This article analyses how the inhabitants of Visaginas construct their past and present. The first part of the article presents the ways the informants talked of the period 1970s-1980s, i.e. when they came to Lithuania, to the construction site of Visaginas (Sniechkus) and the nuclear power plant. The second part of the article discusses how the informants described their and the community’s social, economic situation in the post-Soviet period. The author discusses why the informants tend to construct the Soviet and post-Soviet periods in particular ways and provides parallels with other anthropological works. The article is based on data collected during ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the author in Visaginas in 2000-2004.