Moscow News
www.MN.Ru
August 16, 2007
Nashi Camping
By Dmitry Dmitriyev
The European tradition of organizing political youth summer camps has caught on in Russia. Initially, "open air" political universities were only organized by the Russian leftists, but several years later the idea was espoused by the party of power, which found willing partners throughout society.
Pop instead of Rock
This year, pro-Kremlin youth movements were the first to kick off the camp season. Nashi (Ours), Rossia Molodaya (Young Russia), and Novye Lyudi (New People) activists held an event in the last two weeks of July that was called Annual All-Russia Youth Educational Forum on Lake Seliger in the Tver Region, about 400 kilometers northwest of Moscow.
About the same time, approximately 1,000 members of the Mestnye (Locals) movement set up a camp near the village of Prilukino on the Oka River to the south of Moscow. The importance of the event is immediately obvious by the guest list. Mestnye members were addressed by Moscow Region Governor Boris Gromov, Moscow Region Duma Speaker Valery Aksakov, and Modest Kolerov, head of the presidential staff's department for interregional and cultural contacts with foreign countries.
The guest list at Nashi's camp on Lake Seliger was even more high powered: Andrei Fursenko, RF minister of science and education, was present, together with more than 30 rectors of Russian institutes or universities. Here is the short list: Vyacheslav Volodin, deputy speaker of the RF State Duma; Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma Foreign Relations Committee; Vladimir Churov, chairman of the Central Electoral Commission; Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov, two first deputy prime ministers; Valery Fyodorov, general director of the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion on Social and Economic Questions (VTsIOM); Metropolitan Kirill; Leonid Roshal, chairman of a Public Chamber commission; Gleb Pavlovsky, Sergei Markov, and Vyacheslav Nikonov, Kremlin spin doctors.
The number of Nashi campers grows exponentially every year. Currently, there are 10,000 members from 50 RF constituent members - an unprecedented figure. But next year this record will be broken with 50,000 Nashi activists expected to participate in a summer camp near the city of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. Ilya Ponomaryov, a political analyst who helped plan the CPRF's 2003 election campaign, estimates the upkeep and maintenance costs of these camps. For example, at $10-15 per person a day, a 10,000-large camp works out at $100,000 to $150,000 a day, or about $2 million for two weeks. There are other costs, including equipment, transportation, operations and entertainment. The final tally is about $10 million.
The ruling authorities spare no cost to entertain the campers. This year, for example, Sokoly Rossii (the Falcons of Russia) put on an air show. [According to some media reports, the exercise carried an estimated price tag of over $200,000, including the cost of aviation fuel, airport landing, takeoff fees and traffic control.- Ed.] Pop groups are also regularly invited to perform for the youth activists. This year the organizers reviewed their guidelines after the popular female vocalist Zemfira refused last year to go on the stage until Nashi symbols were removed, while Vyacheslav Butusov, ex leader of the Nautilus Pompilius rock group, was criticized by poet Ilya Kormiltsev, the author of the group's lyrics, for "performing songs written with the heart and blood to hirelings relaxing at taxpayers' expense." Realizing that the rock set is too discriminating and politicized, this year Russian pop performers Lyube and Diskoteka Avaria were invited to Seliger.
Counterrevolution G-Strings
The Seliger camp has its own TV network called Zyr, a radio station, news agency, and two newspapers. There is also a number of ongoing programs such as the School of Mass Action, the Institute of Entrepreneurship, the Schools of Animators, the Institute of Social Management, and the Antifa School, among others. One of this season's projects, Bashnya Gazproma (Gazprom Tower), offers successful contestants internship at the natural gas monopoly. Such projects as The Museum of Double Standards and Fat Man from Hell, are designed to show the pernicious effect of the Western lifestyle. A daily serial titled I Want Three encourages young families to have at least three children: thus, dozens of couples celebrated their weddings in the camp and were given separate tents. Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov, two men who are widely seen as leading contenders to replace Putin next year, wore T-shirts with an emblazoned call to boost birth rates. A group of activists were urging girls to surrender their G-strings as a factor in female sterility, providing instead more conservative outfits and destroying the discarded G-strings in front of their former owners. Considering that a demographic revolution to the Seliger campers is an imperative at the behest of Vladimir Putin, G-strings have become a symbol of counterrevolution.
But the camp's key note is political indoctrination. Attendance at lectures explaining how important it is to stay the course is monitored via ID badges with embedded electronic chips. Skipping three events without a good reason leads to expulsion. The importance of this camp in the Kremlin's eyes can be summed up by Vladimir Putin's recent meeting with activists of political youth groups at his Zavidovo residence outside Moscow. Two-thirds of the participants - 42 out of 58 - were Nashi commissars. Ten spots were allocated to the Mestnye movement; United Russia's Young Guards and Young Russia received two spots each, while the regional Nasha Strana (Our Land) and Novye Lyudi (New People) groups were given one spot each. Putin assured the delegates that their organizations could count on support from the authorities. The remaining 100 federal and about 27,000 provincial youth organizations can only envy these Kremlin darlings. Putin urged them to take "an even more proactive stance in politics," saying: "I very much count on that young people will supplement party lists in the upcoming elections, while those who do not, will be closely engaged in election campaigning."
Will Nashi Become Nasha Rossia?
True, only Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard) has a realistic chance of making it to United Russia's electoral list. According to Nadezhda Orlova, head of its political council, 280 of the movement's activists are already on this list. Other pro-Kremlin youth movements may be united into a single organization called Nasha Rossia (Our Russia), to be led by Vasily Yakemenko.
In addition to Nashi, Nasha Rossia will comprise Rossia Molodaya, the Eurasian Youth Movement, the Geogrievtsy Orthodox movement, and the provincial movement Novye Lyudi, Mestnye, and Nasha Strana. Rossia Molodaya leader Maksim Mishchenko will head Nasha Rossia's volunteer squad. Novye Lyudi, registered in the Volgograd, Samara, Saratov and Astrakhan regions; Nasha Strana, registered in the Primorye Territory, and the Moscow region based Mestnye will form the core of Nasha Rossia's Volga, Far East, and Moscow Region branches, respectively. The Eurasian Youth Movement and Georgievtsy, famous for their struggle against homosexuals in central Moscow, will create Nasha Rossia's Orthodox themed branch, which will be led by Vasily Yakemenko's brother, Boris.
Unlike Molodaya Gvardia, which will become an "all-Russian Communist Youth League" of sorts, Nasha Rossia's mission will be to stand up to opposition in the street as a structure not openly affiliated with any political parties. True, Eurasian Youth `Movement leader Valery Korovin went on record as saying that unification with Nashi is only possible if Nashi members grow beards, adopt Old Ritualism, start reading Heidegger and studying political models: "This subject has long been discussed in narrowly circumscribed circles and now it has simply come out into the open. We at the EYM have not as yet decided whether to unite with Nashi or preserve our independent status. As for those organizations that were created by one department at the presidential staff, it would be logical for all of them to integrate. The only difference between Nashi, Mestnye and Rossia Molodaya is their names, while their purported independence is simply a joke. They are also stamped from the same technological mold, which is successful but does not abide any deviation. But we have a totally different conception about the model of existence. We regard ourselves as successors to the National Bolshevik Party in its early stages of evolution and as followers of NBP ideology, as well as Eurasian ideology. In this respect, we differ radically from pro-Kremlin projects."