The collection of the Museum of Moscow contains a series of futuristic postcards “Moscow of the Future”, released in 1914 by the confectionery factory “Einem” as part of an advertising campaign.

Each box of chocolates contained one of eight postcards with views of Moscow of the 22nd–23rd centuries as imagined by an unknown artist. The scenes depicted in the postcards are so original that they foreshadowed many of mankind’s achievements over the following hundred years, and the postcards themselves still spark genuine interest. The back of the postcard contains the following text:

The scene of the fire which was a pressing issue in Moscow in the late 19th — early 20th centuries also bears many striking similarities to modern firefighting techniques. Along with a fairly primitive fire truck and the uniforms of the firefighters being more akin to those of the early 20th century, one can also see the use of aviation being used to extinguish the fire, which will become a fairly common thing in the 21st century. The aerial railways drawn by the artist are very reminiscent of a modern monorail. Also on the postcards one can see such famous places as the Red and Lubyanka Square, the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, the Petrovsky Park.

Easily recognizable on postcards, the capital looks more dynamic, larger and more mobile, however, the citizens themselves look like people from the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, some of the notions of the distant future in one form or another could already be seen. For example, skyscrapers were actively built in New York and Chicago, the number of floors in the center of Moscow was also growing, although not at such a dramatic pace — there were “cloud cutters” of up to 10 floors.