This essay examines the Etnogenez series of science fiction and fantasy novels. Launched in 2009 by the media producer, "political technologist," and Kremlin insider Konstantin Rykov, Etnogenez has enjoyed truly phenomenal success, developing into one of the most ambitious publishing projects of the post-Soviet period. At present it numbers more than fifty works, which circulate in millions of copies and additionally are broadly disseminated on the Internet and as e-books, audiobooks, and podcasts. There are Etnogenez fan clubs, computer games, and dozens of Internet discussion groups. Although the novels in the series differ widely in their plots and subjects, and are written in a variety of different science fiction genres, all of them are loosely inspired by the work of the historian and geographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev, in particular his theories of ethnogenesis (from which the project takes its name), passionarnost', and Eurasianism. The essay explores the powerful resonances between the Etnogenez project, the Gumilevian legacy, and the leading political and social narratives of Putin's Russia.

This paper presents a ‘virtual roundtable’, compiled from the written interviewswith blogging Orthodox priests and religious activists. They relate their experiences and reflections on digitalization of the Orthodox religion, challenges and promises which theChurch encounters in the internet. Their direct speech is framed by the introduction, in whichstrategies of self-presentations in ‘Ortho-blogs’ are surveyed. 

Eurasian Union and Russian World have recently been the most important, although hardly compatible concepts of Russian geopolitics. Though they became entirely common terms of reference in contemporary political discourses, bear no officially defined ideological meaning. There is clear contradiction that Russia enters into the Eurasian Economic Union (as of the 1 January 2015) on equal basis with other countries and at the same time propagates the ideas of the Russian World, which supports dominance of Russian language and Russian nationalism as an unquestionable priority.Nevertheless, there exists popular discourse in the Russian blogosphere, which attempts to combine 'Eurasian Union' and 'Russian World' into persuasive ideological narrative. In this paper I try to analyse the main arguments of this public debate, its chief commentators and the instruments of creating public discourse surrounding these notions. Significantly enough, the sites that provide platform for this discussion in the Internet have an image of serious international academic institutions or governmentally sponsored think tanks (which they are not). Clearly, bloggers who initiate this discussion on such sites (existing not only in Russia, but over whole post-Soviet space) aspire of some leverage in political decision making, they imitate closeness to Kremlin, which makes their statements seemingly weightier. Central authorities, instead, try to distance themselves from these discussions and bloggers. They do not acknowledge their existence on the official web-sites and do not enter into discussions, probably fearing the Web 2.0 discussions as charged with dissident potential per se. I am hypothesizing that bloggers try to find the common denomination for the notions of Eurasian Union and Russian World and governmental official try to intentionally distance themselves from clearly formulated ideological statements, because any clarification means constrain and necessity to follow certain path. Now Kremlin has all irons in the fire and refuses to arrest the meaning of key political concepts

Nowadays Eurasianism is gradually transformed from a philosophical doctrine known only to experts into cultural and political practice. The attempts of reintegration of the former Soviet Union made by Kremlin encourage population to reflect on the historical mission of Russia and its ‘civilizational’ identity. Vladimir Putin in his article published in “Izvestya” in October 2011 made clear division between the supporters and opponents of the Eurasian Union. Russia’s contemporary Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, warmly supports the idea of the Eurasian integration and even called it the major “macro-task” of Russia. In his writings and documents of his ministry, Medinsky actively entertains the idea of Eurasian union and considers Eurasianism one of the most fruitful doctrines aiming at Russian inner and foreign politics.  In my presentation I am going to analyze the recent documents and statements of the Ministry of Culture concerning Eurasianism as a force of cultural and political re-integration of Russia with former Soviet territories and other neighboring countries.