2927: “Russian Mountains” in Western Europe Dec 26, 2024

The Spanish term for 'rollercoaster', ‘montaña rusa’, translates directly to 'Russian mountain'. This is also true in French, Italian and Portuguese. This term originates from the 17th and 18th centuries when sleds were used to glide down artificially constructed ice-covered slopes in Russia, particularly in St. Petersburg. These early amusements were highly popular and came to be associated with any sort of artificial, thrilling descents. When similar attractions were introduced in Western Europe, they retained the association with Russia, and the name persisted. In Russian, meanwhile, they are known as американские горки (amerikanskiye gorki) meaning ‘hills/cliffs of America’. 

In German, and similar in Dutch, the term is ‘Achterbahn’ meaning ‘rail attraction’ (loosely translated) and in Polish this is also simply descriptive, ‘kolejka górska’ (literally ‘queue-rail’) and in much of southeastern Europe they simply borrowed 'rollercoaster' as in Serbian and Romanian.