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The Times, UK
July 25, 2007
Tony Halpin
www.timesonline.co.uk

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ReligionNewsBlog.com • Item 18892 • Posted: Wednesday July 25, 2007  

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It is 8am and eager young supporters of Vladimir Putin are doing their morning exercises before another day of political education to prepare them for the battle against Russia’s enemies at home and abroad.

Hundreds set off on a five-kilometre run, others gather to follow instructors in a stretching routine to pounding disco music. The final tune is a rousing anthem to a victorious Russia.

Welcome to the Nashi summer camp, where 10,000 activists are gathered for two weeks of Kremlin-sponsored fun, fellowship and indoctrination on the shore of Lake Seliger, 300 miles (500km) north of Moscow. “They want us to be healthy and to bring the young people together through exercise. The main thing here is to make us one family with the same ideas,” Andrei Strefanchuk, 22, an activist assigned to escort The Times around the camp, said.

Nashi is both the Russian word for “ours” and an acronym for Young Democratic Antifascist Movement. Critics have dubbed it “Putin Youth”, regarding its members as the Kremlin’s shock troops in a disturbing turn towards nationalism.

Alcohol is banned and the leader, Vasili Yakemenko, humiliates rule-breakers at mass rallies before expelling them from the camp. Everybody wears red T-shirts and other clothes bearing Nashi symbols. “Vasily says that if you don’t wear Nashi clothes then it means you are ashamed of Nashi,” Andrei said. “He’s something like a guru for us.”

Twice as large as last year’s event, the camp mixes adventure activities with crude agitprop that casts Mr Putin’s critics as enemies of Russia. One banner shows an intercontinental missile under the slogan “Sovereign Democracy” to emphasise Russia’s independence from the West.

An exhibit titled “Seven Steps to a Great Russia” offers Nashi members the privilege of choosing where they will conduct their national service. Members are encouraged to serve in the army in groups, ostensibly as protection against widespread bullying. Activists told The Times that it also allowed Nashi to extend its influence within the army.

A “red-light district” is lined with paintings that portray Garry Kasparov, the chess champion, and leaders of his Other Russia opposition movement as lingerie-clad prostitutes who sell out their country for US dollars. Boris Berezovksy, the Kremlin’s top hate figure, is pictured with devil’s horns on his head.

Near by, posters portray Estonia as a fascist state for moving a monument to the Red Army from the centre of Tallinn to a military cemetary. Urmas Paet, the Foreign Minister, is shown with a Hitler moustache, under the slogan: “Who is this if not an enemy?” In order to swim in the lake, activists pass a “museum of double standards” that contrasts criticism of Russia with Western “silence” over worse events at home. One exhibit shows a grandmother pushing a policeman at a pro-democracy protest in Moscow next to an astonishing claim that 80 died in riots at the G8 summit in Germany.

Attendance at lectures organised throughout the day is compulsory. To ensure compliance, everybody wears a name tag containing an electronic chip that monitors their attendance. “If you miss three meetings they kick you out and you have to find your own way home,” one woman said.

The lectures have a common theme: that Russia is destined to regain its status as a global power and that Nashi must prevent attempts to destabilise the country through a “colour revolution” of the sort that brought pro-Western politicians to power in neighbouring Ukraine and Georgia.

The extent to which these ideas take hold is hard to gauge. The appeal of a free two-week holiday for young people in Russia’s regions, who have little money and few prospects, is easy to see. Many of those who spoke to The Times were idealistic and eager to build a better country. Nashi promises to turn them into the patriotic vanguard of a powerful new Russia and to open doors to a good career in government ministries and state-owned companies such as Gazprom. It even promises to help them find true love. This year’s camp included a mass wedding of 25 Nashi couples who spent their honeymoon in a section of red tents arranged in the shape of a heart.

Mr Yakemenko, 36, a former construction manager, is the public face of Nashi, which was formed in 2005, but many say that the real founder is Vladislav Surkov, Mr Putin’s shadowy deputy chief of staff. Its activists were used to hound the British Ambassador, Sir Anthony Brenton, for months after he attended an opposition conference in Moscow.

The group claims to be preparing 60,000 members to conduct exit polls in forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections to head off the prospect that allegations of ballot-rig-ging could spark protests similar to those that took place in Ukraine and Georgia.

Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-linked academic, who helped to found Nashi, told The Times: “Nashi’s enemies are those who want to undermine the independence of Russia. During the elections, the goal of Nashi will be to support those who are supported by President Putin.”

Sidebar: Patriotic front

— Nashi (Ours) was founded in 2005. It claims to represent the “Putin generation” aged 14 to 25 who want to restore Russia as a global power

— Members study the Nashi Manifesto, which is filled with references to foreign attempts to take control of Russia Nashi denies that it receives Kremlin funding, saying that it relies on “nationally orientated businesses”. These are thought to include state-controlled Gazprom

— It has mobilised as many as 50,000 demonstrators in support of Mr Putin, though total membership is unclear

— Activists intimidate and harass anyone regarded as critical of the President

— Nashi issued mobile phone Sim cards to 10,000 Muscovites in April so that they could report any signs of a pro-Western revolution

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