Vanessa Gezari: Young Russian Activists Love Their Government
MOSCOW - The day Maxim Kuvshinov got the call that would change his life, his first question was: Where did you get my number?
The girl on the other end of the line had been asking around. At the university where Maxim studies law and serves on the student council, plenty of people know him. His cell phone number is not a secret.
We're creating this new movement, she said. We thought you might be interested.
That's how Maxim, a smugly handsome 18-year-old whose mother still does his laundry, became one of the first commissars of Nashi, a fledgling political youth movement backed by the Russian government.
A few months later, he was making tea for visitors in a fifth-floor walkup with a view of the Kremlin. Teenagers and 20-somethings sat hunched over computers, and the walls were plastered with pictures of activists in matching red and white T-shirts.
"If you eat a spoonful of black caviar, it'll be okay, but if you have a big bowl, a vat, you'll be sick," Maxim said, sounding more like a seasoned bureaucrat than a college student. "There is a measure for everything. Democracy must be measured. Everything in moderation."
This is the voice of the Kremlin's handpicked youth brigade, kids who listen to Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, yet agree with President Vladimir Putin that too much personal freedom is bad for the country.
Nashi was born after the Ukraine's Orange Revolution drew thousands of young people onto the streets last winter and put power in the hands of a pro-Western opposition leader. Putin and his administration feared the same thing could happen in Russia, so they set out to capture young hearts and minds before someone else could.
But the group, whose name means "Ours," is more than a sign of Russian leaders' insecurity. It is part of a growing wave of activism among young Russians who see a chance to shape their country's future after decades of powerlessness.
"This year is different in terms of the feeling of the youth," said Nikolay Petrov, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "It is much more active now, not only due to all the Kremlin moves, but to very intensive processes of youngsters talking about the situation, actively participating in political life, as well as elections."
Perhaps the key question for young Russians is whether revolution is necessary, or even possible. Russia is a country of revolutions whose people were so traumatized by the upheaval of the 1990s that they remain sharply divided over what price they are willing to pay for political change.
[Editor's note: This is a short excerpt from a much longer piece. Please see the St. Petersburg Times for more.]
The girl on the other end of the line had been asking around. At the university where Maxim studies law and serves on the student council, plenty of people know him. His cell phone number is not a secret.
We're creating this new movement, she said. We thought you might be interested.
That's how Maxim, a smugly handsome 18-year-old whose mother still does his laundry, became one of the first commissars of Nashi, a fledgling political youth movement backed by the Russian government.
A few months later, he was making tea for visitors in a fifth-floor walkup with a view of the Kremlin. Teenagers and 20-somethings sat hunched over computers, and the walls were plastered with pictures of activists in matching red and white T-shirts.
"If you eat a spoonful of black caviar, it'll be okay, but if you have a big bowl, a vat, you'll be sick," Maxim said, sounding more like a seasoned bureaucrat than a college student. "There is a measure for everything. Democracy must be measured. Everything in moderation."
This is the voice of the Kremlin's handpicked youth brigade, kids who listen to Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, yet agree with President Vladimir Putin that too much personal freedom is bad for the country.
Nashi was born after the Ukraine's Orange Revolution drew thousands of young people onto the streets last winter and put power in the hands of a pro-Western opposition leader. Putin and his administration feared the same thing could happen in Russia, so they set out to capture young hearts and minds before someone else could.
But the group, whose name means "Ours," is more than a sign of Russian leaders' insecurity. It is part of a growing wave of activism among young Russians who see a chance to shape their country's future after decades of powerlessness.
"This year is different in terms of the feeling of the youth," said Nikolay Petrov, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "It is much more active now, not only due to all the Kremlin moves, but to very intensive processes of youngsters talking about the situation, actively participating in political life, as well as elections."
Perhaps the key question for young Russians is whether revolution is necessary, or even possible. Russia is a country of revolutions whose people were so traumatized by the upheaval of the 1990s that they remain sharply divided over what price they are willing to pay for political change.
[Editor's note: This is a short excerpt from a much longer piece. Please see the St. Petersburg Times for more.]