Escape from Seliger

“We have a “prohibition” law on the territory of the camp. Even if you had a drink outside the checkpoint gates, you will not be allowed back. That’s how we didn’t let Russia Today in,” the forum press secretary instructs journalists before letting them into the camp territory .

The first thing we see is a large stage. In a few minutes, forum participants will begin to flock to her for exercise. When almost everyone is assembled, the guards line up behind the stage, blocking the way back to the camp. Only camp workers and staff can pass through; for other participants, a command will be given. Now there are almost 4,000 young people at Seliger at a time who have arrived for the final session of the “Politics and Civil Society” camp. The forum's curriculum consists of a set of lectures. Teachers talk about party building, information support and campaigning on social networks, how to organize a political event, etc.

The music is already roaring with all its might: the shift leader, blogger Dmitry Ternovsky, is warming up near the stage. Next to him, a group of Cossacks dances “Yablochko” to the song “I love rock-n-roll” by Britney Spears. The frail presenter of morning exercises, limping and holding a cane, comes on stage to greet the sleepy activists of youth movements, as well as to introduce today's speakers of the educational program.

“Politics is like running through a swamp! You step on a bump and never know what’s underneath! I’ll tell you today how I ran through my swamp,” Maxim Mishchenko, a member of the Public Chamber, invites you to his lecture. Following Mishchenko, the Cossacks, who recently joined the forum, are called to the stage. Having staged a demonstration and waving swords and whips, the Cossacks scared everyone around.

The presenter, throwing his cane, tried to jump off the stage.

“You have already developed many traditions here, and we would like to bring one more to Seliger,” one of the Cossacks says into the microphone, “morning and evening prayers. If you wish, come to our camp at 7:30 and at midnight.”

Blogger Vova-Moscow tried to awaken opposition sentiments at the forum. He briefly talked about the fact that the day before there had beena rally in Moscow in support of those arrested in the Bolotnaya case , and proposed organizing a collection of donations at Seliger in support of the prisoners. "Eww!" - buzzed in the crowd. "Russia will be free!" - Vova said finally. The last to speak is the shift leader, Ternovsky, who hotly announces the main event of the day - Churov’s lecture: “We will discuss whether there is fraud in elections or whether it’s all a myth.” "Myth!" - shout from the crowd. “It’s a myth, of course,” the blogger agrees.

After exercise, everyone has breakfast and goes to lectures. You can’t walk around, otherwise security will catch you and fine you, and your badge will be pierced. If you get three punctures, you'll be sent home. 4 girls are smoking near the fire. They gossip about their neighbors and discuss how to skip today's classes. “Let’s find another guy like him and let’s go somewhere and just hang out. Well, I don’t know where, we’ll poke around behind the camp,” says one of them.

There are wooden paths throughout the camp, and along them, right on the trees, plasma TVs and megaphones hang. The announcer, like at a train station, makes several announcements: he reports the weather forecast, exchange rates and oil prices, and asks not to be late for lectures. Young people on Segways and bicycles rush past me.

I pass a nationalist camp (it’s easy to recognize them: imperial flags and nationalist leaflets are hung around their perimeter). They are in no hurry to learn: they teach young people to throw a knife to each other.

At lunchtime, the head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, appears on Seliger. As the press service promised, he flew in a hot air balloon, almost landing in a swamp.

Churov was wearing a captain's cap and a T-shirt with the inscription "Cyrus Smith" (the main character of Jules Verne's novel "The Mysterious Island"). "I chose the characters from this book because young people are always mysterious. I arrive on a mysterious island." True, the head of the Central Election Commission omitted the point that the heroes of “The Mysterious Island” escape in a hot air balloon from the country where the civil war began.

Churov's lecture "How to Conduct Democratic Elections" was probably the most popular. Thanks to the events of the past winter, everyone knew his last name. True, not everyone understood why he was so famous. Listeners several times called Churov a wizard and gave him gifts: a magic wand, a T-shirt with the inscription “I make wishes come true.” And one girl asked for a magic hair from his beard. “If I give everyone a hair’s breadth, then I myself will have nothing left,” the head of the Central Election Commission answered her.

"What does 146 percent mean to you?" - Churov was asked from the audience. "This means a mistake that VGTRK made. This applies to the Rostov region. But for this region there was no total count in December. In accordance with the law, it was divided into 3 districts, where the counts were carried out separately. There was no total figure. Until “To this day, neither we nor VGTRK can find the author of this figure. Maybe he emigrated.”

Next was a lecture by Izvestia General Director Erast Galumov in the Seliger City tent. Young people attacked boxes of free T-shirts, screaming and snatching them from each other's hands, not paying any attention to the lecturer. An unpleasant female voice cut through the air: “Behave normally, and not like people...” she thought for just a second, apparently looking for a comparison, “people who were in Krymsk and grabbed everything they could get their hands on!” I tried to find this girl who compared the distribution of free T-shirts at Seliger with the distribution of humanitarian aid in Krymsk, but in the crush it turned out to be impossible.

Not far from the main camp, two girls, Lyuba and Galya, sat on the grass. They came here from Sakhalin, and for now this is the only opportunity for them to receive grants for their projects and generally get out to central Russia for a short time. They do not support the party in power and are happy that civil society has appeared in the country and there is an opposition. “I’m not ashamed that budget money is being spent on us. I came with a business. But when I see the same guys who, year after year, just hang out here and sit on stumps, then yes, I feel embarrassed and how “I don’t feel right.” I ask where all the paraphernalia of the pro-government camp has gone: no portraits of Putin and Medvedev, only photographs of thinner people advertising the “Run After Me” movement. “I myself was very surprised when I didn’t see portraits of Putin and Medvedev on the main stage. When I saw them for the first time last year, I thought that they could be left forever - on the one hand, Putin, on the other, Medvedev. They are only roles are changing."

By evening it becomes difficult to breathe in the camp - fires are burning everywhere. On the way to the main stage, where the evening formation will take place, I meet young people wearing T-shirts with the inscription #OccupySeliger. When I asked what this inscription meant, one of the girls said impressively: “Who knows, I have no idea. They said it was something related to rallies.” From the megaphones, the announcer’s voice resounded across the camp: “We invite you to a party on the main stage. The best hits, fashionable electronic music, dubstep. Not for the faint of heart! Broadcast to the whole of Russia!”

PS In the morning, in the press center, a group of bloggers was sitting next to me, bringing the hashtag “Seliger” to the top of Twitter. They came up with a game - to replace the word in the title of the film with “Seliger”. "Sex in Big Seliger!" - one of the girls shouts. “I already wrote it like that!” — her colleague answers. I came up with a name for myself almost immediately. “Escape from Seliger,” I thought and went to pack my things.