The Russian-language publication Novaya Gazeta has a "laboratory of the future," an initiative that attempts to peer into Russia's tomorrow. This summer, they released a collection titled "Elusive Future" dedicated to just that. A society's attitude toward the future — whether it plans for it or abandons it — offers a telling indicator of its present state. In Russia's case today, the future seems to be the past, which the authorities are energetically pushing in the absence of any alternative scenario.

Among the post-Soviet Russian population, the lack of forward-looking ideas and visions is likely a chronic condition. As early as the mid-1990s, sociologist Lev Gudkov coined a term for it: "future abortion." Soviet citizens, after all, had some sense of the future — ephemeral though it may have been — in the form of that ever-elusive ideal of radiant communism.

When the Communist Party collapsed in disgrace, it also discredited that bright vision of the future, offering nothing enduring to replace it. Some claim that under Mikhail Gorbachev, there was a glimmer of hope for the future and Boris Yeltsin's rise to power even hinted at the possibility of a democratic one.

A prosperous future seemed almost within reach and, unlike socialism or communism, it appeared to require no great effort to build — it would simply arrive on its own. But that's not how things turned out.

As we move closer to the present day, a very different vision of the future began to take shape: a world in which only Russia remains, emerging through Russia's moral and political victory. And no war would be needed to achieve this.

There were different versions of this future. One imagined Russia stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Then came the desire to restore the former Soviet Union — if not entirely, then at least its European portion by reincorporating Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic states into Greater Russia. Some even expressed the need to revive the Russian Empire by reclaiming Finland as well.

The more historically minded referenced the Yalta Agreement, arguing that since Stalin was granted dominion over Eastern Europe, it must now be brought back under Russian control. More recently, this vision narrowed to include only those Ukrainian regions written into the Russian Constitution or perhaps most of Ukraine itself. Yet all these ideas about the future were, at their core, rooted in the past.

Vladimir Putin's rise to power ushered in a new vision of the future — one marked by strongman rule paired with access to consumer goods. Added to that was the free movement of people, capital and ideas. Democracy, however, was not seen as an essential feature of this future. The vision resembled the West in form, but without its values or democratic trappings.

That vision came to life in the form of autocracy. While modernization proved more difficult, the middle class didn't fare too poorly. It was discovered that life under an authoritarian regime was tolerable, provided one could adapt. And when the Kremlin grew bored with the status quo and yearned for something more dramatic, people adapted to that too. At least the upper middle class learned how to merge patriotic behavior with state contracts and the profits that came with them.

Some observers argue that what we're seeing is a retro-state battling against the future in order to control the past. A psychiatrist recently noted that many young drug addicts in mental hospitals live one day at a time — they see no future amid the conditions of war. Sales of antidepressants are rising rapidly.

According to the Levada Center, the number of Russians who no longer plan for any kind of future is growing. In 2021, they made up 12 percent of the population. The year before last, that figure had risen to 27 percent. Today, it's even higher. More and more people are living day to day. Short-term borrowing is on the rise, while long-term savings plans have sharply declined. People have simply lost faith in stability.

A Russian-born psychoanalyst working in Vienna says that among her Russian-speaking patients, a prevailing belief is taking hold: the world is ending, everything is bad and there is no future. Sociologists point to surveys in which respondents say all their attempts to think about the future end in failure. The phrase "the future is a black hole" is being repeated with growing frequency.

In the war's third year, public opinion reveals three distinct views of the future. The first is purely personal, tied to family and day-to-day concerns such as mortgage payments and children's schooling. The second is collective, focused on the war: a timeline for ending the fighting, a ceasefire and possibly peace thereafter. The third is also collective but grounded in the past — a vision of the future imagined as a return to the time before the large-scale war began.

Surveys conducted earlier this year showed that when people hear the word "future," 39 percent think only of their personal lives and those close to them. Another 21 percent think about changes in national life. Seventeen percent struggle to answer the question at all and the same proportion say imagining the future is impossible.

It appears the state's strategy is chaos and its weapon is fear. The idea that one should do something for the future or fight for it doesn't even occur to most respondents. Even the thought of simply surviving until better times is becoming rarer.

Sociologists believe that Russia lost its future three years ago. The previous worldview has shattered into pieces and no new one has emerged to replace it. The authorities are increasingly offering the past as a substitute for the future. Something resembling what came before, just without new ideas.

The Russian people are cast as victims placed on the altar of victory to cleanse the world of the curse of fascism. Consequently, those nations that fail to recognize Russia's special status and spiritual leadership are considered godless and therefore deserving of punishment. A peculiar political religion has taken shape — those who reject it are labeled enemies and face, if not outright destruction, then at least deportation to prison camps.

The state has adopted the samurai model: there is no goal — only the journey.

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