Russia

A Cold War stage bit that outlived the country it was mocking.

The format is associated with the comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who worked it into American routines in the 1980s, although similar reversals circulated before him. The label Russian reversal is later and comes from the internet, which kept the joke running long after the Soviet Union stopped existing.

There is no real evidence Russians ever played the game named after them.

The English name comes from a 1937 magazine story by Georges Surdez, which set the practice among Russian officers in Romania two decades earlier; no Russian source of the period describes anything like it. The phrase spread far faster than any evidence for the custom behind it.

Abroad it is Russian salad; in Russia it is named for its chef, Olivier.

Lucien Olivier served a luxurious version at his Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the 1860s, with game, crayfish, and a dressing he declined to write down. It traveled abroad under the country's name and returned to Soviet kitchens as a cheap potato and pea version.