{"id":99979,"date":"2026-05-08T02:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=99979"},"modified":"2025-12-27T23:36:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T04:36:19","slug":"the-strugatskys-the-doomed-city-and-the-soviet-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/05\/08\/the-strugatskys-the-doomed-city-and-the-soviet-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strugatskys&#8217; <em>The Doomed City<\/em> and the Soviet Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W0HB7BJcOx0?si=CIWP2xpuR5-mJteo\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Feral Historian<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 12 Dec 2025<\/p>\n<p>While <em>The Doomed City<\/em> isn&#8217;t the last book Boris and Arkady Strugatsky wrote, it is arguably the end of their journey from idealism to cynicism with regards to the whole Soviet project and serves as an almost spiritual history of the period. Let&#8217;s meander through it to look at some things not covered in a literary review. <\/p>\n<p>00:00 Intro<br \/>\n03:12 New Jobs<br \/>\n04:45 Aside &#8211; Facts and Theory<br \/>\n05:42 Laws and Mentors<br \/>\n09:36 The Experiment<br \/>\n10:50 Regime Change<br \/>\n13:25 Aside &#8211; Maps<br \/>\n15:45 Status and Power<br \/>\n18:22 The Ground Beneath Our Feet<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Link to the artist: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/redirect?event=video_description&#038;redir_token=QUFFLUhqblkxZVEyZmhKTm9xWVBLeTdIRGVTV2N2SnotUXxBQ3Jtc0tueUVHSXRBUnAtNC1KRElzdWU0Z3NNNjMzUGdHUVd5eEFyM3pUUzZ0elRxOTRnLVZPQjNkYkdqOWZJUjB6TUd0TVpselJoblgyTHNiRTlPNFgwRDZUbEs3TzF6U3poQndKOWM1M2FFSGEwUF9RMmJ0dw&#038;q=https%3A%2F%2Frhads.artstation.com%2Fprojects%2FnQLxm1&#038;v=W0HB7BJcOx0\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/rhads.artstation.com\/projects&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\nThe b-roll clips are from the 1998 film <em>Dark City<\/em>, which shares some common elements, and the 2024 Russian production of <em>The Master and Margarita<\/em>, a scathing take on the Soviet system written well before the decline set in. Both are deserving of videos on their own, which I&#8217;ll get to eventually. <\/p>\n<p>That bird really wanted me to leave. <\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udd39 Patreon   | patreon.com\/FeralHistorian<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 Ko-Fi     | ko-fi.com\/feralhistorian<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 and Merch! | feral-shop.fourthwall.com<br \/>\n <em>Ninti&#8217;s Gate<\/em><br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 amazon.com\/dp\/B0CYXH9BWD<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feral Historian Published 12 Dec 2025 While The Doomed City isn&#8217;t the last book Boris and Arkady Strugatsky wrote, it is arguably the end of their journey from idealism to cynicism with regards to the whole Soviet project and serves as an almost spiritual history of the period. Let&#8217;s meander through it to look at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,7,28],"tags":[780,1593,622,85,433],"class_list":["post-99979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-media","tag-communism","tag-feralhistorian","tag-ideology","tag-sf","tag-sovietunion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-q0z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99980,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99979\/revisions\/99980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}