How Russian Artists Imagined in 1914 What Moscow Would Look Like in 2259

www.openculture.com · 2026-07-15 · by Long Nguyen ·generic
In the days of popular retrofuturism—say, the first half of the twentieth century—people tended to imagine the world of tomorrow looking very much like the world of today, only with a lot more flying cars, monorails, and videophones. Open Culture, openculture.com

How Russian Artists Imagined in 1914 What Moscow Would Look Like in 2259

  • Online Courses
  • Audio Books
  • Movies
  • Podcasts
  • K-12
  • eBooks
  • Languages
  • Donate
    • [](https://www.openculture.com/contact "Contact Us") * [](https://www.openculture.com/feed/rss2 "Subscribe to Our RSS Feed") * [](https://twitter.com/openculture "Follow Open Culture on Twitter") * [](https://www.facebook.com/openculture "Follow us on Facebook")

    How Russian Artists Imagined in 1914 What Moscow Would Look Like in 2259

    in History, Sci Fi | July 14th, 2026 Leave a Comment

    [](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/bluesky?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Bluesky")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Facebook")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/threads?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Threads")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/mastodon?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Mastodon")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/reddit?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Reddit")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/sms?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Message")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Email")[](https://www.addtoany.com/share)

    In the days of pop­u­lar retro­fu­tur­ism—say, the first half of the twen­ti­eth century—people tend­ed to imag­ine the world of tomor­row look­ing very much like the world of today, only with a lot more fly­ing cars, mono­rails, and video­phones. This is true whether those doing the imag­in­ing were titans of indus­try, mar­ket­ing mavens, ide­al­is­tic Sovi­ets, or sub­jects of the Tsar, though we might think that peo­ple liv­ing under an ancient monar­chi­cal sys­tem might not expect much change. In some ways we might be right, but as we can see in the 1914 post­cards here—printed as Rus­sia entered World War I—the coun­try did antic­i­pate a mod­ern, tech­no­log­i­cal future, though one that still close­ly resem­bled its present.

    Per­haps few but the most far-sight­ed of Rus­sians pre­dict­ed what the ail­ing empire would endure in the years to come—the dis­as­ter of the Great War, and the waves of Rev­o­lu­tion and Civ­il War. Cer­tain­ly, who­ev­er paint­ed these images fore­saw no such cat­a­stroph­ic upheaval.

    Although pur­port­ing to show us a view of Moscow in the 23rd cen­tu­ry, they show the city very hap­pi­ly “still under monar­chi­cal rule,” writes A Jour­ney Through Russ­ian Cul­ture, going about its dai­ly life just as it did over three hun­dred years ear­li­er, “with the addi­tion of every­thing from sub­ways to air­borne pub­lic trans­porta­tion, things prob­a­bly seen as stan­dard meth­ods of trans­port for the future.”

    Of course, there would be hot-rod­ded sleds on St. Peters­burg High­way with head­lights, fan­cy wind­shields, and what look like Christ­mas elves perched in them. Lubyan­s­ka Square, fur­ther up, would still host mil­i­tary parades of men on horse­back, as chil­dren whiz by on motor­bikes and sub­way trains rum­ble under­neath. The Cen­tral Rail­way Sta­tion, above, might seem entire­ly unchanged, until one looks up, and sees ele­vat­ed trams stream­ing out of the ter­mi­nal like spider’s silk. Red Square, how­ev­er, just below, would appar­ent­ly host drag races, while peo­ple in trams and giant diri­gi­bles look on from above.

    The images have a children’s book qual­i­ty about them and the fes­tive air of hol­i­day cards. They were appar­ent­ly redis­cov­ered only recent­ly when a choco­late com­pa­ny called Eyinem reprint­ed them on their pack­ag­ing. Like so much retro­fu­tur­ism, these seem—in their bustling, yet safe, cheer­ful orderliness—tailor-made for nos­tal­gic trips through Petro­vsky Park, rather than imag­i­na­tive leaps into the great unknown. For that, we must turn to Russ­ian Futur­ism, which, both before and after World War I and the Rev­o­lu­tion, imag­ined, helped bring about, but did­n’t quite sur­vive the mas­sive tech­no­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal dis­rup­tion of the next two decades.

    Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2017.

    Relat­ed Con­tent:

    Sovi­et Artists Envi­sion a Com­mu­nist Utopia in Out­er Space

    How the Sovi­ets Imag­ined in 1960 What the World Would Look in 2017: A Gallery of Retro-Futur­is­tic Draw­ings

    Down­load Russ­ian Futur­ist Book Art (1910–1915): The Aes­thet­ic Rev­o­lu­tion Before the Polit­i­cal Rev­o­lu­tion

    Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC.

    [](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/bluesky?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Bluesky")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Facebook")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/threads?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Threads")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/mastodon?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Mastodon")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/reddit?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Reddit")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/sms?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Message")[](https://www.addtoany.com/add%5Fto/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openculture.com%2F2026%2F07%2Frussian-artists-imagined-what-moscow-would-look-like-in-2259.html&linkname=How%20Russian%20Artists%20Imagined%20in%201914%20What%20Moscow%20Would%20Look%20Like%20in%202259 "Email")[](https://www.addtoany.com/share)

    by OC | Permalink | Comments (0) |

    Sup­port Open Cul­ture

    We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!

    ##### Comments (0)

    Be the first to comment.

    Leave a Reply

    Name (required)

    Email (required)

    Message

    Click here to cancel reply.

    ©2006-2026 Open Culture, LLC. All rights reserved.

  • Home
  • [](https://www.openculture.com/)About Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Copyright Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Bio

  • Audio Books
  • Online Courses
  • MOOCs
  • Movies
  • Languages
  • Textbooks
  • eBooks
Quantcast

www.openculture.com · 5 images · 500 links

Comments (0)

No comments yet