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These interviews were initiated and conducted in the early months following the start of the “Special Military Operation” (SMO) in February 2022. Society in Russia had seen the Russian army’s precision weaponry strikes upon the territory of Ukraine, as well as mass migration and partial mobilization, the imposition of several packages of economic sanctions on Russian companies, businessmen and officials, the adoption of laws to combat fake news discrediting the Russian army, and the publication of foreign agent lists. These events led to an initial reaction of shock for Russian society, which is built around the consensus of promised “stability” and values of evolutionary change. These notes contain observations on cultural allusions from in-depth interviews with respondents who were united by their decision not to leave the Russian Federation. By referring to the personalities of the cultural canon, citing, and alluding to literary plots in my description of the present, I was able to identify the order of discourse and establish models for the future, which were not explicitly discussed in the interview but which can be inferred from the discursive strategies used. Four discursive strategies for understanding the present in terms of trauma, loss, apocalypse, and sacred war can provide guidelines for observing Russian society and emerging communities that are reworking the past, grieving, preserving, hoping for renewal, and mobilizing for the future.