The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters
The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters is a novel from 1835 by Vladimir Odoyevsky. It is set in the year 4338. In the 1820s, people thought 4338 would be one year before Biela's Comet would hit Earth, but the comet broke up later on.
The book was meant to be the third part of a trilogy about Russia in different times. The first part was never written; the second and future parts were unfinished. Fragments appeared in 1835 and 1840, with the most complete version published in 1926.
The story follows a man who transfers his mind into a Chinese student named Ippolit Tsunguev. Tsunguev attends St. Petersburg's Main School. His letters to fellow students make up the novel.
The world in the book is like the 21st century in some ways but different in others. Technologies include air and space travel, the telephone, climate control, and photocopying. There are hallucinogenic and truth-telling drugs—gaseous drinks and "magnetic baths" that remove hypocrisy from social life.
In this future, Russia and China are the world's leading powers and work together to prevent Earth from colliding with another planet. The book also says China experienced a deadly stagnation that ended under Hin Gin in the 39th century.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:14 (CET).