Holidays on Mars, living cities and family warmth: "Dreams of the Future" contest shows how schoolchildren see the world in half a century

---

Knowledge is uploaded directly into the brain during lessons, living houses regulate lighting by themselves, and a quantum communicator makes it possible to talk to relatives on Mars — young people’s fantasies about the future are truly boundless. At the same time, teenagers are confident that no technology can replace family warmth and the joy of true friendship. How young people aged 12 to 18 imagine the future was explored by the organisers of the 2nd Video Essay Contest "Dreams of the Future" at the National Centre RUSSIA ahead of Children’s Day.

In total, schoolchildren from all 89 regions of Russia, as well as from 10 republics of the near abroad, shared their dreams of the future: Uzbekistan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. The total number of applications submitted was 935.

The future is people

As it turned out, in almost all regions, young people dream of preserving humanity in the era of supertechnologies and artificial intelligence. Schoolchildren take as their examples the perfect universe of Ivan Yefremov’s "Andromeda Nebula", the humanistic "Noon Universe" of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and the hospitable high-tech Moscow of the late 21st century, where Kir Bulychev placed his heroine Alisa Selezneva.

In their fantasies about a harmonious future, the ideas of young people from different corners of the country are strikingly consonant. From Kaliningrad to Chukotka, schoolchildren dream of the world becoming quieter and safer, of smart machines taking over all routine work, and of people having enough time to communicate with one another.

According to young people, technological development does not divide people, but brings them closer together: a grandmother can attend a family dinner as a hologram, a quantum communicator provides a connection with residents of Earth colonies on the Moon and Mars, and a built-in translator helps people understand anyone (and, if the settings are adjusted, even a representative of an extraterrestrial civilisation!). And no advanced simulator can replace real impressions — a birthday cake baked with one’s own hands, even if slightly burnt, and living friends are still better than a perfect celebration based on a script written by a neural network.

Our space

Space is a topic that especially concerns dreamers from the Altai, Trans-Baikal, Krasnodar and Primorye Territories, the Arkhangelsk, Kaluga, Kirov, Novosibirsk and Penza Regions, the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lugansk People’s Republic and the Republic of Mari El. It is in these regions that young people think most about conquering the galaxy, contact with extraterrestrial civilisations, and the idea that space is a test not only of resilience, but also of humanity.

Schoolchildren hope that in the future, humanity will be able to fly to any planet and create oases of life on Mars and the Moon. But with the development of long-distance crewed flights, it is more important than ever to preserve the ability to empathise and the readiness to help in a difficult situation. And even among the cold stars, to remember home.

Children of nature

Harmony between nature and technology is the dream of young people from the Vologda, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Sverdlovsk Regions, the Kamchatka, Stavropol and Khabarovsk Territories, the Karachayevo-Circassian Republic, the Chechen Republic, Sevastopol and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area. In these regions, there are especially many young people who think about preserving the planet. Fortunately, teenagers look to the future with considerable optimism.

In young people’s imagination, the world of the future is a space where technologies are inspired by nature rather than destroying it. In their fantasies, living houses grow, regulating lighting and temperature by themselves and possessing the ability to heal their own damage through symbiosis with bacteria. Employees work in farm offices at computers based on mycelium, while hardworking drones perform hundreds of useful tasks: pollinating flowers, collecting rubbish and filtering water.

Science unites

Science as humanity’s superpower — this is the dream shared by young people from the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Kaluga, Kostroma, Kursk, Orenburg and Pskov Regions, and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). They hope that in the future, people will learn to cure all diseases, grow new organs and limbs, and find a recipe for prolonging youth. However, teenagers look at the probable future very practically and know for certain that people will have to unite to solve tasks of universal importance.

According to young people, science should become a universal language uniting scientists from all over the world. An interdisciplinary approach and constant exchange of knowledge are the only way to solve global problems such as pandemics, weather anomalies, serious diseases and environmental pollution.

Dreams as legacy

Some of teenagers’ fantasies will surely come true in the coming decades. History shows that this always happens. For example, today’s teenagers live in a world their peers in the 1960s and 1970s passionately dreamed of. Here is a striking example: in 2000, a "time capsule" was opened at Artek — a letter from pioneers written in 1960 and sent into the future. In it, the young people described their vision of the year 2000: people fly to the Moon, and Artek has its own cosmodrome. Well, reality has come very close to those fantasies: construction of an inhabited lunar base is planned for 2030, and this year, as part of the "First Space" programme at Artek, children may not have launched from a cosmodrome, but they did create models of hydropneumatic rockets and antennas for receiving space data, as well as learn about spacecraft onboard systems.

Pupils of School No. 25 in the city of Orsk also left letters for future generations in 1972. Their dreams included large televisions in classrooms, broadcasts from other planets and meetings with people who had visited Venus and Mars. How delighted they would be to see interactive touch panels in modern schools and to learn that test cosmonauts regularly speak with young people at educational events, often directly from aboard the International Space Station!

A dream can be captured not only in words, but also in colour. Young authors of the postcard set "We Will Conquer Space. Drawings by Soviet Children" (1962) and participants of the third International Young Artist Contest (1982) drew their visions of the future. The theme of that year’s contest was "On Earth and in Space". The children’s creativity is full of optimism: Earthlings conquer outer space, make friends with alien creatures and even hold bicycle races on Saturn’s rings. One of the contest participants called her work "Into Space So That Earth May Bloom" — and indeed, why else set out for the stars, if not for the prosperity of one’s home planet? In this sense, modern teenagers are no different from their predecessors: for them, space is not a backup place to live, but a source of new knowledge and a way to expand their picture of the universe.

Soviet teenagers dreamed of seeing themselves in the place of the heroes of science fiction films such as "Guest from the Future", "Moscow — Cassiopeia", "Teens in the Universe" and "The Big Space Travel". Their plots are different, but their interpretations of the future are similar: technological development makes it possible to travel not only through space, but also through time; special devices make it possible to read the thoughts of people and animals; and starships set off to every corner of the galaxy. Most importantly, in this future, children take part in expeditions, design spaceships and even save the world.

And the young people of the 21st century have not failed to meet those expectations. Today’s schoolchildren do not simply live a life that seemed unreal half a century ago. They actively create the future of their dreams: they take part in environmental campaigns, develop projects for school satellites and rockets, engage in science and master new technologies. Because, as the luminaries of Soviet science fiction Arkady and Boris Strugatsky wrote: "What is the point of talking about the future? People do not talk about the future — they make it!"