Baba Yaga figures as one of the most iconic (if not the most iconic) personage in Easter European folklore. Casual observers might remember the MCU’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” When the antagonist Ghost becomes visible besides Scott Lang/Ant-Man and his crew, his friend Kurt fearfully utters the name. A quick run-through of Russian and Slavic folktales however establishes Baba Yaga as the quintessential bogeyman of those regions. Living in her chicken-legged hut, Baba Yaga can be a child-eating monster or magical ally depending on story. And now a LEGO Ideas member is turning that mythos into a quirky product idea…again.
Russian builder Artem Biziaev is a LEGO Ideas 10K Club Member. His past three product ideas made the 10,000-support milestone only to crash during the Review Stages. This includes his original take on the Baba Yaga character and her house. Thankfully, the submission got plenty of support from Russia, so Biziaev has re-launched the build and got 10-K support anew. “The first pancake is lumpy,” he writes in the description, quoting a contemporary Russian saying. Not much has changed in the re-submission, if any. The chicken-legged hut remains, alongside Baba Yaga herself, her mortar, pet cat, and human visitor/intruder Vasilisa.
We at The Brick Show can’t help but admire Artem Biziaev re-submitting his product idea without any visible alteration. Here’s hoping then that his second pancake, as it were, won’t be as lumpy as the first. Still, a hut with chicken legs certainly “stands out” among the other building sets included in the LEGO Ideas Third 2021 Review Stage. But surely somebody would get a product idea that isn’t a building in here. Well, let’s see about that another time.
In other news, The LEGO Ideas Ninjago 1-Button Game contest announced its winners last week.