Apr
21
Deconstructing Nashi
April 21, 2008 | 26 Comments
My latest article for the eXile, “Nashi: Is it Really the End?” is now online. Here is an excerpt:
This year, there has been much speculation in the Russian print media about the demise of the Kremlin youth organization “Nashi,” which has been as much a darling of the Russian state as it has been the bane of the Russian opposition and the Western media.
But the situation is not so simple as merely shutting down Nashi. As a new president comes to power in Russia, some are speculating that Nashi’s task is done and they’re no longer needed. This is perhaps wishful thinking for a host of reasons. In order to understand where Nashi is going in the post-Putin era, it is necessary to understand where they came from, and what role they have played.
* * *
“Do you want to realize your plan? Do you want to change the world around you? Do you want to influence your country’s future? Do you want the world to remember you? Are you searching for your place in life? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, don’t despair, there is an answer.”
In America, a pitch like that would signal a “Tony Robbins” alert, but in Russia, a far more sinister organization offers the answers to your prayers: the Antifascist Democratic Youth Movement “Nashi,” waiting for you with open arms.
All you have to do is, first, click onto their site and fill out your online application. A few days after you fill it out, Nashi promises to invite you to a “get-to-know-you” pow-wow. If accepted, Nashi promises to give you “a chance to change your life, influence world politics, and become a member of the intellectual elite.”
Given the demanding, competitive environment in Putin’s Russia, it’s easy to see how Nashi’s offer would look attractive. Its flashy website, spectacular rallies, and lock-step marches produce images of power and success. Through spectacle, it projects an image of unity and devotion to a cause. Nashi considers itself the vanguard for protecting the moral, political, and cultural fiber of Russia. For most people around the world, an organization like this evokes the worse aspects of totalitarianism—where youth are mobilized to blindly fulfill the whims of a repressive regime.
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Comments
26 Comments so far
Great piece. You seem to have nailed down the funding mysteries we were discussing a while back. Obviously not yet self-perpetuating, but working towards it.
Re: In an eerie revival of the Stalinist concept of “enemies with a party card,” Nashi’s new enemies are from the “intellectual elements of the political elite” who participated in the presidential campaign, but want to reverse Putin’s course.
Any idea who these “elements” are?
Sean, this is an outstanding article – pulls together intelligently everything one might want to know (or at least everything in the public domain) about Nashi circa 2008. Here is perhaps the most amazing thing – you wrote the piece from California. I believe we’ve had this discussion here before, but this just underscores the question – how long before the internet replaces foreign bureaus?
In America, a pitch like that would signal a “Tony Robbins” alert, but in Russia, a far more sinister organization offers the answers to your prayers…
The reference you’re looking for is perhaps not just Tony Robbins (though that definitely fits and had the added benefit of making me laugh), but also something even deeper in the roots of the American cult of self-confidence: Dale Carnegie. For example, this guy – one of the more prolific Nashist bloggers – is a graduate of the “Dale Carnegie International School of Oratorical Mastery” and is involved in operating his own management-cultish-sounding educational institution: the “CHARISMA Top-Management Educational Center.” Perhaps this is why Bush and Putin got along so well – one was supposed to be the “MBA President” (remember?) and the other has acolytes of the political cult of “top management” carrying his water.
Anyway, thanks for what will no doubt become a “chrestomatic” (not even sure how to say that in English) article in the literature on Russian youth politics – and thanks for the shout-out, which I just now noticed.
I believe we’ve had this discussion here before, but this just underscores the question – how long before the internet replaces foreign bureaus?
I’m sure it’s a question guys like Murdoch are already asking. In fact, there have already been cutbacks in the international media contingent in Moscow. And although my view has always been that language proficiency and knowledge trump proximity, I think the trend is nonetheless hugely regrettable.
fh, as someone who tries to blog in a way that (at least at times) seeks to capture the zeitgeist in faraway places, I agree that there is no substitute for journalistic boots on the ground. But I do think it’s amazing how much information a diligent internet researcher with good sources for email interviews can turn up. Makes fact-checking a bitch, though…
one more thing – the style / content of many wire reports (actually, of just about any “breaking news” story) from abroad, or from Russia at least, is often just a summary of local press coverage. this can certainly be done by someone sitting in NY, or in the Midwest, or maybe even in India, for that matter. and yes, i realize how pompous it sounds to use the phrase “capture the zeitgeist” in reference to one’s own blog…
Lyndon – Agreed about the wires. Scooping up local stories is what they do principally, along with grabbing market data.
But newspaper and broadcast bureaus are expected to do the zeitgeist thingy, and there are fewer of them these days.
Whether bloggers will gradually supplant them is hard to say. I’m actually quite surprised that so few of the Moscow-based correspondents are actively blogging. It used to be that the correspondents bitched constantly about how little space their papers had for Moscow stories. I’d have thought blogging would be just the answer.
In any event — Sean and you do a fantastic job zeitgeist-wise.
Thanks for the compliments fh and Lyndon.
A few things.
Fh- I don’t know who the “elements” are that the Nashi document is referring to. Novaya gazeta didn’t give any suggestions either. It might have something to do with the internal politics within the Kremlin, specifically the hardliners who oppose Medvedev and are using the media to strike at their opponents. Or it could just be Nashi’s imagination. After all, they do need enemies.
Lyndon – I do read mc-master’s blog. I think you sent me the link or I stumbled upon it doing research for the article. Anyway, it’s quite interesting. The fact that he is a graduate of such places is telling. But looking at the guy, I also wonder how much of his schtick is about bedding Nashi girls, which he’s also obsessed with. Given his chiseled Andonis-esque look, I would imagine that he’s quite successful in that department.
But the larger question of media is interesting, and I have to say that it would be a damn shame if bloggers replaced the boots on the ground. Especially when it comes to conflict and war zones. I think it is important to note that all of the material I used was done by Russian journalists. They did the hard work, which in my opinion is a testament to how much better Russian journalists are than they’re given credit for.
The main thing that blogging has done, IMO, is that it has broken the corporate monopoly not just on the dissemination of news, but more importantly the interpretation of news. With the internet, blogs, etc, television news is completely superfluous and down right idiotic, as last week’s ABC debate and this recent article in the NYT shows. Next to bloggers and professional journalists, TV reporters and their pundit sidekicks are simply propagandists and demagogues of the worse kind.
I have a lot of respect for professional print journalists, but the main problem I have with them, and most Western reporting on Nashi is an example, is that they don’t ask what I think are the right questions or tend to have a reductive analysis. They are happy to let Nashi commissars give the party line, except they take it and put it in some kind of “Eurasianist” (yes I like that word) framework i.e. Russia is always on the verge of the totalitarian moment. Spiced up with a bit of sensationalism, you get Nashi appearing as some kind of Hitler Youth or Putinjugend. The problem is that even the Hitler Youth was more complex than people imagine. And Nashi is too.
But the larger question of media is interesting, and I have to say that it would be a damn shame if bloggers replaced the boots on the ground.
This discussion hs been going on in the UK blogosphere for a few years now, and I don’t think they ever will. Here’s why:
The main thing that blogging has done, IMO, is that it has broken the corporate monopoly not just on the dissemination of news, but more importantly the interpretation of news.
Exactly. The strength of the bloggers is their ability to interpret, fact check, and disseminate the news. But bloggers rarely break the actual story, and for the most part are wholly reliant on traditional media providing them with something to write about in the first place.
Next to bloggers and professional journalists, TV reporters and their pundit sidekicks are simply propagandists and demagogues of the worse kind.
I’d qualify that by saying “some bloggers”. For the large part, what appears on blogs is garbage. A common downfall of many a good blog is similar to the popstar making an idiot of himself when talking about politics. A blog can become an authority on a given topic or topics and earn a large and dedicated following, but then uses the platform to comment on matters which the author feels emotionally attached to but he knows little about. This is his own right of course, but it seriously dilutes the authority of the overall blog. The lesson I can see emerging from the few genuinely brilliant blogs out there is: stick to what you know, shut up about everything else.
An interesting and informative article Sean.
***
Re: “…stick to what you know, shut up about everything else.”
Yuh.
http://seansrussiablog.org/2007/02/07/andrei-vlasovs-legacy/#comment-53296
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/averko/010.shtml
fh, just a quick response to part of your comment:
I’m actually quite surprised that so few of the Moscow-based correspondents are actively blogging. It used to be that the correspondents bitched constantly about how little space their papers had for Moscow stories.
I’ve heard the same bitching, and it looks like at least the NYT’s bureau is using the internet to make more Russia coverage available. There are a number of Russia-themed posts on their “The Lede” blog, many of them written by their Moscow correspondents, and of course there’s their LJ community project (translations from which sometimes appear on The Lede).
Perhaps we can expect blogging journos (except for freelancers) to do their posting on their publications’ blogs rather than on personal blogs – presumably one type of writing is compensated (or otherwise encouraged) by the employer, while the other is not.
Lyndon – Yeah, the NYT has taken to it, and I should have acknowledged that. But by and large we’re not seeing enough international print journos using blogs. Coverage remains heavily dominated by the appetites and prejudices of sub-editors (or news desks in the states) back home. Blogging, even if institutionalized under the publisher’s brand, could liberate them.
Tim – For the large part, what appears on blogs is garbage.
Absolutely right. Many (most?) bloggers are scavengers, grabbing bitefuls from the MSM. But this is even more the case in international news, where the carrion they scavenge will have first been picked over by their home-country correspondents. Almost by definition, international news is seldom directly sourced. Initially, it gets reported locally.
Which brings me back to the role of local journos — who are critically important to the news ecosystem.
And here’s where I very much agree with Sean — that, contrary to what many say about Russian journalism, it is in fact lively, inquisitive and intelligent. It’s got a ton of faults, from pay-for-play to political gutlessness. But there are some extraordinary journalists too, doggedly chronicling daily life.
Needless to say, the ability to explore the domestic media directly, as Sean, Lyndon, Tim and some others do, can be endlessly rewarding.
I have to wonder: How does the English-language China blogosphere stack up? Does anyone know? Are the China-watching bloggers generating anything like Sean’s Nashi piece?
I have to wonder: How does the English-language China blogosphere stack up?
Don’t know. A good place to find out would be Global Voices China page.
Good idea. Example: Here’s a post by a young Canadian living in the PRC, about the world-wide protests against CNN and others regarded to have dissed China’s Olympics.
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/18/china-one-world-one-dream-and-one-multi-front-protest/
Check the comments. Vague echoes of Nashi, Estonia and the Iron Soldier maybe?
The piece on Nashi was very interesting and informative, although I would like to point out that there are some real signs that the importance of Nashi may actually be diminishing, not just speculation. And as far as I know, Nashi never openly admitted any connection with the Kommersant toilet paper action or the denial of service attack.
I was in Moscow myself on March 4th and saw some of the toilet paper people, first in the metro with toilet rolls on strings like in the old Soviet days, later on Tverskaya, handing out toilet rolls to passers-by. No Nashi symbols were visible. (I should have asked who they were the other time I saw them, but I was in a hurry to this interview.)
Anyway, I was also quite intrigued by the discussion on foreign correspondents vs. bloggers, being a professional print journalist and a passionate Russia blogger myself. Most relevant points have already been made, but I’d like to add a few words from the point of view of a professional journalist, even though I am currently not a Moscow correspondent. (I was Moscow correspondent briefly, 1991-92, for the Finnish daily Kansan Uutiset. Now I am staff reporter at the major Swedish daily Sydsvenskan and occasionally travel to Russia in that capacity.)
fh said my view has always been that language proficiency and knowledge trump proximity. I agree. However, it is even better to have all three, which should be the case for a serious foreign correspondent.
Sean criticized “reductive analysis” in Western newspaper reporting on Nashi. This is an important point to discuss. I should think there is some in-depth analysis on this and other similar subjects in a few serious Western newspapers and magazines, but on the whole one should keep in mind that both the available space and the public informedness on even quite basic facts pertaining to Russia are rather limited.
When you write for a broad public it is therefore often necessary to use a lot of gunpowder in order to clarify fundamental issues in an understandable way. Things that may seem self-evident to an experienced Russia hand have to be explained from scratch, which by the way often is quite fruitful – you get new ideas and discover connections you haven’t seen before when you try to turn a complex landscape into a simple, understandable scetch for an uninformed public.
On the other hand, dedicated Russia blogs like Sean’s cater to a narrow, well informed and sophisticated segment of the public. The readers have a genuine interest in the subject and want more than the commercial news media can offer – the segment is simply too narrow for commercial feasibility. (At least in Swedish and Finnish it is – it maybe isn’t in English.)
My blog readership consists of maybe a hundred well informed people who are profoundly interested in Russia, many of them professional Russia hands in one way or other. It is a real pleasure to write to that public and to get to know them. But blogging is still just a hobby, an outlet for some of the thoughts I get when following Russian news media, Russian blogs, communicating with friends in Russia and Russia specialists here in Scandinavia.
Still, from time to time there is space for serious analytic pieces on Russia in the commercial media. And proximity is important – wire reports are fine for breaking news, but for a real understanding of Russia or any other place you need more than breaking news. You need feature articles, you must go out and meet people, you need to travel in the country and in some way transform your impressions to a text that makes the reader feel close to the ground. This can only be done by people who have language proficiency, knowledge, and who are there, on the spot.
This is also the kind of unique material newspaper readers might be ready to pay for, while wire reports are available anywhere. But many news corporations seem to think otherwise. In the last years both the leading Swedish news agency TT and the largest quality daily Dagens Nyheter have closed their Moscow bureaux.
By the way, the best blog by a Moscow correspondent I know of is Jaanus Piirsalu’s. Only it’s in Estonian…
Вот это прямо как из книги Пелевина… Дописал свой комментарий, и стал читать «Диалектику переходного периода из ниоткуда в никуда» Пелевина. А что там написано…
«…газету с голой бабой на обложке. Снимки были подписаны: “Бутылка пепси-колы” и “альтернативный контркультурный англоязычный революционно-антизападный таблоид eXile, издающийся в Москве группой американских нонконформистов”»
Так оно и есть?
By the way, the best blog by a Moscow correspondent I know of is Jaanus Piirsalu’s. Only it’s in Estonian…
Best joke so far, Kalle
)
I live!
“They are happy to let Nashi commissars give the party line, except they take it and put it in some kind of “Eurasianist” (yes I like that word) framework i.e. Russia is always on the verge of the totalitarian moment.”
What do you mean by “Eurasionist” in this context?
I’m trying to come up with an equivalent of Orientialism. I think James used “Eurasianism” a few weeks ago.
Are you back in Russia?
IMHO Eurasianism has too many associations with the school of thought called, well, Eurasianism.
I’m in SoCal until Tuesday. I went down to San Diego fr a few days and came back up to the IE. My mom flew in to see me from the East Coast, so I don’t think I’m going to make it to LA, except for a brief trip tomorrow to see a friend in West Hollywood. Bummer.
IMHO Eurasianism has too many associations with the school of thought called, well, Eurasianism.
There is that rather small problem isn’t there?
Too bad you’re out of time, but I totally understand. I live like 5 minutes from WeHo.
Well I actually did meet Sean, who has awesome facial hair. You go!
Sean, I gave you-know-who Roy Medvedev’s third book on Putin, plus Zinoviev’s funny novel Katastroika, and Sergei Kara-Murza’s Sovetskaya Tsivilizatsiya V. II. You know, books written by the actual Russian opposition.
I read your article in the eXile and loved it! However, I have a stupid question for you: What’s the joke in giving the American embassy a cabbage soup cookbook? They’re incompetent and harmful, and should turn to cooking instead of politics and diplomacy? They’re ignorant of even the most basic elements of Russia, such as the cabbage? Their American ways are so misguided that embracing even Russia’s most dubious cultural elements, such as cabbage, would be an improvement? Their dirty tricks are all as unimaginative, repetitive, and nauseating as 1000 ways to cook cabbage soup? Or is there something more subtle and specific here, a reference to a story I haven’t heard perhaps?
Thanks Will. The cabbage soup joke is a reference to a quip Putin made in his last press conference. He said:
“Let them teach their own wives how to cook shchi (cabbage soup!”
It was made in regard to Western election monitors and Western countries concern about Russian “democracy.” Basically it means that they should mind their own business.
Russia (at least some elements in it) are turning the tables
http://in.news.yahoo.com/reuters_ids_new/20080428/r_t_rtrs_wl/twl-russia-turns-tables-on-west-with-rig-2186892_1.html
It’d be more productive to have an all around think tank, which deals with other issues besides human rights.
Ah, thank you!
For the purpose of provding a better balance, much more is needed