Winners of the Future History International Literary Award Announced
On November 6, the award ceremony for the first Future History International Science Fiction Award was held in Moscow at the interactive Atom Museum at VDNH. The evening, dedicated to the world’s best science fiction writers, concluded with a major announcement: the Award will become an annual event.
The ceremony brought together leading figures from the worlds of culture, science, and literature. Honorary guests included Andrey Timonov, Director of Communications at the State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM; writer and Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Andrey Gelasimov, Jury member; writer and Rector of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute Alexey Varlamov, Jury member; Albina Mukhametzyanova, Director General of the YARKO animation company, Jury member; Andrey Vasilievsky, Editor-in-Chief of Novy Mir magazine; astronomer and science popularizer Vladimir Surdin; Evgeniy Kapyev, General Director of Eksmo Publishing; Sergey Tishkov, Director of the Planet of Childhood division at AST-Azbooka publishing house; Tatyana Solovyova, Editor-in-Chief of Alpina. Proza publishing; cosmonaut test pilot Oleg Blinov, among others.
The ceremony was opened by Andrey Timonov, Director of Communications at the State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM. In his welcoming speech, he emphasized the importance of the Award as a platform for dialogue between science and culture, and made an important announcement: “Today we are not simply presenting awards to writers. We are investing in ideas that may change our world tomorrow. Science fiction is a laboratory of the mind where bold hypotheses are born. We have made an important decision: the second Future History International Science Fiction Award is to take place.” This announcement confirmed the long-term commitment of the founders to supporting a genre oriented toward technological optimism.
A key highlight of the first part of the evening was the presentation of a unique study conducted by the VCIOM Analytical Center, a partner of the Award. Using neural network analysis of submitted works, researchers created a comprehensive picture of the visions of the future imagined by contemporary science fiction writers.
Konstantin Abramov, General Director of the VCIOM Foundation, presented the key findings: “Our algorithms read and structured all submitted works. We observed that, despite differences in cultures and geographies, the authors are united by a search for harmony between technological progress and humanity. At the center of their attention are not just gadgets and spacecraft, but ethical dilemmas, the interaction between reason and emotion, and, most importantly, the belief that science and technology must serve the benefit of humankind.”
The award ceremony became the grand finale of a large-scale competition that brought together science fiction writers from around the world. Out of more than 2,400 submissions from Russia, countries across Africa, Asia, South America, China, and Europe, the jury selected 27 finalists. The total prize fund amounted to 5 million rubles.
Members of the distinguished jury – including Alexey Varlamov, Stanislav Drobyshevsky, Alexey Semikhatov, Albina Mukhametzyanova, Andrey Vasilievsky, Vladimir Surdin, Yulia Selivanova, Sergey Tishkov, and Tatyana Solovyova – took the stage at the Atom Museum to present awards and congratulate the winners.
Elena Mironenko, Director General of the Atom Foundation to Promote the Development of Research, Education, and Communication Initiatives, presented the international category finalists and addressed the audience: “I would like to thank each and every one of you for being here with us today, because for the past week the Atom Museum has been celebrating its second anniversary. It is very important for us to talk about the future. It is also very important that all of this is happening here, at a museum that is becoming one of the leading international platforms at the intersection of science on the one hand and culture on the other, because writers are, of course, an embodiment of an entire layer of culture. Every day we talk about how our dreams and imaginations are turning into reality through nuclear technologies.”
Writer and Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, Chair of the Future History Award Jury, Andrey Gelasimov, addressed the audience from the stage: “When reviewing the shortlists, I was interested, as a writer and representative of literature, in how strong the genetic ties are between previous generations of science fiction writers and the current one. Has the continuity of time been preserved? How closely are the science-fiction ideas of contemporary authors connected to the works of Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Ivan Yefremov, and Alexander Belyaev? Many themes have changed, but at the same time there is a clear trend related to artificial intelligence. One of the unique features and tools of science fiction is that it provides direction. It looks ahead and addresses the task of goal-setting. And that, perhaps, is the most important thing – not only in literature, but in life.”
Winners of the 2025 Future History International Science Fiction Award:
Best Foreign-Language Story:
1st place: Leonid Airio Mariño Murillo (Colombia), “Jupiter Paradox”
2nd place: Imraan Coovadia (South Africa), “Highly Developed, Cold and Unfeeling”
3rd place: Valter Tartaglia (Italy), “The Awakening of Niila”
Best Story:
1st place: Ragim Dzhafarov, “Psipatriarh”
2nd place: Alexander Lepyokhin, “Pirozhki”
3rd place: Denis Stolyarov, “The Mandela Effect”
Best Story for Children and Young Adults:
1st place: Marina Anitskaya, “A Guest from Earth”
2nd place: Alexey Oleynikov, “Christmas Tree on Enceladus”
3rd place: Alice Korotovskikh, “False Sun”
In addition to the main awards, partners of the Award presented special prizes. The portal GodLiteratury.RF awarded Nikolai Pronev for “A Dream in a Digital Night”. Another prize, from Eksmo Publishing “for a metaphorical and emotional style and a unique authorial voice,” was awarded to Yulia Domna for “The Age of Grasshoppers”.
The Award was established by the ATOM Foundation to Promote the Development of Research, Education, and Communication Initiatives with the support of the State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM. It was created to discover new talents whose work is oriented toward technological optimism and positive visions of the future, where science and progress serve humanity. From the very beginning, the Future History Award was conceived as a unique platform bridging scientific thought, literary creativity, and the global science fiction community. In our complex era, science fiction can serve as a bridge between precise scientific reasoning and the imaginative thinking of writers – not merely entertaining, but fulfilling a crucial mission: creating positive prototypes of possible tomorrows, prompting society to reflect on the ethical consequences of technological progress, and inspiring a new generation of researchers and engineers to bring bold ideas to life. The announcement of the second Award in 2026 marked a confident beginning of a new chapter in the Future History project.
Partners of the 2025 Award included the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, the VCIOM Analytical Center, Eksmo and AST-Azbooka publishing houses, the GodLiteratury.RF portal, Alpina. Proza publishing house, and the LitRes digital books service.
Media contact: Renata Garifullina, Head of the Press Office of the Future History International Literary Award Tel.: +7 (926) 742-17-56 E-mail: dorianr@mail.ru