VL-23/490 is the first project of the eponymous cycle "Perestroika", exploring an alternative reality where the USSR not only retained its technological leadership, but also accomplished the impossible: ▸ Won the race for artificial intelligence back in 1989. ▸ Created the first bionic implants. ▸ Launched the "Cybercommunism" program - the fusion of man and machine in the name of progress. But every breakthrough casts a shadow. Industrial revolutions in this world are paid for by environmental disasters, total cyber surveillance and riots of analog dissidents who reject the digital utopia. This is not nostalgia - this is a dystopia that could be our reality.