It is the name of a game of chance where life is bet. It consists of loading the drum of a revolver with a bullet, spinning it in one fell swoop without knowing where the projectile was, and the player must trigger in his temple. Depending on the capacity of the weapon there is 1 chance in 6 or 7 that the bullet has remained in the chamber aligned to the firing pin, and that the shot is fatal. The name 'Russian roulette' in principle alludes to the turn of the drum comparing it with the turn of the wheel of fortune or roulette, and the 'Russian' is a literary invention of the Swiss writer Georges Arthur Surdez who in his story The Russian Roulette ("Russian roulette", 1937) put that name to fit the story of his character, the Russian sergeant Burkowski who described her to his comrades in the French Foreign Legion; and from there it became popular.
