Komi considered extremists

On February 7, 2006, a conference was held in Syktyvkar, at which the head of the department for juvenile affairs of the Komi Ministry of Internal Affairs, police lieutenant colonel Svetlana Melnikova, said that over the past two years ten informal youth groups have been identified in the republic, which consist of about 60 people.

"If earlier teenagers were grouped according to their interests in music, today they are mostly radical groups. They have their own ideology, certain attributes, their own places of gathering," S. Melnikova said.

Such associations have been identified in Syktyvkar, Vorkuta, Ukhta, Sosnogorsk, Knyazhpogostsky and Ust-Vymsky districts. In the Komi capital, a leaflet was circulating among the informals, with a guide to action, which described what a "traitor of the race" looked like and what should be done with him upon meeting.

The police are monitoring the groups, but so far they have not registered any offenses. "Young people have a weak psyche, there is no established worldview, so teenagers willingly listen to adult ideologists. To distract young people, we have conversations with them, we visit them at home ," S. Melnikova noted.

Sources

• Likhacheva N. Most of the identified youth groups in Komi are radical // Komiinform. 2006. February 7.