[From The Washington Post]
Humans can fly to the stars and harness the energy of the Earth’s core. Mankind has figured out how to control the weather. The Soviet Union is preparing for the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
And the imperialists? Don’t worry: The remaining few of them have been driven off to a remote Pacific island.
This is the vision of 2017 laid out in a 1960 Soviet filmstrip that surfaced on the Internet at the turn of the new year, plucked from the family collection of St. Petersburg resident Sergei Pozdnyakov. Entitled “In the Year 2017,” the filmstrip recounts a day in the life of Igor, a boy who lives in a futuristic Moscow that reflects the idealistic and ideological mind-set of the authors — who, of course, had no idea their country would cease to exist in 1991.
The 45-pane filmstrip evokes a poignant note about the meaning of 2017 as Russia prepares to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. President Vladimir Putin, who has overtly stated his aversion to revolution, has been trying to come up with a way to celebrate the one that defined modern Russia. It’s a far cry from what Soviet leaders thought this year would be.
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