What appeared on its ashes was another fantastical project. (As Gogol remarked, Russians tend toward the fantastical.) After the Iron Curtain fell — and with it the remnants of the schizophrenic institutions and rules — what was revealed behind it was a space filled with a quantum soup, a superposition of possibilities. A wonderland. A place where anything was possible — literally. Making fortunes in a week. Launching a prime-time TV programme speculating that Lenin was a mushroom. Getting obscene funding for the most daring creative projects. Kalashnikov shootouts in the centre of Moscow. Creating a private currency and advertising it on national television. Promoting schoolboys to presidents⁵. The scale of what the human spirit could do — in the absence of all rules and with such infinite resources — was truly mesmerising. This was the time when Russian grandiosity manifested itself to a large extent — in business, in culture, in all other areas. Miracles were a daily reality. Read early Viktor Pelevin⁶ to get a good taste of this spirit — the people, their ways of thinking and doing.
But all this grandiosity and mysticism quickly degenerated into a pure rush for gold. Again, this too was pushed to the most extravagant, almost metaphysical level. Private jets filled with caviar and Dom Pérignon, hordes of servants, private teachers, palaces and villas, yachts, football clubs and whatever else could be imagined. Of course, this was reserved for a very narrow part of Russian society, but that was what set the standards, myths and dreams for many.
What was left of this special fantastical way? From no limitations and grandiosity to no values, no sense, no taste, and no meaning. From Pelevin’s Vavilen Tatarsky to Sorokin’s Oprichniks…⁷ The pendulum of Russia’s oscillation between blindly adopting everything Western in the 90s slowly but surely swayed once again to denying European values and carrying its mission in the world with fire and sword…
© 2026 Gravity & Entropy. No rights reserved. Instagram