The Last Exhibit of a Parallel Past

What Russia’s most remarkable pseudohistorical theory tells us about why people want to believe the whole world is wrong

In my previous essay, I explored how people become involved in conspiracy theories and eventually help to develop and spread them. This time I want to tell you about one of the most extraordinary theories I have ever encountered, one that I still occasionally find myself thinking about, along with the people who believe in it.

On December 5, 2025, the Museum of New Chronology closed its doors in Yaroslavl, Russia. To me, the event symbolised the end of an era: the era of one of the most famous, and most absurd, pseudohistorical theories in the post-Soviet world. Whether the theory itself is dying is a more complicated question, and I will come back to it.

What is New Chronology?

For readers unfamiliar with the cultural landscape of the former Soviet Union, New Chronology is not easy to explain, and I have no intention of walking you through its countless volumes. That would take another essay the size of a small encyclopaedia.

In short, it is a pseudohistorical theory developed by two Russian mathematicians, Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky. They set out to find mathematical patterns in world history and arrived at conclusions that contradict…