Journalist "7x7" Elena Solovyova was awarded the editorial award for the material on the connection of nationalists with the Komi government

The 7x7 journalist Elena Solovyova was awarded the editorial award for Longride “ Erasing the“ Rubezh ” ” - a study of the relations of nationalists with the Government of the Komi Republic from 2008 to 2016.

On the “editorial board” on Facebook, she talked about how she worked on the material and why she chose this topic: “Write material about the“ Face of the North ”* I prompted me, firstly, that at the end of last year this nationalist organization was liquidated, and secondly, that the history is very instructive. On the one hand, it was the local material with which I was well acquainted: most of the events related to the “binders” took place in Syktyvkar, so I knew where and what to look for, from whom to take comments. On the other hand, this story is completely unique and easily extrapolated both to other regions and what happened with different nationalist movements of the federal scale.

The bottom line is that in 2008 the republic’s authorities decided to replace independent nationalists with “manual Naziks”. And they did it quite well. After the complaint of Igor Sazhin from the Komi human rights commission, Memorial, the local independent nationalist Yuri Ekyshev, was put, which the human rights activist did not expect at all. And in the place of Ekyshev, a very contractual and active person came - Alexei Kohlov, and the nationalist organization “Border of the North”*appeared.

It quickly became clear that they carry out government tasks: they attack human rights defenders, tear off the opposition rallies and discredit civil actions. Everyone around knew that they were controlled, they spoke about this without a shadow of doubt. Local independent media wrote about some cases that proved the control of nationalists to the authorities. But there was no material that would collect all these episodes together, would give a whole picture of how the interaction of the nationalists with the authorities is taking place and what it leads to, would tell how people who have been convinced of their impunity more than once are on the bench of the defendants.

The nationalists were used and abandoned them when the need for them disappeared. And shortly after, the governor of Gaiser, the head of the information department of the administration of the head and government of the Komi Pavel Marushchak, who is believed, was the author of the project with “manual Naziki”, and almost the entire government of the republic, was arrested. I do not see some higher justice behind this, although, it would seem, some villains were punished, but others. For me, this is rather a terrible story about how the system begins to eat itself.

Surprisingly, after the material came out, I had a long and rather intelligent correspondence in social networks with former members of the Forest of the North*. It was strange for me to see them somewhere neutral, and somewhere even a positive reaction to material-there was no particular sympathy for the nationalists and their deeds there. They told me, for example, about the fact that the victims of the “Occupy Pedofili” promotions were most often caught not for children, but on quite sexually mature boys and girls, and they were very lamented that their organization was in general into this action. After the arrest of Korgov, they tried to reformat the organization, but this did not save it. ”

The history of the nationalist organization “Border of the North”*, which began to interfere with the Government of the Komi Republic after 5 years of support from power. ”

The Red Card project is an independent prize established by the Sreda Foundation charitable organization to support free professional journalism in Russia.

Its official website states that the task of the organizers of the award is “to help those who retain high standards of profession in Russia at a time when free and high -quality journalism is subjected to pressure from the state, and human rights to free expression of their opinion and are systematically violated to free access to information”.

* - the organization is prohibited and liquidated by court decision as extremist.

* The material mentioned the organization of the border of the North, whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation