On June 22 at 3:00 PM, the International Laboratory for Applied Network Research will host a seminar featuring Nikita Obraztsov, a Master’s student in Computational Sociology at the European University in St. Petersburg and a Master in Religious Studies at St. Petersburg State University. The full text can found here
On 17 June 2026, Nikita Obraztsov was a guest on the programme “Fiziki i Liriki” (Scientists and Humanists) on Radio Mayak. The conversation covered contemporary religious studies as a discipline, its research programme, and the different forms of atheism and what distinguishes modern non-belief from its historical predecessors. Listen →
My interview for the SPEECH podcast by Litres publishing is out. We talked about whether religion can be defined at all, what the “fuzzy sphere” between believers and non-believers is, why transhumanism comes closest to being a new religion, and what will happen to traditional confessions in the age of AI. Watch on YouTube → Read more →
Forbes Young published a piece by Elena Strelkova - “Stability, Silence, Community, and Psychotherapy: What Young People Are Looking for in Religion”, featuring my commentary on patchwork religiosity, the compensatory function of religious communities, and why it is too early to speak of a religious renaissance among young people. Read the article (Russian) → English translation →
The European University at St. Petersburg published a news item about the results of the IV All-Russian Student Olympiad “Sociologist in the 21st Century.” I took 3rd place in the individual ranking and won in the categories Best Video Essay, Best VCIOM Analytics Report, and Best Autoethnography. Read at EUSPb →
On 7 March 2026, Nikita Obraztsov gave a lecture at Ceramania — Russia’s largest handmade ceramics festival. The topic: ‘Goddesses and Their Many Faces: Why Mythological Female Images Are More Complex Than They Seem’. Announcement →
On 2 November 2025, Nikita Obraztsov gave a talk at the online conference ‘Buddha, Brain, and the Neurophysiology of Happiness’, organised by the Tergar Meditation Centre. The talk was titled ‘How Religions Answer the Question of Meaning: Finding Common Ground in Diversity’. Other participants included neuroscientist Richard Davidson (University of Wisconsin) and meditation master Mingyur Rinpoche. Conference website →
Interview for the project “Where do Religious Scholars Work? Our Alumni” I recently gave an interview to my alma mater—the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies at St. Petersburg State University (SPbU). As part of the alumni section, we talked about how a lawyer came up with the idea to study religion, why I decided to start my own YouTube channel, and how popular science videos are born. ...