In Irina Kaspe’s book, using very different material, the “frontier”, “ultimate” meanings and values of culture of the last decades of socialism (1950–1980s) are explored. We are talking about how existential questions were raised, how crises of motivation, goal setting, and fear of death were resolved in a post-totalitarian, isolationist and declaratively secular society. The subject of consideration is science fiction texts, melodramatic films, magazine journalism, memorial narratives and “places of memory” and other urban public practices that in one way or another deal with existential issues. The author is primarily interested in the topic of utopia, the official attitude towards which throughout Soviet history was not unambiguous and changed several times. Revealing the features of “utopian perception”, the book offers a not entirely familiar view of the place of utopia in the structure of late Soviet experience.