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Nashi: Is It Really The End?

Why would anyone join Nashi? What is its future in a post-Putin Russia? Most Nashi members aren’t violent thugs, but rather ambitious careerists. One such Nashist is Maksim Novikov, 18, a student at Moscow State Institute for International Relations. In an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Novikov, appears as a model student and a model Nashist, carries a copy of Vladislav Surkov’s Russian Political Culture: A Utopian View, which he marks up with a pen.Though he agrees with the basic principles of Survkov’s so-called "sovereign democracy," he displays no emotional attachment to it. He hopes to someday study abroad, but when asked if he will remain abroad once he gets out of Russia, he says he would like to serve his country. "I am after all a patriot."

But Nashi wasn’t his first choice or really on his radar for youth groups. Novikov explained that at first he thought about joining the Communists, but was turned off by their hostility to the free market. He found Nashi "almost by chance." He found Vasilii Yakemenko’s email on the net, who promptly arranged a meeting between Novikov and one of Nashi’s Moscow commissars. After some discussion, he joined. Now Novikov speaks about Nashi in terms of "we."