The “Russian Myth” as Eschatology: Moscow as the Last Kingdom and the Willing Accelerator of the End

• The Muscovite Tsardom is not the Third, but the Last Kingdom before the Apocalypse;
• Kitezh, hidden from the world, because behind the seeming goodness of its motives lies a path to Hell;
• Moscow is not Anti-Rome — it is the harbinger of the Apocalypse, through which all of humanity must pass.

Eschatological Obsession

From the moment the cunning Venetians gifted Moscow the myth of being the “heir to Byzantium,” its spiritual transformation into an eschatological fortress began:

• The idea of “Moscow is the Third Rome, and there shall be no fourth” is not an expression of pride, but a conviction in the imminent end of the world as we know it.
• It is a call to end history, with the Russian Empire as the executioner’s axe in the hand of God.

But whereas Byzantium restrained chaos, Moscow generates, accelerates, and unleashes it.
 It does not preserve order — it seeks catastrophe.

Sacred Catastrophe as a Mission

The “Russian” people were raised in the belief that:

• to perish for “the Tsar and the Faith” is a far greater calling than to live rich, happy, and free;
• the world is a lie, and terrible suffering — the true path to truth;
• the great mission is not to live well, but to die in torment.

Hence — the cult of suffering, sacrifice, and self-annihilation.
 Moscow is not afraid of the Apocalypse — it welcomes it. And not just welcomes, but actively seeks to guarantee its arrival — hence all those myths about the Decline of Europe, the xenophobia, anti-Western paranoia, and recurring nuclear blackmail.

An Ideology of the End Instead of an Ideology of the Future

Russia, by definition, has no future. Its goal lies at the end.
 While the rest of the world — even in its most bizarre forms — strove toward the future, Moscow built its grandeur on the foreboding of an inevitable end:

• Literature — from Dostoevsky to Berdyaev — is steeped in fatalism;
• Politics — from Ivan the Terrible to Putin — is always ready to march into war to the last “Russian,” as long as it avoids equal negotiation;
• Religion — turned into a cult of great demise, where holiness is measured by the scale of suffering and grief.

Moscow as Anti-Rome, as Anti-World

Moscow constructs a mirror image of the world — a distorted reflection of the civilized West:

• the righteous are martyrs,
• the heroes are executioners,
• freedom is heresy,
• the enemy is the future.

Moscow does not create civilization. It reproduces it as a crooked and grotesque imitation, loudly declaring:
 “See? This doesn’t work.”

The idea of the End is its only constant.
 Moscow does not fear nuclear war — it flirts with it. It is aroused by the anticipation of total destruction, because that is its chance to “finally realize itself.”
 For the political archetype of the “Russomyth,” there is no other way to win except:
 “You will all die — and we’ll go to Heaven.”