Nashi was a political youth movement in Russia, which described itself as a democratic, anti-fascist and anti-oligarchy movement. Nashi was widely characterized as a pro-Putin outfit, with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism describing it as "Putin's private army". Western critics have detected a "deliberately cultivated resemblance to" the Soviet Komsomol, or to the Hitler Youth, and dubbed the group "Putinjugend" ("Putin Youth").
Senior figures in the Russian Presidential administration encouraged the formation of the group, which Moisés Naím labelled a government organized non-governmental organization (GONGO). By late 2007, it had grown in size to some 120,000 members aged between 17 and 25. On 6 April 2012, the Nashi leader announced that the current form of the movement would dissolve in the near future, possibly to be replaced by a different organisation. He stated that Nashi had been "compromised" during the 2012 Russian presidential election. In 2013, the organization ceased its activities and the legal entity was liquidated on 2 December 2019.Unified State Register of Legal Entities: NASHI Movement
Foundation
Nashi was officially announced on 1 March 2005 by Vasily Yakemenko, the leader of the pro-Putin youth movement Walking Together. The founding conference took place on 15 April 2005. Yakemenko said he created Nashi as a movement to demonstrate against what he saw as the growing power of Nazism in Russia and to take on skinheads in street fights if necessary. While its funding came from pro-government business owners, it is thought that it also received direct subsidies from the Kremlin. Yakememko once told Gazeta.Ru that the Kremlin's support was what made it possible for the organization to raise money from businessmen.
Nashi close ties with the Kremlin have been emphasised by Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff (1999-2011), who met with the movement's activists on numerous occasions, delivering speeches and holding private talks. Critics claimed that the Kremlin's primary goal was to create a paramilitary force to harass and attack Vladimir Putin's critics as "enemies of the State".The Kremlin has a new weapon in its war on real or imagined enemies, from opponents at home to foreign revolutionaries.By Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova Newsweek International 28 May 2007 At a political education event in summer 2006, the Kremlin advisor Gleb Pavlovsky told Nashi members that they "lacked brutality": "you must be prepared", he went on, "to break up fascist demonstrations and prevent with force any attempt to overthrow the constitution". Critics have compared Nashi to the Soviet Komsomol and the Hitler Youth.
Vedomosti reported that the Nashi movement received funding of about 200 million rubles from the 2010 Russian state budget. The group's headquarters were housed in a £20 million building in the centre of Moscow.
Beliefs and goals
The leader of the former movement Walking Together, Yakemenko, said in 2005 that the goal of the new movement, Nashi, was to put an end to the "anti-Fatherland union of oligarchs, anti-Semites, Nazis, and liberals." Several Moscow newspapers suggested the goal of the group was, in fact, to eventually replace the party of power, United Russia. Not all of its goals were overtly political. Nashi organized voluntary work in orphanages and old people's homes, and helped restore churches and war memorials. It also picketed shops accused of selling alcohol and cigarettes to minors, and campaigned against racial intolerance.
Sergei Markov, a Kremlin adviser, stated in 2005 that Nashi "[wants] Russia to be a modern, strong and free country... their ideology is clear: it is modernization of the country and preservation of its sovereignty with that." One of the movement's main stated goals was preventing foreign control of Russia. Russian newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets quoted Yakemenko as saying that "organizations in Russia are growing, on the basis of which the U.S. will create groups analogous to Serbia's Otpor!, Georgia's Kmara, or Ukraine's PORA. These groups are Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party and Avant Garde Red Youth." Yakemenko feared that the Russia's fate may be similar to that of Ukraine which he said "was a Russian colony and now it is an American colony."
Events and incidents
On 26 June 2005, with media present, Putin met with a group of Nashi members at his residence at Zavidovo, Tver Oblast. He expressed his support for the group, described as "awestruck" by his presence.Putin Plays Host to 56 Nashi Youth by Stephen Boykewich. The Moscow Times, #3217, 27 July 2005. In August 2005, Putin invited Yulia Gorodnicheva, an undergraduate student of Tula State University, along with other Nashi members to the meeting at Zavidovo, to be appointed to the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, but she declined Putin's appointment and on 15 November 2005, entered the second part of the chamber as a representative of Nashi. There she became a member of the Commission on Social Development.
In 2006 Nashi members conducted a campaign against the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Russia, Tony Brenton, as he attended an opposition conference called Another Russia on 11–12 July. He attended along with Putin opposition leaders such as Eduard Limonov, leader of the National Bolsheviks.Russian youths 'hound UK envoy', BBC News, 8 December 2006. Unnamed British officials were reported to suspect that this campaign had been co-ordinated by elements within the Russian government as a punishment for the speech given by the ambassador.Russian regime is accused of intimidating British interests, The Times, 9 December 2006.
On 24 July 2007, Putin met with several Russian political and environmental youth organisations, including Nashi, at his residence in Zavidovo, and discussed various issues affecting Russian society. At the meeting, he stated that the United Kingdom was acting like a colonial power with a mindset stuck in the 19th or 20th century, due to their belief that Russia could change its constitution, allowing Andrey Lugovoy to be extradited to the UK to face charges in relation to the Alexander Litvinenko affair. He also stated, "They say we should change our Constitution – advice that I view as insulting for our country and our people. They need to change their thinking and not tell us to change our Constitution."Putin Lashes Out at Nashi Gathering by David Nowak, The St. Petersburg Times, Issue #1292 (58), 27 July 2007. English translation
In December 2007, the movement was reported to be planning to send a select group of activists to study at British universities, arguably despite its disdain for Britain and its harassment of the British ambassador in Moscow. They said: "We lag behind in knowledge and experience vital for making Russia a 21st-century world leader. British education is rated highly all over the world. The graduates of British universities are in great demand. This is because of the high quality of education and also control from the government."Putin's youth head to British universities. By Will Stewart telegraph.co.uk 28 December 2007.
In April and May 2007, Nashi members held daily protests in front of the Estonian embassy in Moscow in protest of the moving of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn to a military cemetery.EU protests over Russian attacks on ambassadors. by Ian Traynor The Guardian 3 May 2007. When movement members protested outside the Embassy of Estonia in Moscow in April 2007, some members were carrying signs stating "Wanted. The Ambassador of the Fascist State of eSStonia" (), in reference to then-Ambassador of Estonia to Russia Marina Kaljurand. In early 2008 Estonia placed some Nashi members on a European Union-wide immigration blacklist, leading Nashi to accuse the European Union of violating democratic principles.Estonia Bans Travel for Kremlin Youth Group New York Times In March 2009, it was reported that a Nashi commissar and some associates claimed they had launched a DDOS attack on Estonia in May 2007, in reaction to the Bronze Soldier's removal.
On 23 March 2009, a small group of Nashi activists together with the activists of the Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee and Night Watch held a protest in Helsinki, Finland, arranged by Johan Bäckman. They denounced the publication of a new book about the Soviet occupation of Estonia by Sofi Oksanen and Imbi Paju and related seminar, labeling the book as an attack on Russia.
On 18 January 2010, Nashi activists held a rally near the Embassy of Ukraine in Moscow and "congratulated" Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko for his defeat in the first round of the presidential election the day before.
On 30 July 2010, Ella Pamfilova, Medvedev's human rights advisor, resigned over comments she made, saying that Nashi activists had "pawned their souls to the devil" and that she "feared they might to come to power one day", causing Nashi to sue for libel. The Russian opposition commented, claiming that Nashi assaulted and intimidated its leaders.
In December 2011, Nashi members staged large pro-Kremlin demonstrations in response to anti-Putin protests that followed the 2011 legislative election.
Annual Seliger encampments
Every summer, Nashi ran recruiting camps all across Russia. New members received a basic military-style training, according to Yakimenko. The July 2007 annual Nashi encampment, located 200 miles outside Moscow, was attended by over 10,000 members. It involved two weeks of lectures and calisthenics. Some reports mention the use of the camp to improve the demographics of Russia, as twenty tents were set up for twenty newlywed couples to sleep together. In an effort to deconstruct its discredited public image in 2012, Nashi invited opposition activists to its annual encampment named "Occupy Seliger" for that year; but few opposition activists attended.
Criticism According to Edward Lucas, in The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West, Nashi is a contemporary iteration of the Soviet Komsomol. Nashi was accused of recruiting skinheads and local hooligans to intimidate rival youth groups.The Kremlin's new commissars by Tim Whewell, BBC News. Such activities caused Gavin Knight, in New Statesman, to draw the conclusion that "Nashi’s true function was as a personality cult for Putin whose job was intimidate, bully and harass his opponents."The alarming spread of fascism in Putin’s Russia. by Gavin Knight New Statesman 24 July 2007. The movement evoked comparisons with the Hitler Youth, to the extent that Nashi, together with other pro-Putin youth organizations, were derogatively nicknamed Putinjugend.Eesti Päevaleht 26 July 2007: HEIKI SUURKASK: Kiri Eesti ainsatele fašistidele by Heiki SuurkaskEesti Päevaleht 29 January 2008 12:00: Eesti tugev löök "Hitlerjugendi" vastu, edited by Ravil Khair Al-DinJuku-Kalle Raid: Našid ja vašid, published in Delfi 18 September 2007 16:55Putin’s Pariah by Andrew Meier, The New York Times
A Nashi advertisement was described in a Time magazine article as "reminiscent of Soviet-era propaganda with its non sequitur acceleration of hysteria". The advertisement read: "Tomorrow there will be war in Iran. The day after tomorrow Russia will be governed externally!" The Boston Globe said that "movement's Brownshirt tactics certain evoke shades of Hitler Youth, as does the emphasis on physical fitness, clean living, and procreation for the Motherland".