| The party in power is still afraid to consider the Nashi movement as its own The emergence of the youth movement “Nashi” on the basis of “Walking Together”, allegedly with the participation of the presidential administration, became one of the high-profile socio-political events. At the same time, the birth of “Nashi” takes place in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, and information leaks to the press in small doses.
Nevertheless, it is known that Deputy Head of Administration Vladislav Surkov took part in the first meeting of “Nashi” in St. Petersburg. Over the past week, similar events took place in other regions of the country, and over the weekend “Ours” gathered at the Solnechnogorsk holiday home “Senezh”, which belongs to the Administration of the President of Russia. While they do not advertise their goals and objectives, they have already managed to make their mark in the fight against opposition youth organizations.
The leader of the youth branch of the Yabloko party, Ilya Yashin, who last Saturday, under the guise of an activist, entered a Nashi meeting and was beaten by their representatives, shared his opinion about the new organization with a Vremya Novostey correspondent. “There is every reason to say that the presidential administration is behind this project. The leader of Walking Together, Vasily Yakemenko, is directly related to this new project, and is essentially its manager. It is likely that assault troops are being created under the logo of “nashism” and have already begun to test technologies of direct force pressure on the opposition, Mr. Yashin believes. — Over the past two months, there have been several cases of clashes between the opposition and certain unidentified individuals. This began with a story that happened at the end of January, when several shaven-headed guys broke into the bunker of the National Bolshevik Party and started a pogrom there. Then there was an incident with the beating of left-wing activists after one of the rallies of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The latest story is a brawl on Saturday with my participation. I would assume that these are all links in one chain. The “Nashists” set themselves the task of openly intimidating opposition youth so that people are afraid to go to rallies. I saw about three or four shaven-headed guys in tracksuits, real street fighters. As far as I understand, they have something to do with the football fan movement.”
Even more intriguing was the statement made by Vasily Yakemenko after the Saturday incident. He said, despite eyewitness accounts, that “there is no Nashi organization, and Saturday’s event was a conference of “Russia’s New Intellectual Elite”, at which Mr. Yakemenko was invited to make a presentation.
“It is obvious that Nashi is a project of the presidential administration, and the attitude towards it, like everything artificially born, is appropriate,” First Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Central Committee Ivan Melnikov told Vremya Novostey. - Apparently, they want to present this organization, in contrast to the purely party “Youth Unity” and the odious “Walking Together”, as something not connected with the authorities. The Kremlin feels that young people have flocked to our Komsomol organizations, to the NBP, to the youth “Yabloko” - it’s not so important where exactly, what’s important is that young people are looking for a form of protest for themselves. Therefore, they are preparing either a kind of counterfeit of rebellion, or another bait for the notorious “consolidation”. I think such an organization can be in demand among those young people who want to be closer to the authorities, who want to be the detachment of “the president himself.” Another thing is that such people are a minority. And today they are the marginal youth, while normal, sensible youth are joining the real opposition.”
An even more mysterious page in the history of Nashi is its relationship with the United Russia party. Representatives of the ruling party prefer neither to confirm nor to deny ties with the Nashi movement. “I can’t say,” Oleg Kovalev, a member of the political council of the United Russia party and State Duma deputy, answered a Vremya Novostey correspondent’s question about connections with the “nashi”. But in general, the parliamentarian assesses the emergence of the new organization positively: “I think that this is a promising movement. Today this is relevant, because young people have also begun to position themselves somehow - both in relation to real life and in relation to the prospects of the state.” Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA |
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