A small library inside offers a variety of books about dystopian worlds and the dangers of totalitarianism.
I have several copies of Orwell's classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. A story where Big Brother is always watching and the state has almost complete control over body and mind.
“The situation in Russia today is similar to 1984,” said librarian Alexandra Karaseva. “Complete control by government, state and security structures.”
In 1984, the Party manipulated people's perception of reality, making Oceania's citizens believe that “war is peace” and “ignorance is power.”
Russia today feels similarly. From morning till night, state media here insist that Russia's war in Ukraine is a defensive operation, not an invasion. Russian soldiers are liberators, not occupiers. Although the West claimed to be waging war against Russia, it was actually the Kremlin that ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“I met people who were obsessed with TV and who believed that Russia was not at war with Ukraine and that the West was always trying to destroy Russia,” says Alexandra.
“It’s like 1984. But it's also like Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451. In that story, the hero’s wife is surrounded by a wall that is essentially a TV screen, with her talking head telling her what to do and how to interpret her world.”
