Soviet 1960 Filmstrip That Predicted Life in 2017

In 1960, Soviet film studio Diafilm published a filmstrip titled “In the Year 2017.” Created by V. Strukova and V. Shevchenko and illustrated by L. Smekhov, it was equal parts technological fantasy and Cold War propaganda. Its story imagined a future where Western imperialism had collapsed and the Soviet Union led all of humanity in science and social progress.

“In the Year 2017” by V. Strukova and V. Shevchenko, illustrated by L. Smekhov, produced by the Diafilm studio in 1960.

The filmstrip opens with a simple but direct question about the future — one that sets the tone for everything that follows.

Who isn’t worried by questions about the future? What will it be like? Who doesn’t want a glance at the next century? Reading science-fiction books, and learning about new scientific research and bold new engineering plans, you can paint yourself a picture of the future.

The story follows a group of Soviet schoolchildren in 2017. Their teacher, Nikolai Borisovich, uses a special “time loop” cinema device to show them how their country was built. The classroom screening covers atomic-powered trains running across a dam over the Bering Strait, underground drilling machines burrowing into volcanoes for energy, and photon rocket ships launched toward Alpha Centauri.

And here are those students in 2017 in a school cinema hall. This “time loop” special cinema device allows them to view how the new face of their country was created.

The children hear the voice of the narrator: “And here is the dam across the Bering Strait. Do you see what’s whizzing over it? Atomic-powered trains. The dam blocked the cold water currents from the Arctic Ocean and the climate in the Far East improved.

“And then, the earth surface kind of melted away, and you could see what was happening in the bowels of the earth. In the depths of volcanos, underground boat-moles made out of special heat-resistant steel were ripping mines towards eternal sources of energy.”

Then in the film, the Earth itself disappears. In outer space, almost at the speed of light, photon interstellar rocketships set off for the nearest and faraway planetary system, Alpha Centauri.

After the screening, the class is assigned a field trip to Uglegrad, an underground city inside the Arctic Circle. The morning of the trip is where domestic life in 2017 comes into focus. The story’s main character, Igor, is woken by a novelty clock his father invented. His mother left a note for an automated cooking machine, which uses invisible beams to read her handwriting and prepare his breakfast.

When the cinema show has ended, the geography teacher, Nikolai Borisovich, reminds the class that tomorrow’s lesson will be a field trip to the underground city of Uglegrad, located in the Arctic Circle.

The next morning, Igor is awakened by a light flick across the nose by a wall clock invented by his father as a joke. Igor’s father works as one of the dispatchers in the Central Institute for Weather Control.

Mother isn’t in the kitchen, but she’s left behind a note — it’s a task for the culinary smart machine. “My favorite breakfast!” the boy exclaims, reading it.

Igor carefully starts the contraption and inserts the instruction note. Fulfilling the order, invisible beams probe the contours of the letters on the note, automatic scoopers measure out what’s needed, and special knives quickly chop vegetables.

Igor’s mother contacts him through a televideo-phone from a motor ship on the Black Sea, where she is inspecting floating kindergartens. The filmstrip presents this as entirely routine.

Next, Mother looks in from the screen of a televideo-phone. She’s standing on the deck of a motor ship. This is where her youngest children go to kindergarten. “Did you manage okay with breakfast?” mother asks, smiling.

“Are you … in the Black Sea?” Igor asks, surprised. “I’m here for work,” she says. “I’m inspecting the Black Sea’s floating kindergartens, and I also dropped in on ours. Call Dad and tell him I won’t be home until tomorrow.”

At Uglegrad, the students descend by escalator into a fully enclosed underground city. Despite a blizzard raging above, residents tan under quartz lights and breathe linden-scented air. The city’s head engineer explains that massive steel drilling machines extract resources from the earth, but unpredictable weather above ground disrupts supply shipments.

A half hour later, Igor was already far from the capital. The Arctic greets the newcomers with a wild blizzard. Local workers surround the Muscovites.

A hatchway opens before the students, and a wide row of escalators takes them down below.

Then everyone goes for a ride through the streets of Uglegrad. The air is filled with the subtle scent of linden trees. Glancing at people, tanning on the beach beneath the quartz lights, it’s hard to believe that there is a blizzard raging above.

On the outskirts, huge steel combines drill into the earth. Uglegrad’s head engineer, Vladislav Ivanovich, tells the school children all about the city’s fascinating work.

“Here, beneath the earth, an eternal spring reigns,” he says with pride. “But the volatile weather up above interrupts our schedule for shipping out what we produce.”

The solution, Vladislav Ivanovich explains, lies in meson energy — a concept based on real subatomic particles studied heavily in the 1950s and 1960s. Scientists of that era genuinely theorized mesons as a future power source before the idea was disproven. The filmstrip uses meson energy to power both a new high-speed drilling machine and flying weather-control stations capable of neutralizing storms on demand.

“For now, flying delivery stations are only operational temporarily,” Vladislav Ivanovich explains, “and creating the conditions for the uninterrupted delivery of goods is possible only using an intercity metro through the entire Arctic.”

Here is a model of the new construction for the earther; it’s as fast as a drilling machine. This earther will work using the new meson energy, which will double excavation speeds.”

“But the flying stations have a bright future in weather control. A person will be in an office and push a radio-control button, and a machine will fly to a place and put out a hurricane, eliminating a storm.”

The story’s climax is built around Cold War politics. A group described as “the last remaining imperialists” secretly tests a banned meson weapon on a remote island. The test destroys the island and triggers massive hurricanes across the planet, directly threatening the Black Sea — where Igor’s mother and younger siblings are on a floating kindergarten ship.

Meanwhile, back at the Central Institute for Weather Control, where Igor’s father works, there’s dire news. “We’ve just been informed,” the head meteorologist says, “that the last remaining imperialists, hiding on a remote island, have tested a banned meson weapon. During the test, there was an explosion of unprecedented strength, which destroyed the entire island and simultaneously created atmospheric disturbances around the planet.

“The explosion in the South Pacific Ocean is causing terrible hurricanes and windstorms. We need to start rescuing people immediately!” the head meteorologist says decisively. “Is our flying station ready?”

Igor’s father, Evgeny Sergeyevich, works at the Central Institute for Weather Control. Knowing his wife and children are directly in the hurricane’s path, he joins the crew of the flying weather station on a dangerous rescue mission — the station still lacks radio control, meaning the crew must operate it manually at great personal risk.

Evgeny Sergeyevich, Igor’s father, thinks, his mind burning with a terrifying thought: ships, floating kindergartens, and, there, his wife, and Nina, and Vitya… The hurricane was drawing nearer with every minute. And his weather station still hadn’t been outfitted with radio control.

“We’re going to ask permission to evacuate people using the weather control station,” says the head meteorologist. “We’ll fly there ourselves. Of course, we’ll be risking our lives, but we have to save the children, the sailors, and the ships.”

Permission is granted. And outside the windows of the flying weather station, mountainous watery pillars are already crashing down. They reach the very clouds themselves.

On the television screen in the station, an image of the Black Sea coast flashes. A gigantic tornado rips off the roofs on homes, tearing apart a century-old village.

The crew fires meson energy at the tornadoes, battling the storm directly. When the emissions stop, the tornadoes are gone. The station has saved hundreds of lives. Back in Moscow, Muscovites flood the streets to read newspapers about the rescue.

The head meteorologist lowers black glass over the windshield. Technicians man the control panel. A blast of light then cuts into their eyes, even through the black glass… The station radiates waves of invisible meson energy. The emissions battle the tornadoes.

When, at last, the station stops emitting meson energy, and the black glass is raised, and the tornadoes, as if by magic, have vanished. The flying weather station had saved hundreds of people.

Back in the capital, despite dark skies, the people prepare to celebrate. There is extraordinary excitement in the streets. Muscovites go around snatching newspapers from each other, reading about the latest accomplishments of Soviet science in weather control.

When the weather station returns to Moscow, the men are hailed as heroes, having used their weather control powers to save hundreds of lives.

The filmstrip ends on a personal note. Evgeny lands and embraces his son. That evening, he calls his wife on the televideo-phone. She and their daughter Nina are safe aboard the ship, and Nina shouts that they had “such a warm, warm little rain today” — a small, cheerful detail that closes the story.