The Kremlin and Cyrillic Eye Chart in The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003)
The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003) is not a game about Russia, the Soviet Union, or Cold War politics. Its Russian references are small, incidental, and easy to miss. Precisely for that reason, they are useful examples of how Russian signs often appear in Western games: not as full representations, but as quick jokes, background details, or visual shorthand.
Two details stand out. The first is the unlockable car named the Kremlin, used by Comic Book Guy. The second is a Cyrillic eye chart placed inside the DMV building in Levels 2 and 5. Neither detail carries narrative importance, but both use Russian-coded material for comic effect.
The “Kremlin” Car
The Kremlin vehicle, Comic Book Guy's car, is almost certainly a joke on the AMC Gremlin, the compact American car produced in the 1970s. The resemblance is both visual and phonetic: Gremlin and Kremlin sound close enough for the name to work as a parody. Instead of simply referencing an odd-looking American hatchback, the game gives it a Russian-sounding twist.
The joke works because the Kremlin is one of the most recognizable symbols of Russia. The Moscow Kremlin is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow, historically associated with Russian rulers, Soviet authority, and the modern Russian state. In English-language media, “the Kremlin” is also often used as shorthand for the Russian government itself.
This makes the car funny in a very Simpsons-like way. A small, unimpressive hatchback receives a name associated with Russian state power, imperial history, Soviet memory, and geopolitical seriousness. The joke is not hostile, but it does rely on Russia as a source of instant symbolic weight. The result is a throwaway gag where a car pun becomes a miniature Russian reference.
The Cyrillic Eye Chart in the DMV
The second reference appears inside the DMV building, where a vision-testing chart is written in Cyrillic rather than Latin letters. At a glance, it resembles a standard eye chart, with large letters at the top and smaller rows underneath. The visible letters include forms such as Ш, Б, М, И, and К.
The detail is funny because an American player entering a Springfield DMV would expect an ordinary eye test. Instead, the chart uses an alphabet that most people in the United States cannot read. That creates a small visual joke: the player may feel, for a moment, as if they are failing the eye test, when in fact the problem is not vision but script. It turns a familiar bureaucratic object into something suddenly foreign and unreadable.
The placement also matters. The DMV is already a classic American symbol of waiting, paperwork, irritation, and petty officialdom. By adding Cyrillic to that space, the game makes the DMV feel even more absurdly bureaucratic. It is not saying Springfield is Russian; it is using Russian-looking text to make an already miserable institution feel stranger, colder, and more intimidating.
Conclusion
These references are minor, but they show how The Simpsons: Hit & Run uses Russian signs in a light comic register. The Kremlin car works as a pun on the AMC Gremlin while also invoking one of Russia’s most famous political symbols. The Cyrillic eye chart turns a normal DMV vision test into a joke about unreadability and bureaucratic discomfort. Neither detail is deep enough to support a major political reading, but both belong naturally in the ROMANOV Archive as examples of how Russian-coded signs circulate in Western games as quick, recognizable cultural shorthand.
The Simpsons: Hit & Run
Title: The Simpsons: Hit & Run
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
Release Year: 2003
Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows
Genre: Action-adventure / Driving
The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an action-adventure driving game based on the long-running animated series The Simpsons. Set across multiple areas of Springfield, the game combines mission-based driving, exploration, collectibles, and satirical environmental detail drawn from the series’ broader parody of American life.
References
- Radical Entertainment. (2003). The Simpsons: Hit & Run [Video game]. Vivendi Universal Games.
- The Simpsons Wiki. (n.d.). The Simpsons: Hit & Run. https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Simpsons:_Hit_%26_Run
- Wikipedia. (n.d.). The Simpsons: Hit & Run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons:_Hit_%26_Run
- Wikipedia. (n.d.). AMC Gremlin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Gremlin
- Wikipedia. (n.d.). Moscow Kremlin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Kremlin
- Wikipedia. (n.d.). Golovin–Sivtsev table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golovin%E2%80%93Sivtsev_table