By Murad Rakhimov | 2026-04-09

The Central Bank of Russia set out to learn what Russians want from their economy. The answer it got was: the 1970s.

A new CBR study found that Russians overwhelmingly point to the Soviet Union as their economic ideal -- an economy that makes everything at home, fixes prices by state decree, and needs nothing from abroad. Experts say that dream is not just built on myth. Pursuing it, they argue, would accelerate the collapse of the very system it is meant to protect.

The CBR report, "Main Narratives of Russian Society Regarding Inflation, the Economy, and the Key Rate: A Grounded Theory Perspective," identified the hunger for a Soviet-style "real economy" -- centered on physical goods and industrial output -- as the single most consistent finding across respondents. The desire for state-controlled prices on essentials ran just as deep. The Central Bank called it the "central phenomenon" in Russian economic thinking.

The experts Kontur spoke with were less charitable. They called it nostalgia engineered by propaganda, disconnected from history, and pointed at an outcome no one promoting it seems to have thought through.

Back to the USSR

Russians see their economy as built on effectively limitless natural resources and vast human capital -- factors they believe should allow Russia to produce everything it needs without foreign supplies. Belarus ranks high on their list of economic models. The United States, by contrast, is viewed as a house of cards sustained by financial speculation and headed for inevitable collapse.

The belief that the state, not the market, should control prices runs equally deep. Respondents insisted that basic food, medicine, clothing, and children's products must remain affordable for all. The CBR noted that this reflects a persistent public conviction that an active state role in regulating markets is not just acceptable, it is necessary.

Nostalgia meets reality

Alisher Ilkhamov, director of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence center, said nostalgia for the Soviet era is nothing new across post-Soviet states. It runs strongest among older generations, particularly those who never found a footing in market economies.

"Those who are nostalgic for the USSR forget about the shortages of goods," Ilkhamov told Kontur. One of the core reasons the Soviet Union collapsed, he said, was its defeat in socio-economic competition with the West, where consumer demand became the engine of growth in the second half of the 20th century. The gap between what ordinary people could afford in the West versus the USSR became a visible, daily humiliation and a catalyst for the discontent that fueled Perestroika.

A bet on autarky, Ilkhamov argued, would cut Russia off from technological innovation and hollow out market competition. The gap between Russian and global consumer standards would widen again, breeding a new wave of discontent. "The ideologues of autarky do not even realize they are digging the grave of their own regime," he said.

Uzbek political analyst Anvar Nazirov pointed to state propaganda as the engine driving Soviet nostalgia -- films, videos, and television programs that actively reshape public memory.

"In 90 percent of cases, this is all deceptive content that contradicts historical facts. People are brainwashed," Nazirov told Kontur.

Russians can see the failures of import substitution with their own eyes, he added -- in high-tech sectors, pharmaceuticals, and aviation. The Sukhoi Superjet was promoted as the aircraft that would replace Western planes in Russian airline fleets. "But how can they be replaced when the Superjet itself is 80% composed of foreign parts?" he said.

The Soviet industrial base celebrated in Kremlin propaganda was itself built with Western assistance, Nazirov said -- through economic cooperation and outright industrial espionage. Many Soviet-made goods were copies of foreign products.

A demand for 'normal'

Alexandra Prokopenko, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, said modern Russian society is shaped by ressentiment, a deep hostility toward the perceived source of its failures, directed squarely at the West.

Russians surveyed by the CBR associated the Soviet period with stability, order, and rising prosperity. The year 2018 came up repeatedly as a 21st-century high-water mark -- a time when incomes grew and people improved their lives. Prokopenko said both reflect the same underlying feeling.

"It is a sense that back then, one could have lived more prosperously and stably, without the current turbulence," she told Kontur.

She pushed back on the idea that Russians are explicitly demanding a Soviet economic revival.

"There is a demand for a 'normal' economy with an abundance of goods. Whether it is open or closed is a different matter. However, state rhetoric and the information agenda heavily influence the formation of these perceptions of an ideal country."

People repeat narratives from state television without much scrutiny, she said, partly because independent analysis is hard, and partly because agreement is the socially safe choice.

As for genuine autarky: Prokopenko said Russia cannot replicate China's path and cannot repeat the Soviet experience. The world's growing demand for interoperability makes isolation increasingly costly. The closest analogy, she said, is not the USSR or China.

"It's not even like the USSR or China, but rather North Korea, which is also critically dependent on imports, even though it is quite self-sufficient. In this sense, Russia is unlikely to build a successful closed economy."