(Dis)connecting with the President
As I wrote almost a year ago, youth politics in Russia is polarized between two youths. And the two “actions” this weekend, one in Nizhni Novgorod and the other in Moscow, prove that among political youth the chasm between pro and anti-Putin youth is vast.
For example, take the first action in Nizhni. Hundreds of activists from Other Russia were swarmed by truncheon wielding police. City officials denied the organizers a permit to hold the protest in the center of the city but allowed it to be held in its outskirts. To their credit, the organizers held the protest anyway, though it is possible the lack of a permit made the turnout in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Reports say that the police outnumbered the crowd of mostly youths. Thirty protesters were arrested. And like always police engaged in preemptive ..read more
