From fiction to reality: the Hall of Inventions tells the story of smartphones

Today, capturing life's best moments is possible not only through sensory perception but also by taking photos and recording videos on a smartphone. The fascinating history of such devices is narrated by guides at the National Centre RUSSIA.

In the Hall of Inventions, which showcases engineering marvels and the astonishing realization of technologies imagined by science fiction writers, visitors discover that in 1928, Alexander Belyaev described a mobile phone with striking precision. "In his hand, I noticed a small round black object <...> the man held it to his mouth as he spoke <...> A phone without wires!" he wrote in his work "Struggle in the Ether." This occurred 45 years before Motorola released the first wireless phone.

The first mobile phone call was made on April 3, 1973, when the device's inventor, Martin Cooper of Motorola, called his competitor Joel Engel of AT&T. In the USSR, the first mass cellular operator, Delta Telecom, was established in 1991.

The words of Kir Bulychev in his novella "A Hundred Years Ahead," published in 1978, also turned out to be prophetic. For example, in Moscow in the year 2082, where Moscow schoolboy Kolya Gerasimov finds himself, people wear smartwatches and read the news on smartphones. At the time the novella was written, this seemed like pure science fiction, but today, smartwatches and smartphones no longer surprise anyone. They are used not only for reading the news but also for searching any information, communicating via social networks, video calls, photography, and even office work.

Free guided tours of the National Centre RUSSIA start every 15 minutes from the main information desk. May your smartphones capture only happy memories during the New Year holidays!