Monthly Archives: July 2006

Kommersant reports that Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov made a trip to Camp Nashi. Apparently Kadyrov was so impressed that he invited Nashi to set up shop in Chechnya.

Kadyrov took a tour of the camp, beginning with the central alley called Sovereign Democracy Avenue. Then he saw an imitation of Eternal Fire monument, and Yakemenko reminded him that the slogan “Russia for Russians” might lead to a civil war.

Kadyrov met some Chechen young people among Nashi activists. He hugged them and talked Chechen to them, and his only words in Russian were “We [Chechens] have fallen behind. Now we should become first.”

Then Kadyrov’s attention was diverted to some tents with banners “Our Army”, where Nashi activists are trained for fighting against the humiliating treatment of juniors in Russian armed forces. While Nashi activists were admiring Kadyrov’s Hermes shoes, a frightened man ..read more

Yesterday, the Kremlin’s newspaper Rossiisskaia gazeta released a list of seventeen organizations (and English version is here) that the FSB considers terrorist. The list includes:

Shura of the United Forces of the Mujahedeen of the Caucasus People’s Congress of Ichkeria and Dagestan al-Qaeda Asbat al-Ansar Al-Jihad Islamic Group (Al -Jamaa al -Islami) Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhvan al-Muslimun) The Party of Islamic Liberation (Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami) Lashkar-e-Taiba The Islamic Group (Jamaat-e-Islami) Taliban Islamic Party of Turkestan Society of Social Reforms (Jamiat al-Islah al-Ijtimai) Society for the Revival of the Islamic Heritage (Jamiat Ihya at-Turaz al-Islami) House of the Two Holy (Al-Haramein) Islamic Jihad Jund ash-Sham

According to an accompanying interview with FSB Anti-Terror chief Yuri Sapunov, the groups had to fulfill three criteria to be listed.

First, carrying out activities that set to change the Constitution of the Russian Federation by violence, armed methods, which include a number of terrorist methods.

Second, relations with illegal armed organizations and other extremist groups that are active in the North Caucasian region.

Third, ..read more

If this week’s news is any indication, it appears that Nashi’s efforts to solve dedovshchina by flooding the Russian military with its activists will prove difficult. First, all the prosecution’s five witnesses in the Sychyov Case have recanted their testimony or pulled out completely. For those who aren’t familiar, last New Year’s Private Andrei Sychyov was so severely beaten by senior recruits that his legs and genitals had to be amputated to save his life from gangrene infection. The case has engendered a firestorm of condemnation by the Russian public. President Putin called the incident “tragic” and promised to form a military police force to combat dedovshchina, which according to estimates have claimed 16 lives last year.

Putin’s words now appear empty. According to the Times London and the Moscow Times, one of witnesses, Andrei Shevchenko, says that the military investigators forced him into signing a ..read more

If you’ve been here before, you’ll notice that I changed the look of the blog. If this is your first visit, this won’t matter to you much. I got tired of all the green and the open space on the left and right sides of the template. So thanks to Blogger Templates, I found something with more space and, what I think is a much better look. There are still some small changes I look to make. I want to get a good banner image to put at the top, and perhaps eliminate some of the stuff on the right column so things won’t look so crowded. Strangely, the layout doesn’t come out correctly with Firefox. Usually viewing problems come with Internet Explorer. If you want to see some of the slight differences, try looking at the site with both browsers. ..read more

The Nashi summer camp at Lake Seliger opened itself up to media on Saturday, giving reporters a chance to get a glimpse of how members train to become tomorrows “Our Army”. As I wrote last week, Nashi has adopted a platform that encourages its youth to join the Russian military. According to Kommersant correspondent, Ekaterina Savina, the camp is much more. In addition to physical fitness, the day of a Nashist is filled with seminars and lectures on ideology and chances to meet with some of Russia’s important political figures. It serves to not only to indoctrinate youth with the ideology of Putin; it seeks to reproduce it by concretizing loyalty through the opportunities of networking and social mobility Nashi membership provides. To older Russians the similarities to the Soviet era are striking. They should be. It seems that all that is missing ..read more

There are plenty of evaluations coming out about Russia and the G8. What did Putin gain? What did he lose? Does it matter? Let’s put the successes and failures of the state aside and think about the opposition. There were two “counter-conferences” held in St. Petersburg last week: the Other Russia Conference and the Russian Social Forum. The former was a motley assemblage of liberal reformers, presidential hopefuls, nationalists and other colorful figures. The latter composed of mostly radical leftist, anti-globalist youths looking for a world without capital. Both hoped to pose alternative visions to the Kremlin. Both, however, currently stand completely outside the electoral process. Other Russia received loads of Western media attention, but was virtually ignored by the Kremlin. The Russian Social Forum got some decent media play, but mostly arrests and being caged in the Kriov ..read more