructed out of hills of ice and then scaffolding.
And you would get on those and go down.
And then eventually people added wheels to those carts.
So you need snow and ice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so in the Romance languages, the term for roller coaster literally means Russian mountain.
And what’s even more surprising is that the term in Russian for roller coaster is American mountains.
How interesting is that?
Yeah.
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