October 07, 2026

Russia Looks to the Volga for a "Vision of the Future"


Russia Looks to the Volga for a "Vision of the Future"
These colors don't run. The Russian Life files.

According to The Insider, Russia has sent 120 political scientists, philosophers, and cultural studies scholars on an expedition along the Volga River to develop a “vision for the future.” The trip’s organizers promise that, based on its findings, the participants will prepare a “philosophical master plan” for the Expert Institute for Social Research in Moscow. The future will be described in terms of the economy, politics, religion, and other spheres.

The expedition set out from Moscow on a steamboat and is scheduled to visit several historic cities, like Yaroslavl, Uglich, and Myshkin, as well as Dubna, near Moscow. Its participants intend to ask locals about their “concerns and views on the future.” While traveling between cities, the young professionals will attend lectures by many Kremlin thought leaders, including Alexander Dugin, the architect of the “Russian World” concept and Putin’s court philosopher, who will speak virtually.

Meanwhile, the steamer that the expedition set off on is called “Swan Lake” — apparently oblivious to the anti-Kremlin meme the Tchaikovsky ballet has come to represent.

Noteworthy also is the echo of the legendary “philosophers' ships” with which the Bolsheviks expelled opposition intellectuals from early Soviet Russia. The first of those ships departed on September 29, 1922, while the 2026 version left on the 28th. According to expedition leader Ruslan Shkuta, the difference is that those philosophers were sent away permanently, whereas “our philosophers will return.”

The expedition indeed returned after five days, on October 3. The much-anticipated vision of the future has yet to be released.

 

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