Posted on 07/17/2005 5:14:29 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Russia still has young people around? Who knew?
I don't think this will fool many people over 20. Without communism, what exactly are they fighting to defend?
?
Shades of Hitler youth?
!
My wife an I have a friend in Russia who tells us that there's a lot of natural fear among people her age.(35) She told my wife that it shocks her when I criticize my own government.
Shades of the Kosomol
/jasper
Ive heard your neocommuninst bull before.
Some people are just made to be led around by the nose. The Russians are one of these. If any Russian has an ounce of self-reliance, he's already emigrated to the West.
Ping
Color coded contr-revolution?
Ehhh??? My friends there, my wife's friends there, her relatives all criticize the government openly. Of course they save the best for the thieves that ran the country last. Pure nonsense. Hell, they even criticize the government over the phone and on email and have for years.
So telling you that people critize the Russian government, in Russia is neocommunist bull? You've got issues.
I guess the fact that there are daily anti-Putin protests on Red Square is more government dictatorship?
SELIGER CAMP, Tver Region -- Nashi, the Kremlin-backed youth movement that brought 50,000 people to the streets of Moscow in May, led Russian and foreign reporters on a day-long tour Saturday of its latest project: a lakeside summer camp where 3,000 of its "commissars" are spending two weeks planning political actions and debating how to shape the nation's future.
The camp covers 7 hectares on the banks of Lake Seliger, a summer vacation area in the Tver region and about 160 kilometers northwest of Moscow. "Commissar" is the term Nashi uses for its youth leaders, who are 17 to 21 years old and arrived last Monday from local chapters across the country.
Showing how well-funded the fledgling movement is -- it did not formally exist until April -- all 3,000 commissars are studying and participating in sports at the camp for free. In an apparent sign of the group's political influence, its use of the camp space was also free.
The Tver governor provided the use of two of the hectares, and the Russian Orthodox Church the other five.
"Of course Dmitry Zelenin is happy to have us here," Nashi leader Vasily Yakemenko said, referring to the governor. "It's a major event on a national scale that draws attention to him and his region."
In return for the Orthodox Church's generosity, groups of Nashi commissars are helping to restore the nearby Nilova Pustin monastery.
That is one of the many things keeping them busy. Reporters arrived at the camp at 7:30 a.m., in time for the start of what was billed as a typical day. Young people crawled out of their tents -- numbered and split into sections by tape stretched between trees -- to splash water on their faces and chop wood to make tea and porridge over open fires.
Soviet-era songs drifted from the main stage in the center of the camp, where the commissars gathered at 8 a.m. They stood at even intervals on a enormous grid of plastic strips. Young people who had birthdays that day were called to the stage and congratulated, then most of the group left for the daily five-kilometer run. Two circles of young women performed aerobics for the eager lenses of photographers.
Whatever the Communist Pioneer-camp connotations, Yakemenko said that the movement's philosophy put it far from the Soviet past. Among the stated goals of Nashi, which means Us, are the preservation of Russia's sovereignty and integrity, countrywide modernization, and the formation of an active civil society.
"Some of our writers think like pensioners," Yakemenko complained, speaking of the camp's commissar-run newspaper, Nashi Izvestia. "Then we hold a poster contest, and they draw images I remember from my childhood. It's as though communism is in their genes. I tell them, 'Comrades, this is about the future. We need new methods, new ideas.'"
Some eight hours per day are aimed at promoting new ideas through lectures, discussion groups and forums on future political actions. The previous week's speakers included politicians from United Russia -- the pro-Kremlin party that is widely seen as putting loyalty above creativity.
There was even a visit from Vladislav Surkov, a deputy head of the presidential administration.
"On Wednesday morning, we heard there was going to be a surprise visitor," said Svetlana Kalinina, a 19-year-old commissar from Yaroslavl.
She said she was attending a lecture when she saw Yakemenko stroll up with Surkov.
"He went around to all the different groups and did question-and-answer sessions. We were very excited," Kalinina said.
The camp was abuzz Saturday with rumors that the next surprise guest would be President Vladimir Putin.
Asked about the talk, Yakemenko smiled broadly and said, "Is that so? I'm afraid I don't know anything about it."
Kalinina hoped the rumors were true. "I know they call Putin an authoritarian in the West, but the Russian people have always needed a strong leader. It's part of our character," she said, standing on a fringe of beach while a few dozen commissars in kayaks paddled out into the lake behind her.
The star of the show Saturday was Kremlin adviser and political consultant Gleb Pavlovsky, who walked through the camp, trailed by dozens of young people, more than a few shirtless and suntanned. They questioned him and listened closely as he opined about the military draft and Ukraine's Orange Revolution. He was visibly pleased with the attention.
"I love talking with these young people," Pavlovsky said. "We need to prepare a politically literate generation because the lack of a developed political culture means a small number of people can make dangerously radical decisions."
Hundreds sat, notebooks in hand, during Pavlovsky's lecture that afternoon. He first warned against an obsessive search for Russia's enemies, saying it distracted from a proper focus on problems such as poverty in the regions and public education. Turning to the theme of combating fascism -- another of Nashi's stated goals -- Pavlovsky said Russia was fulfilling Western Europe's need to find a "problem" population. "Russia is the Jew of the 21st century," he said.
Commissar Alexei Gorelov, 19, said the large turnout for Pavlovsky's lecture was proof of the effect the camp was having on the young people. "Walk around the camp and listen," he said. "No one's talking about beer and girls. They're talking about politics. I've seen people transform in front of my eyes."
Asked if beer and girls had been a more popular topic at the start of the camp, he smiled shyly. "Well, you could say that," he said.
There was little visible evidence of a minor scandal that arose when three members of liberal activist groups were found at the camp on Tuesday. The three told Gazeta.ru that they had been detained and then expelled from the camp.
Yakemenko denied they had been expelled and asked journalists on Saturday to invite them to return. "Let them come for a week and debate with us," he said. "Politics is all about the free exchange of ideas."
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"Yakemenko denied they had been expelled and asked journalists on Saturday to invite them to return. "Let them come for a week and debate with us," he said. "Politics is all about the free exchange of ideas."
Nothing new, welcome to de-perestroika camp. If they do not transform, they will be transformed in the Siberian branch of the camp. They (commiesaaars) don't get it either. Liberalism, socialism, Putinism is the disease slooowly being eradicated. Idea of freedom beats any indoctrination camps.
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