ELORG

Elektronorgtechnica better known abbreviated as ELORG, was a state-owned organization with a monopoly on the import and export of computer support and hardware and software in the Soviet Union. It was controlled by the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR from 1971 to 1989. The company was associated with the export of Soviet design calculators, Electronika being one brand that was exported, rebranding them as ELORG products. Elorg also marketed the Agat computer, and imported IBM computers into the Soviet Union, starting with the IBM System/360 Model 50 in 1971. Robert Maxwell pressured Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev to cancel the contract between Elorg and Nintendo concerning the rights to the game Tetris. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was being dissolved, Elorg was turned into a private business by its director, Nikolai Belikov. Elorg was sold to The Tetris Company in January 2005 for $15 million.