The book gives a picture of Russia in recent years: mass moods and expectations, group fears and hopes, hopes for power and rejection from the West. The living history of modernity is combined in the book with the conceptual sociology of Russian society - an analysis of its structure and place among neighboring countries, projections into the recent post-Soviet and long-standing Soviet past; it also shows the activities of institutions (primarily mass media) that support and reproduce the collective life of Russians in their daily efforts to adapt to what is happening in the country and the world.