The Future Is Almost Here, But Some People Do Not Want To Face It As Yet
12:14 24.09.2026 (Updated: 13:59 24.09.2026)
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There is one funny trend in the current mood of Russia’s book readers and movie-watchers, that is worth noticing.
To put it in simple words, that public is not very interested in the future. Which means that the real whirlpool of new ideas, with ensuing quarrels, is maybe around the corner, but we are not yet near it.
Look at how the popular literary critic, Mr. Denis Lukyanov of the Gazeta.ru, is sneering about a sudden surge in new books plus new movies remastering the old ones, all of them being sci-fi, that is images of the future. But, says Lukyanov, all these attempts to visualize the future are not very popular, because they are clumsy.
So what goes on? It appears that the problem lies in artificial governmental attempts to activate even more the public’s interest in the future technological development of the nation. A Presidential decree on that development has been signed in 2024, and, as a by-the-way, some clever people decided to stimulate writers and movie-makers to portray the optimistic, dazzling, beautiful tomorrow in their works.
Substantial prizes await the best of creators, that may help usher the public into the brave new world. And it is all too obvious that some creators are all too eager to get these prizes, and so they fill the infospace with rather mediocre work. The public feels it and reacts in a lukewarm manner.
Here I have to say it’s personal with me. I have just published a new novel, which I called – in rather a dumb way – After The War. It’s a sci-fi novel, with spy-hunting going on in around the year 2030.
And so what? It sells, but I’d say my historic spy novels were selling slightly better. So Lukyanov may be right. To add: I didn’t know about prizes allocated for such works, and most probably I’ll get none, since I predict the quick ignominious end of Information Age. Which is already happening, judging by the current panic-mongering about the horrors of AI.
Yet another critic, this one specializing on movies, confirms Mr. Lukyanov’s pessimism. That critic, Timur Aliev of the respected Izvestia media corporation, says: look what movie has just achieved the money record of the week, in Moscow and Russia in general. That’s The Twilight, originally written as a series of books by an American lady, Stephenie Meyer, turned into movies in 2008, and then remastered today.
Says Mr. Aliev: that huge surge of popularity, in Russia, of a plot that was not even a real hit in 2008, is a serious warning to our movie-makers. The movie-goer, being bombarded by images of great techno-future, is carrying money into the year 2008, instead. So here we see a confirmation of the above-stated idea: don’t prod the public into that bright future, don’t go against the tide of public interest.
Who loves The Twilight today, and why? That is Aliev’s guess: the millennials love to get back to their school years, when the fate of vampires and werewolves was the most serious dilemma in their lives. While the zoomers are dreaming of the same era, that they have narrowly missed.
What is most interesting, the practical behavior of the same millennials and zoomers shows the reverse picture. In fact, that behavior tells us that generally the ideas of the mentioned 2024 Presidential decree about developing all kind of technologies were a part of a real revolution that manifested itself in 2023, and the decree has just followed the trend. The thing is, 2023 was the year when, for the first time in decades, the youngsters graduating with technical professions have firmly overcame in numbers the graduates with diplomas of lawyers or finance managers.
That means the era has changed, and one of the reasons was, of course, the war with Europe, that became a creeping reality long before the events in Ukraine in 2022. Law and finance were a fashion of the era when Russia still had hopes about living in a harmonious, slightly Western world. The current reality dictates different choices.
One may note also one more trend, that is, military education getting more and more popular. Only in September 2026 five more military universities opened their doors, with a real flood of (mostly) boys rushing in. These are the formerly famous schools, scrapped in early 2000-s due to the same illusions about living in the peaceful world.
Why are the young people rushing in these new universities? The polls tell us that, first, the military profession has regained its almost imperial era status, getting us back to the times when elite of society was supposed to be very military. It is, simply speaking, a matter of prestige. But, second, these professions are getting popular today, because they are, well, technical, of the highest class. So, again, the younger generation is very realistic with its choices of the future.
Why, when, the same generation is not willing to make similar choices, when it comes to books and movies? Now, here you have to know what’s art, and what art is for.
Rule number one: don’t even dream of manipulating the arts to improve your society. It just does not work. Art only survives when it is spontaneous and sincere. If not, it is being rejected. Many tried these manipulations, including the China’s infamous Cultural Revolution of 1966, and all have failed.
Rule number two: yes, arts are going hand in hand with the current public mood. And, if the Russian public is currently trying to get back to 2008 (in movies, not in real life), that means that that pubic is going into the future backwards, glancing nostalgically at the ages that have been irrevocably lost.
These long goodbyes will not last, of course. It is clear as a day that the new era called “after the war” is already here. It is enough to have a look at the battle lines to see it. Ukraine has lost the war long ago, and Europe that prodded it on and spent money and weapons on that war, is in terrible shambles. America is doing its best to step away from that historically familiar European madness, while glancing with apprehension at the current balance of all kind of power with China. More and more nations, previously timid and careful, are making themselves heard, for good and for bad. And, yes, all kind of technological revolutions are among the reasons for that tumult. And we have no idea where these technological upheavals will take us all.
But the arts will not be long to change their mood and the mood of the great masses of people the world over. They may linger on the past for a while, but then something totally new, preposterous and beautiful will appear to usher us into a totally new and maybe glorious era. Just don’t prod the artists, don’t try to push them into the new age, they will do it on their own and in their own way.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
