Posted on 04/16/2015 8:00:27 PM PDT by 11th_VA
In a car park outside a block of flats in Moscow, a dozen Russian teenagers in camouflage are practising army drills.
A young lieutenant barks out orders. They form a wobbly line and march up and down on the spot.
Inside another group of kids are learning how to handle weapons - firing blanks down an empty hall way to improve their aim.
This after-school club is ostensibly part of a drugs prevention programme: a programme of evening activities with a patriotic military slant, aimed at keeping local kids away from drinking and shooting up.
But for the club's organiser, Stepan Zotov, it is much more than that.
It is an invisible army getting ready to defend the Fatherland.
(snip)
Behind a tall fence on the edge of Moscow lies the territory of Russia's most famous bike club, the Night Wolves.
It looks like a cross between a medieval fortress and film set for Mad Max movie or Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
Carcasses of old motorbikes have been crafted into gothic sculptures.
The main entrance is flanked by two stuffed snarling wolves.
In the workshop a scary looking biker with a shaved tattooed head who goes under the name of Bulldog shows off the show bikes, on the orders of his chief.
Alexander Zaldostanov, known as The Surgeon, is a long-time Russian nationalist.
His club enjoys President Vladimir Putin's patronage.
He is on the Western sanctions list. And he was one of the instigators of the so-called 'Anti Maidan movement in Moscow, set up to stop a Kiev-style uprising from happening in Russia.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Can’t we Tweet, with a hashtag, or light some candles or organize a walk or something?
Isn’t that Putin’s pro-war goal, to propagandize his violent nation into supporting his invasions, and getting enlistments to the level where they can drop their 1 year draftee dependence?
What concerns me is that he’s using the Orthodox Church.
Back at the after-school patriotic club, Stepan Zotov puts it more bluntly.
In his view, even the alliance against Hitler in World War Two was only a temporary arrangement, born out of mutual defence interests. Russia and the West were never on the same side.
"We understand very sharply the great and undeniable gap between Russian culture and Western culture," he says.
"For 60-70 years, there has been no fundamental change. Then or now, you are our enemy. And we have no illusions about this state ever changing. You are a different civilisation."
What is curious is that he manages to make this sound both chilling and somehow amicable at the same time, as though the aggressive ultra-nationalistic rhetoric against foreign enemies is on one level, and day to day dealings with individual foreigners is on another level altogether.
But when it comes to what these patriots call "national traitors"- Russia's enemies from within - the benevolence disappears.
How does firing blanks improve your aim?
“Patriotic fervour on the rise in Russia”
Among American democrats and elitists, expressions or displays of patriotism are looked down on as gauche behavior.
Russia going patriotic.
America going homo.
yep ...
The Communists are also in on this...
Some of that “patriotic fervour” involves flying old Soviet flags, singing Soviet songs, and doing things Soviet.
Does that makes them national socialists?
Thank you Candy Crowley.
It allows practice keeping a steady aim with recoil.
It doesn’t. The use of blanks is more about fire and movement training. US soldiers and Marines use lots of blanks.
This just shows the type of nation Russia is returning to under Putin; it’s the type of thing he wants.
It makes them Soviet revanchists. Not much of a difference.
Good for them.
“patriotic fervour” is how Red Storm Rising began.
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