On July 25th the camp on Seliger closed and on July 26th president V. Putin has personally met the Nashi. The Nashi informational center has announced the same day: “Russia’s president to the Nashi: you can influence the situation in the country. The text: ’56 commissars from 20 Russian cities who have demonstrated the best results in their specializations (social, economical, informational, analytical, Intellectual Club, Mass Actions, Rallying Events) have met the RF President Vladimir Putin during the all-Russian gathering of commissars and supporters of the Nashi youth democratic antifascist movement Seliger-2005 on Tuesday, July 26th. The meeting took place in the Zavidovo residence (Tver region) and lasted two hours. After they thanked the President for his attention and moral support the Nashi commissars asked Vladimir Putin over 20 questions on diverse subjects. /…/ ‘I am certain that if you will not be too organized, if you won’t think in clichйs, you could help, not the country’s administration, but society and the State,’ The RF President said. According to him the question is about solving urgent problems, especially among the youth, such as alcoholism, drug addiction and the fight with all sorts of phobias and attitudes in the sphere of international and inter-religious relations. ‘Doubtlessly you can influence the situation in the country. I’m counting on it,’ Vladimir Putin said, adding that the active work of the NASHI is one of the signs of a functioning civil society. The president also thanked the Movement’s commissars for the actions they already held, in particular for the numerous events dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory.”
I cited this Nashist prose on purpose. On the meeting with the Nashists the president was wearing black jeans, black sneakers and a dark shirt with thin white squares – actually it is the typical uniform of a soccer hooligan. You can admire it in the July 27th issue of the Kommersant.
Following the president’s advice “not to work in clichйs” soon the Nashists “got the opportunity to influence the situation in the country”. This is what they did and in such a way that now the president will have to distance himself from the Nashi at best. I am talking about the August 29th attack. And he is already taking his distances. And apparently Surkov, who drew Putin in this story, is having a bad time. It does not mean that the president felt ashamed. After all he was not ashamed of the tragedy of the Center on Dubrovka or Beslan. Simply on July 26th he was forced to meet a criminal gang and a month later this gang demonstrated to the entire country how it is carelessly criminal.
What caused the August 29th attack on the NBP meeting? On August 26th the Supreme Court decided not to liquidate the NBP. Yakemenko was very saddened. Here is the statement he made on the same day: “We weren’t surprised by the appeal of the Supreme Court’s decision about the cancellation of the NBP liquidation by the Prosecutor General. We believe that good sense has to triumph, since the presence of legal fascists in Russia is monstrous. Today we are forced to watch how Limonov’s fascist sect’s members are trying to spit in the face of all our people who saved the world from the brown plague in the XX century. This low farce will last until all of us, the society, say ‘Enough!’ The NBP shamelessly continue to use fascist symbols and fascist rhetoric. This is why the Nashi young democratic antifascist movement will continue to say that the NBP is a fascist sect that represents, like any other fascist organization, a real social threat for our society. It is sad that our legislation does not allow our courts to judge the fascists because they are fascists. Maybe, finally, the time has come for our deputies to pay attention to this and to protect Russia’s citizens from the fascist threat in a legislative way.”
The demagogy is absolutely shameless, demonical, if we consider that at least for five years now the NBP keeps talking about the restoration of the climate of political freedoms in Russia (destroyed by Putin), calls for free elections, to a multiparty parliament and a coalition government and a black hammer and sickle appears on the NBP red flag from the very foundation of the party. Hammer and sickle. Hammer and sickle.
On August 29th, three days after the decision of the Supreme Court, at about 8 o’clock PM, the CPRF office where Moscow’s NBP organization was holding a meeting was attacked by scores of unidentified people in masks and white gloves. They beat seven nazbols who were guarding the entrance with baseball bats (they broke the bones on both arms of Dmitry Yelizarov), shot at them from traumatic guns, tried to put on fire the Sobol car that belonged to NBP with three nazbols who were inside with fire crackers (like white gloves, fire crackers are the best equipment of soccer fans). Then the attackers tried to escape on a PAZ bus. “The bus was arrested by the police when it was entering Lefortovski Tunnel, Kommersant writes on August 31st. The young people who were inside warned the police inspector that by arresting the bus “he’s making a big mistake’ and ‘most probably will pay for it’. Then they started to make cellphone calls. /…/ The bus with the passengers was brought to the Danilovsky police station. /…/ As the police officers of the Danilovsky police station told Kommersant, first things unfolded according to the standard scheme in such situations. The policeman on duty registered the coordinates of the arrested. Then the investigator had to make them write an explanation about the events. ‘We received a call from above ordering to release the arrested,’ one of the police officers told Kommersant. ‘These guys have honestly warned us that we shouldn’t bother because they will soon be released.’ However they were not released immediately, because the police station was already encircled by journalists and members of left-wing radical parties who were attacked. Then the police officers tricked them: they brought out the arrested from the police station by groups of three and left them a few blocks away. Kommersant obtained a list of 25 names of those who were brought to the police station (the list follows). The police officers added that there was a 26th young man whose name was Verbitsky, who, supposedly, was driving the bus. ‘He was convincingly promising to fire us,’ the police officers told Kommersant. ‘We remembered his face but didn’t put his name on the list. According to the nazbols’ lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky, a certain Nikita Ivanov, employee of the president’s administration, arrived to the police station and released the arrested.”
On the following day Yakemenko declared: “This is not the first beating of NBP and other radical organizations’ activists by non-established individuals. The accusations addressed at Nashi commissars are totally baseless and most probably are a poor attempt made by these structures’ leaders to hide their internal squabbles that are taking these monstrous, violent forms. When NBP members are being beaten, stabbed in the neck, etc. – it is a natural process of NBP’s criminal, underground existence. It is obvious that they need to finance their underground fascist activities in some way. It is obvious that the NBP activists need to pay for their actions and this money is of a very dubitable origin. The basic principle of the Nashi movement is nonviolence.” And so forth, in the same incoherent manner.