The rapidly collapsing, almost reaching the point, spring of time knocked out Nekrasov’s famous poem “Who can live well in Rus'?” the last word, moving the question to the penultimate one - who is destined to survive at all - not only in Russia, in the world? But first, briefly - how we got to this life - the history of Rus'. In poetry, because in them, like in a coiled spring, there is a huge concentration of events and thoughts: a line is equal to a novel. When the spring begins to unwind with acceleration, there will be no time for analyzing the situation and no time for poetry. While there is still time, let's briefly review all the previous lessons of history before drawing a conclusion. Especially this important one: who should live in Rus'?