Category Archives: Nashi

I haven’t peeked into the world of Nashi in a while.  The movement seems like it’s in a rut and continues to bobble along.  Long gone are the days where Nashi paraded 10,000 red and white clad youths down a Moscow thoroughfare denouncing the scourge of “colored revolution.”

Yet Nashi perseveres.  It carries out a small action against illegal gambling clubs here; and joins the chorus of sympathy for Poland there.  Nothing flashy.  Almost barely noticeable, in fact.  If it wasn’t for the machinations of  its member and Duma rep Robert Shlegel, Nashi would barely make headlines at all.

Shlegel reared his all too Aryan looking head following the bombings in Moscow.  Always eager to seize the moment, if not some exposure, the young parliamentarian proposed a bill making it illegal for media outlets to quote terrorists.  I suspect the ..read more

Vasili, Vasili, Vasili.  How far you’ve fallen.  To think that only a few years ago you were the leader of your own youth army, Nashi.  Now, you’re just a bureaucrat.  As for Nashi, with the “orange threat” vanquished, their only presence in Russian society is to pull pranks (some of which I admit are funny), hounding “oppositionists,” and filing lawsuits against those who “slander” them.  Nashi can apparently dish it, but they can’t take it.

But Vasili, I understand that Nashi has its own problems, and you have yours.  This is the Year of Youth, and as head of Russia’s Federal Agency of Youth Affairs, you gotta keep up with the kids.  Now that the year is closing, you’ve found your theme song in Timati’s new single, “Love You” (featuring Mariya and Busta Rhymes)

You apparently liked the swoons of the pop trio so much that you issued a letter officially supporting ..read more

It looks like Nashi might have crossed a line in their campaign against Alexander Podrabinek.  According to Vremya, the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation made an official appeal calling for an investigation of Nashi’s “illegal and amoral” campaign to hunt down the journalist. The appeal reads:

The campaign to hunt the [Podrabinek] clearly violates existing legislation and demonstrates obvious signs of extremism: fomentation of discord and the violation of a citizen’s human rights and freedoms. There presently are signs of the violation of articles 23 and 25 of the Russian Constitution (the inviolability of private life and residence.) The violation of article 24 which prohibits the use and distribution of information about the private life of an individual without his sanction: it is unlikely that A. Podrabinek gave his address to anyone for the organization to picket his home.  Finally, and this ..read more

Russian politics is a joke.  I’m not being sarcastic.  It really is funny.  Perhaps in an effort to one up the inanity of American politics (as we all know Russians just want to be like us!), or because it has a fatuous dynamic of its own, what passes for the political over there often epitomizes the absurd.  Take the most recent scandal involving the Anti-Soviet Kebab House, the Moscow Veterans Committee, the dissident Alexander Podrabinek, and Nashi.  It was a publicity stunt within a publicity stunt. A narcissistic plea of “Look at me!” if I’ve ever seen one. A better political parody couldn’t have been concocted by the Kremlin’s best spin doctors.  The sad thing is that the ensuing scandal would have been really, really funny if the joke wasn’t so bad.

Long story short: After a summer of renovations, the owner of kebab restaurant on Leningradskii prospekt decided to call ..read more

The plan to fill Russia’s streets with 100,000 young militiamen by 2010 has been all over the Russian internet media over the last few weeks.  And as usual the thought of the Russian government recruiting and deploying youth to monitor the streets has many shaking in their boots.  Perhaps for good reason.  The Russian police are already known for their corruption.  Having a potential army of 100,000 youths “protecting” the streets certainly doesn’t provide much comfort.

The militia plan, which was announced at this year’s Seliger camp, will allow Nashi to form an All-Russian Association of Militias before the end of the year.  Nashi has had a youth militia program in the works since 2007.  The All-Russian version will incorporate the Nashi DMD and place the militias directly under the local police.  Former Nashi founder and chairman of Russia’s Youth Affairs Council Vasili Yakemenko  will appeal to the government for “start-up ..read more

If history is any indication, a gerontocracy can kill a political system.  The Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc states suffered from it.  It currently plagues China.  And the recent protests in Iran certainly point to some kind of generational conflict is coming to a boil.  The failure to ensure the mobility of young people into a government’s power structures only brews disillusionment, frustration, and anger among the next generation.

Soviet Russia understood this well, that is until the bureaucracy ousted Khrushchev and entrenched itself to the point the system went into suspension.  Before the 1960s, Soviet Russia was an archetype of social mobility.  Youth–through institutions like the Komsomol–were the “helper” and “reserve” of the Party. Part of Stalin’s “New Soviet Person” was not just about promoting peasants and workers into positions of power.  Youth also greatly benefited by Stalin’s efforts to rip Russia out of its historical backwardness.  And if ..read more