>The protestors in Russia (the small number which is still on the streets) likely did not read any Soviet Sci-Fi at all.
They are living in it. Right now they moved from the chapters in the "Inhabited Island/Prisoners of Power" describing totalitarian state covered with propaganda broadcasting towers and dissent suppression into the chapter where the main characters are loaded into tanks and sent into [tactical] nukes battlefield.
The power of Dostoyevsky/Strugatskis/Pelevin (to me they are parts of the same axis, though it is hard to describe why in short post) is whatever happens (or yet to happen) in Russia you still feel like you're inside one of their novel.
This is an ample comparsion but may I remind you that Inhabited Island's plot did not resolve by the means of street protests, nor did it resolve at all even after the regime fell?
That is the point. Post Putin Russia isn't going to magically change and become a happy place. Society can't change overnight and humans can't significantly, if any, expand their mental horizon fast (even when it is supposedly advanced humans and society of the the future and when presented with tremendously wonderful new aspects of reality) - that goes through several Strugatskis works (Hard to be a God, Roadside Picnic, Anthill, The Waves Extinguish the Wind)
I can't say that Putin's Russia is a particularly unhappy place, especially taking into account the bad things one carries inside and will surely transplant wherever they land. And compared to the thing the world now wants to build here, which is also described in post-soviet social fiction.
In Inhabited Island, Maxim takes some time to ponder whether the society he appeared in is actually unhappy and needs any help, considering its level of develoment.
They are living in it. Right now they moved from the chapters in the "Inhabited Island/Prisoners of Power" describing totalitarian state covered with propaganda broadcasting towers and dissent suppression into the chapter where the main characters are loaded into tanks and sent into [tactical] nukes battlefield.
The power of Dostoyevsky/Strugatskis/Pelevin (to me they are parts of the same axis, though it is hard to describe why in short post) is whatever happens (or yet to happen) in Russia you still feel like you're inside one of their novel.