Russia, which has not yet been found – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

All sociological studies of the last 11 months have recorded an increase in anxiety among Russians and a reduction in the planning horizon. Entrepreneurs Boris Akimov and Oleg Stepanov decided to oppose this trend radically – they thought about what Russia could be like in 40 years, in 2062. For almost a year they discussed this “deficit” – the picture of the future – among themselves and with their like-minded people. And as a result, they made the book “Russia-2062: how we can equip the country in 40 years”, in which they see both a manifesto, and a program, and a platform for its further discussion with everyone.

In 2018, journalist Nick Goving and researcher Chris Langdon published their book Thinking the Unthinkable: New Imperatives for Leaders in a Disruptive Age. The authors focused their efforts on analyzing the views and practices of managers from different countries and corporations and came to a warning conclusion: any managers are as comfortable as possible following the established habitual schemes, although many of them intuitively feel threatened due to the inconsistency of these schemes with emerging challenges, among which are possible those that seem inconceivable.

To a certain extent, this was a development of the views of Nassim Taleb, who a decade earlier had formulated the concept of “black swans” – sudden events that transform the world on a large scale and look in retrospect as predictable and logically explainable. Nick Goving and Chris Langdon proceeded precisely from the idea that a manager should, if possible, analyze in advance the possible arrival of “black swans” and always think about the unthinkable, no matter how unthinkable it may seem, in order to analyze challenges, risks, steps to minimize and overcome them in advance consequences. Looking at the publication of a book from 2023, it’s hard not to be struck by its almost mystical timing: two years later, the coronavirus pandemic broke out, and two years later, the first large-scale armed conflict in Eastern Europe in many years. However, the idea of ​​the authors to gather a global pool of concerned but constructive like-minded people on an English-language network platform launched simultaneously with the release of the book has now receded somewhat into the shadow of a flurry of daily news, reminiscent of a perfect storm. Which, however, to some extent gives the authors grounds for complacency: they say, we warned.

In 2022, in the midst – or perhaps only the beginning – of this perfect storm, two Russian entrepreneurs, 44-year-old Boris Akimov and 53-year-old Oleg Stepanov, just decided to think the unthinkable and speculate about what kind of Russia is one of the epicenters of what is happening. events – will be in 40 years, in 2062.

They not only counted an arbitrary four decades from a year that will no doubt be remembered by many, but also referred to a broader historical context. “It is believed that in 862 Rurik was called to reign on Russian soil,” they write in the preface to their book. “In the distant – but not too much – 2062, 1200 years of the creation of the Russian state will be celebrated … People sometimes dream of their own anniversary, and we decided to think about the whole country at once – what would we like to see it in 40 years?

Boris Akimov and Oleg Stepanov are looking for this picture of the future – and, as it seems to them, they are finding it, based on their own entrepreneurial experience. Akimov, creator of LavkiLavka, founder of the Happy community in the Yaroslavl region, co-founder of the ANO Bolshaya Zemlya, one of the participants in the creation of the Terbierka park on the Kola Peninsula; Stepanov is a social entrepreneur who has worked in regions from Yakutia to Krasnodar and from Teriberka to Khabarovsk. In short, the projects that are most interesting to them are, to one degree or another, the stories of creating or recreating local small communities aimed at maintaining the local social natural environment and bringing communities to a comfortable, and sometimes prosperous, standard of living.

Their study, which took the difficult months of 2022, is actually an expedition to such “points of growth” in which “amazing people, through their work and life itself, show how Russia could live.” Among their interlocutors are farmers, teachers, restorers, people who have left big cities (and not only Russia, but also several Western countries) and have taken up new business for them in a more or less deep Russian province. Together with all these people — there are a dozen and a half of them in the book — the authors decided to “create a model of a positive and attractive Russian future, and, over time, propose a strategy and tactics for achieving it.”

Some of the supporting theses, arguments and conclusions of the authors may look at least controversial. For example, as an epigraph to the “Manifesto” afterword, a large quotation from “People’s Monarchy” by Ivan Solonevich is given. But the search for the future, as a rule, implies the ability to free yourself from clichés. “History teaches us that in the end, ideas that are born at the boundaries of accepted social discourse, mutant ideas, always win,” the authors remind the reader from the very beginning. In addition, they are ready for discussion and are open to it: like Goving and Langdon, they announce in the book an online platform for discussing the image of the future, only not global, but Russian. Which, despite the obvious anti-globalist pathos of the authors, still seems to them to be part of the common future of mankind, and such a future in which there will be more “harmony and care” than now.

The authors, not being particularly original in this, see modern globalism as a machine that destroys traditions and replaces creativity (in which a person is initially likened to the Creator) with consumerism (leading to dehumanization).

At the same time, they sometimes find manifestations of globalism where other anti-globalists are ready to endlessly draw inspiration, for example, in the Soviet period of Russian history. “Cancellation culture is a typical Soviet phenomenon,” Akimov says in the book. A kind of chronology, life seems to have begun in 1917 – this is the most powerful culture of cancellation. We, the Soviet people, learned the hard way what it leads to, we live in an uncomfortable space, with the feeling that you have no home … If we, as a country, want to move on, we must know our history, go back there, cry, live, forgive, then we will find a happy present and be able to build the future. A stable and happy future is built only on living traditions.”

The set of program ideas of the authors is reflected in a short list of chapters. They would like the dehumanization (for which, by the way, much was done in the past year and continues to be done in the current one) to become less, and co-creation would be understood as the main property of a person. They prefer to understand the family as a manifestation of such co-creation, as a value, and not as a personal alternative to a successful career or something for which we have a few hours a week free from visiting the office. They dream of an economy where harmonization takes precedence over consumption and where the greedy investor is replaced by a caring trustee. They would like, if not the settlement of megacities, then at least a more even settlement of people, the re-creation of the culture of small towns and the development of vast uninhabited Russian spaces, including the Arctic.

In part, this set of theses, as well as the idea that the Russian “cultural frame” has become a saving aegis for the preservation of many diverse ways and cultures, the inflorescence of which should be considered national wealth, can be perceived as a “traditionalist’s catechism” that does not claim to be a significant novelty. But even these ideas, which have become to some extent part of the Russian propaganda mainstream, the authors manage to present and discuss (and invite to discussion) the way they sometimes say in the kitchen, when they reach the most important thing in the morning. Not at all like on television or a social network, where the blind practice hatred of the deaf and vice versa.

Behind the main theses of the authors – about the value of local communities of active people and the importance of local self-government (just this part, apparently, to the greatest extent relies on their own experience and the experience of some of their interlocutors) and the perspective of a rather pretty country is completely different.

A kind of constellation or inflorescence of small successful projects created by people who do not expect mercy from the authorities and are focused on the well-being of their own yard. Although right now this is perhaps really thought of as unthinkable, in this capacity Russia could probably become a truly attractive place for its neighbors near and far and a place where one would like to move to live. “The goal of our correct global project called “Russia-2062” is to give creative freedom to a huge number of local worlds within Russia and ensure their security,” Akimov writes. people. And the state ensures security and compliance with certain rules of the game, according to which these local worlds live, very different, traditional and at the same time looking to the future. In January 2023, all this, from the first to the last letter, looks like idealism. But idealism is now any reflection about the future – and if it is not invented, it will not come.

Ivan Sukhov