Cheating death and raising the dead. Creating life. Freeing the spirit. Colonising space. These projects, of which some have been achieved and some will soon, have a shared Russian history, belonging to a movement known as cosmism - a mixture of scientific research, metaphysics and mysticism. Cosmists have prepared to colonise the planets, to save a world that would become overpopulated after death had been vanquished. Cosmism was the model behind the Soviet Union. Yet, it is still ever-present, and cosmism is responsible for a number of Russian policies. Decades ago, it also found itself a second home: Silicon Valley. A principal source of inspiration for Californian transhumanists, Soviet cosmism founded the core dreams of contemporary society - immortality and colonisation of space. The cosmists have written our future, and we're now living it.