Titles:
At first it may seem that this video is about our past.
In fact, it is about our future.
00:07 Rudoy:
Greetings, friends!
The Vestnik Buri channel is with you again. Today (suddenly!) we are on the outskirts of Nizhny Novgorod in Shcherbinki.
Shcherbinki is known for the fact that Academician Sakharov was once exiled here. But I was born and raised here even without being in exile. I perfectly remember Shcherbinki of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and if you ask me what it is associated with in my memory, then I will probably name three things. The first thing is drugs, because Shcherbinki was the center of drug trafficking in Nizhny Novgorod. The second thing is, suddenly, Roma. There were a lot of them. Literally the whole road where I am walking now was full of Roma. Many of them came from the suburban settlement of Luch and brought drugs with them. And the third association is skinheads (of course, ultra-right skinheads, who are also called boneheads in Russia). There were a lot of them, probably even more than the Roma, and walking here in wide trousers, listening to rap was much more dangerous than now openly opposing the special operation in Ukraine.
Well, we don't do it easy, do we?
We will talk about drugs and Roma some other time, but today we will highlight the phenomenon of Nazi skins in Russia. A subculture imported to the post-Soviet space in the early nineties, a decade later reached the peak of its development, and now has come to naught almost everywhere, but has left a very serious trail behind it. Who were these people? Why did the Nazi skins multiply so much and where did they disappear? How have they been used in business squabbles and political games, and how have they influenced today's political space? For the sake of completeness, we took comments from both some former Nazis and their former antifa opponents. In general, today for someone there will be a reason to plunge into nostalgia, for someone to learn something new and, most importantly, useful. Get comfortable, we're getting started.
[music]
02:14 Rudoy:
Before we move on to the topic directly, I urge you to subscribe not only to the channel, but also to the resources of Vestnik Buri on social networks, where a lot of important and interesting information is published: from news to analytical and historical articles. The links are in the description. We also recently released the Red Alert album with Dessar and ZombieFido, search on music platforms or follow the link in the description. There are also 12 tracks not included in it, a link to them will also be in the description. If you are Nazi skins, you may not like this kind of creativity, of course. For everyone else, welcome to listen. And we’ll get moving on.
02:52 Rudoy:
In Russia, among the mass public, the very word "skinhead" is associated primarily with extreme nationalists: well, there with alpha industries bombers, with bald heads, and so on. But few people know that initially the word "skinhead" had a slightly different color. In general, skinheads are different.
The skinhead subculture, as you know, originated in the UK in the 60s. The shaven-headed guys from the working-class districts who wore cuffed jeans weren't racists. Moreover, among them were blacks. They listened to reggae, ska, were anti-bourgeois, although they did not particularly meddle in politics, aesthetic protest prevailed among them. It was they who gave rise to the trend of Trads, or traditional skinheads. The principles of these skinhead guys were voiced in the book Spirit of ‘69. It was assumed that the skinhead movement began in 1969. Skins should be out of politics, drink beer, love football and ska. Some time after the start, the movement began to gradually fade away. Young people grew up, grew their hair, started families. Moreover, already during the first wave, along with anti-bourgeoisness, we see the beginning of a nationalist tilt. Even Trads had their first run-ins with Pakistanis.
However, in the seventies, second-wave skins appeared in the same England, and it was they who laid the foundation for the ultra-right subculture.
Since 1973, a fuel and energy crisis has raged in Europe and the United States: unemployment, poverty, social instability. The government of the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher severely cuts the social sphere, and is at war with the trade unions.
The government, in order to reduce the cost of British products, did everything to increase the influx of migrants from the former colonies, where life was even worse, because they were willing to work for less pay.
Society is polarizing, with the left suffering a severe blow from the government. The far right is coming forward, exploiting the xenophobic "those Pakistanis have eaten all our benefits" sentiment. Social tension is growing: giant team deathmatches on the outskirts of British cities, often on an ethnic basis, are becoming commonplace. The neo-Nazis are also raising their heads, hogging the limelight among the aggressive guys from the skin movements. Skinheads of the first and second waves did not recognize each other. The first acted under the slogan "stay true to 1969" and rejected the new movement because of the aggressive music, behavior and clothing style. In addition, the skinheads of the second wave were increasingly involved in politics. Many of them joined the British neo-fascists. This was alien to the skinheads of the first wave, who positioned themselves as an apolitical subculture. But the Nazi Skins had an advantage: the ruling conservative party turned a blind eye to their actions, and they were supported by already existing neo-fascist groups. Interestingly, the second wave of skins began to associate themselves with a separate subgenre in punk rock, which is usually called Oi! In Oi! wind instruments disappeared, and choral refrains appeared, somewhat reminiscent of football chants. Although it should be noted that this style was not an invention of the Nazis, and is still played by both the right and the left. Nevertheless, the most prominent right-wing group in this direction is Skrewdriver, which has become the voice of neo-Nazism and anti-communism on the British underground scene.
6:09 [music]
06:18 Rudoy:
Because of the very high activity of Nazi skinheads, because of the constant mass fights on national and racial grounds, journalists who are not very knowledgeable have tied the term “skinheads” specifically to the ultra-right. Among the more advanced people, Nazi skinheads were called ‘boneheads’, that means dumb. From this word came their slang name in Russian.
The right-wing skinheads of the second wave, due to their activity and interesting cultural image against the backdrop of the crisis of the seventies in the West, as well as using the international channels of neo-Nazi organizations, quickly began to spread their subculture far beyond the borders of Great Britain, traditional skinheads were seriously worried. In 1987, a new skinhead association was organized in New York: Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP), or just SHARPs. A real war began with gunfights, dead, imprisoned, crippled skinheads. As one of the participants in the events wrote in a letter,
07:19 Voice-over:
“In the 80's the boneheads were going to completely take over the Skinhead name, in the US they've actually done it already. Back then, during the SHARP/Nazi wars of 87-91, just to get out of the house, having a gun in your pocket and eyes on the back of your head were as necessary as boots and braces.”
07:37 Rudoy:
Around the same time, the third generation of skins, the left one, appeared. In 1993, all in the same USA, all in the same New York, a new skin movement R.A.S.H. (Red & Anarchist Skinheads) was created . The decision to create a left-wing party of skinheads was natural, since the working youth from poor neighborhoods, to which they belonged, traditionally adhered to socialist and anarchist ideas. Also among them were many spontaneous anarchist punks. This movement still exists, and its representatives 10-15 years ago were quite noticeable in Russia. It also laid the foundation for other mixed subcultures such as Straight edge (sXe).
This is actually a small digression, I hope, is enough to understand why the skinhead movement was born and how it developed, and secondly, to understand that skinheads were and are different. However, it so happened historically that in the territory of post-Soviet Russia, neo-Nazi booms were the dominant and for a long time literally the only direction of skinheads. In the previous video about Alexander Dugin (by the way, be sure to watch it: it’s just a portal to hell) I touched on the topic of the late Soviet neo-Nazi underground. But still, in the seventies and eighties, this underground took the form of circles of cracked up dissident intellectuals who translated fascist mystics, organized occult rituals, orgies, and wrote dubious rhymes against the Soviet power. Nevertheless, it was marginal and doubtful even for citizens who did not like the authorities very much. But in the early nineties, everything changed. The aforementioned Dugin has a much wider audience and social base.
09:16 Voice-over:
Skinheads appeared in Russia in the early 90s. in 1992 there were about a dozen skinheads in Moscow. They behaved quietly, mostly engaged in narcissism and demonstrating themselves in the city center. These very first skins were the pure product of teenage monkeying: they painstakingly imitated Western designs. They learned about Western skinheads from the Soviet media of the perestroika era: in 1989-1991 it was fashionable to talk about English, German, and a little later about Czech skinheads. This went on until the beginning of 1994. At the beginning of 1994, skinheads suddenly - in a few weeks - became, if not a mass, then a numerous and noticeable phenomenon.
Alexander Tarasov. "Nazi Skins in Modern Russia". Report for the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights
10:07 Rudoy:
Since the mid-nineties, primarily in the largest cities of Russia, the movement of skinheads, and specifically boneheads, has been growing like an avalanche. Why? The left-wing sociologist Alexander Tarasov, whom I have already cited, as well as the researchers Alexander Kuzmin and many others, generally agree that this growth is based on socio-economic reasons. Firstly, in post-Soviet Russia, there is a catastrophic collapse in the standard of living - the largest collapse in peacetime in world practice after the Second World War. There is a mass layer of young people from low-income marginalized families. Secondly, there is an equally horrific degradation of education, the loss of the educational function by educational institutions. And in general, the youth policy at the state level went up in smoke. Thirdly, the massive anti-communist propaganda, which goes on at the state level year after year, also had an effect. Anti-fascist propaganda was completely curtailed. Real fascists, like Dugin, appeared on the central channels. And of course, the young people's desire for the “decaying West” had an effect, and as I have already pointed out, the movement of boneheads was a purely Western feature.
11:16 Voice-over:
An even stronger impact on the growth in the number of skinheads had the Chechen war and accompanying it at the government level (especially in Moscow) pro-imperial, nationalist propaganda campaigns.
Alexander Tarasov. "Nazi Skins in Modern Russia". Report for the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights
11:29 Rudoy:
At the same time, I would add that this is the time of the formation of Russian post-Soviet capitalism, the time of the wild division of spheres of influence and property. And this applied not only to large businesses (we all remember the notorious loans-for-shares auctions of 1995), but also to small and medium-sized businesses. Naturally, those who are more organized and united win in this struggle, and the diasporas have the advantage here. Many people from the Caucasus began to trample down markets. This, of course, results in skirmishes, lawlessness, and so on. This turns into the growth of domestic nationalism among the Russian population. And young people, including, transfer aggression from individual traders, from criminal and semi-criminal groups to entire nations.
However, here again we run into failures in education and upbringing. It was easy enough to convince the not very educated youth that the migrants or the Jews were to blame for all the troubles in Russia. Or both!
11:28 Anton, a former member of the ultra-right movement in the Nizhny Novgorod region:
There was a time when there were a huge number of people on the street who had, so to speak, non-Slavic appearance. Markets, shops, discos, cafes - everything seemed to be filled with them everywhere. In many cases they were very noisy, very defiant, like such "kings of the world." Well, in my youthful brain, all this caused indignation, it was the simplest explanation for all the troubles around. It seemed that they took over all the businesses, the ruling cabinets, and so on. Well, of course, it was Jews who seemed to be the most important cause of all the troubles. Tons of literature have been read proving this fact. And of course, we shared these ideas with friends, neighbors, and so on. All these ideas caused bunching, from which these groups emerged.
13:30 Voice-over:
The skinhead organizations explain to the young contingent who have social claims to society who is to blame for their material troubles, and what should be done with the culprits. Ideological work proceeds according to the principle of concrete answers and simple solutions, which appeals to young people, among whom the ideology of this kind is assimilated, to put it mildly, uncritically.
Lack of knowledge and experience, an example of senior comrades, respect in accordance with the status received in the skinhead group, involvement in rituals, acquaintance in some cases with nationalist literature, represented by the corresponding “classics” and “periodicals”, constitute an incomplete set of reasons why the ranks of Russian skinheads grow year by year.
Alexander Kuzmin “Ultra-Right Skinheads in Modern Russia: Evolution of Political Ideology and Practice”
14:17 Rudoy:
A feature of the skin movement in the nineties was that it primarily included young people from low-income families. Now in Russia there are also enough of them, but in the nineties it was generally in abundance.
14:31 Voice-over:
In 1995, having entered the university, I saw that there were some guys who wore bomber jackets, walked in high military boots and shaved their heads. Somehow I liked it all right away. There was some kind of organization, a herd instinct, or something. Well, that's probably why we joined them.
14:54 Rudoy:
At the same time, the economic catastrophe turned into a mental, socio-cultural catastrophe.
15:00 Voice-over:
During the decade of reforms in Russia, a new generation has grown up - asocial and anomic. This generation is characterized by a complete break with traditions, with social values and social attitudes. In parallel with the savagery of parents, there was a savagery of children. But if the parents, wild, still tried to solve some problems of collective survival (at least at the family level), then the “children of the reforms”, having no social experience of adults, quickly turned into a herd - into a herd of biological individuals, only nominally somehow connected with each other - immoral, asocial, anomic, egocentric, incapable of communication, primitive in their requests, greedy, embittered and increasingly stupid.
Alexander Tarasov. "Nazi Skins in Modern Russia". Report for the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights
15:44 Rudoy:
However, it would be a mistake to say that the funnel of the skin movement sucked in only embittered outcasts. There were just young and searching people who fell under the influence of fashion and sometimes ruined their lives.
15:56 Dmitry, a member of the skin movement in the Moscow region in the 00s:
I lived in a small suburban town not far from Moscow. The year was 2006. What brought me there? As a teenager, I joined a military-patriotic club. I liked weapons, military subjects in general, and history. And, against all this background, certain worldviews in terms of patriotism had already developed ... On a local forum I started a discussion of the film about the First Chechen War “Purgatory” after watching it. There I got to know a dude who suggested meeting. At that time I was 15 years old. We talked about this topic. Somehow we met, and he slowly began to send me information, which interested me. The xenophobia already existing at that time prevailed. From that moment, a small community of people of interest began to form, sharing extremely radical right-wing views. I dragged my friends into this. So, they were mostly 15, 16, 17 years old, more or less my peers, friends of the dude I met on the forum. Propaganda literature, videos and other Nazi content came into my field of vision. And since I'm still young, my hormones are already seething and so on, but at the same time I'm not smart at all, I got involved in all this. I believed it very strongly.
17:36 Rudoy:
The historical centers of the development of the skin movement in Russia are the largest cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Well, first of all, the fashion from the West came here faster. And secondly, there was a social base. There was a major redistribution of property here, and there were many foreign students. There, a little bit farther, is the Prioksky market. And if you go in that direction along Gagarin Avenue, then in 20 minutes you will reach the hostels of the Medical Academy, and in 30 minutes you will reach the UNN University Campus. That is, there were enough Indians, blacks, Caucasians here.
The skinheads had a large field of activity, and the police did not strongly suppress their actions, rather, on the contrary, they even encouraged them at times.
18:20 Voice-over:
Sometimes even the police do not shy away from interacting with them against the “criminal activity of migrants”, and, according to S. Belikov, “a very significant part of law enforcement officers treat skinheads with hidden sympathy.”
Viktor Shnirelman "Moscow Street Cleaners"
18:38 “Builder”, former member of the ultra-right movement:
The main activity was skirmishes with non-Russians, Roma. A couple of times we clashed with AKM (Vanguard of the Communist Youth).
18:49 Rudoy:
Researchers note that in the nineties, skinheads in Russia did not have any strict ideology. In principle, the guys had a real hodgepodge in their heads even then. But in the nineties, their theoretical skills completely sucked.
19:04 Voice-over:
Theoretically, the Nazi skinhead movement was supposed to be based on the ideology of White Power, but in practice, after a few years, any hooligan could become a skinhead, at least to some extent sharing the aggressively ethnoxenophobic ideas of the founders of the movement. The skin movement is neo-Nazi only in its core (more precisely, in numerous disparate cores), while in the mass it is aggressively racist, but indifferent to other ideological moments.
Alexander Verkhovsky “Ideological evolution of Russian nationalism: 1990s and 2000s.”
19:49 Dmitry, former member of the Antifa movement:
Actually, even hooliganism is ideologically weak, that is, it is also just everyday racism, cultivated to a somewhat more serious degree.
19:50 Rudoy:
Small companies hung out together, made some single attacks, but later these attacks became more and more large-scale. April 1998 is an important milestone here. Faxes are coming to the editorial office of the media with a statement that skinheads, starting from April 20, that is, from the day Hitler was born, intend to kill a black African every day in order to cleanse Russia. The media did not take the message seriously, although, actually, they should have. Since the end of April, regular attacks on foreign students begin. The plan for a daily dead black man, of course, was not implemented, but according to the Association of Foreign Students, there were an average of four attacks per day only on black students. A black African was killed. His corpse was thrown into a manhole near the Danilovsky market. On the Arbat, two women from the families of Pakistani diplomats were severely beaten. In the same area, a pregnant Indian citizen was brutally beaten by skinheads and suffered a miscarriage as a result of the beatings. The embassies of South Africa, Benin, Sudan, India and Nigeria sent official notes of protest to the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the skinhead terror.
All this suggests that hitherto spontaneous scattered groups of boneheads are beginning to cooperate and increase their numbers.
21:09 Voice-over:
As journalists lamented, in the early 2000s, the police looked the other way at the “fun” of skinheads, not considering them worthy of their attention. Today, this is also regretfully recognized by some law enforcement officials. Characteristically, in the second half of the 1990s and early 2000s, the police tried to ignore the activities of skinheads.
Viktor Shnirelman "Moscow Street Cleaners"
21:31 Rudoy:
Moreover, it was by no means only visiting students who were downtrodden by life that were attacked. In the same 1998 in Moscow there was a beating of the general secretary of the Socialist Party of Great Britain Peter Tuff, who came here with a lecture. Later, the son of the ambassador of Guinea-Bissau to Russia was beaten. An American marine was beaten up in Fili. By the way, the attacker was soon arrested. It was the leader of the skinhead group “Russian goal” Semyon Tokmakov. The arrest only added to the hype of local boneheads, who began to give paid interviews to foreign outlets. The “Russian goal” has grown in numbers. Their protests in front of the US embassy resonated, but in the end, after a year and a half of imprisonment, Tokmakov was released right in the courtroom. In the future, he would be involved in a series of murders already in the 2000s.
22:17 Voice-over:
"When you kill cockroaches, you don't feel sorry for them, do you?" Tokmakov said, when asked whether he felt sorry for the slain Tajik girl.
Skinheads fight their 'holy war', material from Taipei Times
22:31 Rudoy :
At the same time, musical and style-forming components of the subculture of Russian skinheads are being formed. The most famous band to this day is Kolovrat, which was originally called "Russian Ghetto". Moreover, the band toured quite well from the turn of the 1990s-2000s, until in 2004 the leader Denis Gerasimov was arrested and brought to trial in the Czech Republic, although he was eventually acquitted. But even after that the band continued its activities in Russia. By the way, Kolovrat's last studio album was released 3 years ago. It's also rather funny that the skinheads, who initially fought against rappers in the 2000s, have rap gurus themselves.
Generally speaking, it is interesting that a number of iconic modern rap artists and bands (in fact, very talented ones) have exploited the image of right-wing rap for their promotion. First of all, of course, these are Lupercal (aka Horus), “25/17”. At first, having read Dugin, even rapper Oxxxymiron (an ethnic Jew) "flirted" with nationalist and neo-Nazi motives, but this would be later.
Let's go back to the late 1990s. Skinheads adooted western external style: shaved bald or very short hair, a bomber jacket (Alpha Industries bombers were preferred) high boots reminiscent of army ones (the Grinders brand was in use), and of course all kinds of badges and patches. Real fanatics, of course, used swastikas. But who is more careful, used all kinds of runes and, of course, the Confederate battle flag.
23:58: Rudoy (about the flag):
Oops, sorry, I mixed up the photos.
24:01 Voice-over:
Of great importance is the “Aryan” Celtic cross, the battle flag of the Confederate States of America of the Civil War era, which has become a symbol of the racist organization Ku Klux Klan, German party and military regalia of the Third Reich and other symbolic symbols, rituals and digital codes.
Alexander Kuzmin “Ultra-Right Skinheads in Modern Russia: Evolution of Political Ideology and Practice”
A feature of Russian skinheads is their love for the flag of the slave-owning Confederacy, usually sewn on the sleeve or (if the patch is large) on the back of the bomber jacket.
Alexander Tarasov “Nazi Skinheads in Modern Russia” Report for the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights
24:45 Rudoy:
Of course, not everyone had enough money for such clothes, and sociologists, closer to the 2000s, note interesting changes in the social composition of the skin movement. If initially in large cities it consisted almost entirely of people from low-income families, then gradually, and especially in the 2000s, the offspring of businessmen began to join it.
25:07 Voice-over:
There are cities (Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar, Voronezh, Volgograd) in which a significant part (if not the majority) of skinheads are children from families of small and medium traders, representatives of small and medium businesses, middle officials, etc., saying in general - the middle and petty bourgeoisie.
According to the results of sociological surveys (partially published in the Moscow News newspaper), it is the children of Russian businessmen (especially medium and small ones) who are the bearers of much more pronounced nationalist ideas than their peers from other social strata.
Obviously, they already think in terms of family business and consider “strangers” as potential competitors. And this is indirect evidence of the unstable situation of medium and small businesses in Russia and the limited nature of the Russian market (in times of prosperity, there is enough space for everyone - both for their own and others).
In 1999, Polish sociologists from a group called "VIP" conducted research in private schools, believing that it was in these schools that the future business elite was growing, with whom Poland would sooner or later have to deal. Among high school students, a group was singled out (about 20% of the surveyed young men), conditionally called “nationalists”. As a rule, their parents were traders and mid-level business people (less often, officials).
This group quite firmly opposed itself to the main group of students surveyed (about 60% of high school students, as a rule, children of wealthier parents who openly demonstrated contempt for everything Russian and Russia and dreamed of living in the West).
“Nationalists” were going to live in Russia. In contrast to the “main group”, they proclaimed their allegiance to “Russian traditions” and Orthodoxy, and demonstrated hatred towards other confessions (especially towards Islam and Judaism).
Over 80% of this group called themselves racists and spoke in the spirit that “to be a racist is good and correct”, “the white race is the highest”, “blacks are subhumans” and “blacks are not human beings, they are apes”.
Almost everyone was against mixed marriages (moreover, 42% of the respondents were even against mixed marriages with everyone except Slavs, and about 20% were against mixed marriages with Slavs, if they were not Orthodox).
Alexander Tarasov "Extremists on call"
27:29 Dmitry, former member of the Antifa movement:
There, in principle, there were people quite successful. I have, for example, the experience of a fight with a person who owns a chain of restaurants in St. Petersburg (in my opinion, they even exist in Moscow).
27:40 Rudoy:
In general, the turn of the century is a heyday of Nazi skinheads in Russia. Firstly, the subculture itself migrates from the capital and large cities to the provinces, spreads like a kind of fashion. Since the 2000s, skinheads can be found even in the middle of nowhere. Their numbers are growing accordingly. By 2002, studies show an estimate of 50-60 thousand active boneheads. Skinhead communities existed in 85 cities. There were from five to five and a half thousand boneheads In Moscow, up to 3000 people in St. Petersburg and the immediate vicinity, over two and a half thousand in Nizhny Novgorod, over 1500 people in Rostov-on-Don, over 1000 people in Pskov, Kaliningrad, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, several hundred people in each of the following cities: Voronezh, Samara, Saratov, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Vladivostok, Ryazan, Petrozavodsk. And that doesn’t count sympathizers and people who were not part of such communities, but hung out with them.
Secondly, quantity turns into quality. Efforts were made to create centralized and organized parties and movements of an interregional nature. There are even attempts to include domestic boneheads in international structures. Often, already existing extremely nationalistic fascist parties try to integrate the skins into their structures. In the late nineties, such attempts were made, for example, by the Russian National Socialist Party, and the National Front of Ilya Lazarenko did not lag behind. The already mentioned Semyon Tokmakov with his "Russian goal" integrated into the NNP (People's National Party). It just so happened that Tokmakov shared a cell with film director Alexander Ivanov-Sukharevsky, the leader of the NNP. Ivanov-Sukharevsky even invented his own “ideology”, so called Rusism.
29:24 Voice-over:
Rusism is a rather exotic right-wing radical ideology, however, quite accessible to the consciousness of a typical skinhead. For example, despite the constantly emphasized adherence to Orthodoxy, Rusism is rather lenient towards Aryan paganism (in the spirit of National Socialism), since “race is higher than faith” and “blood unites, while religions divide”.
Rusism links pre-revolutionary Orthodox monarchism and National Socialism; according to the canons of Rusism, in the 20th century there were “two great Aryan heroes” - Nicholas II and Adolf Hitler, and Hitler was the avenger for Nicholas II “ritually sacrificed by the Bolsheviks and the Jews” and tried to bring the “Cross-Swastika to Russia enslaved by the Jews”.
Alexander Tarasov “Nazi Skins in Modern Russia”, report for the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights
30:24 Rudoy:
At the same time, we also need to be aware that Ivanov-Sukharevsky established not bad contacts with the State Duma. When he went to jail because of inciting ethnic hatred, a number of State Duma deputies interceded for him. Actually, he was released, then received a suspended sentence, and as a result was amnestied.
And of course, the fascist RNU (Russian National Unity) worked with skinheads. In general, the Nazi community in many cities is so mixed up that it is not always clear where the old nationalist structures ends and the youth skinhead gang begins. In fact, skinheads became a kind of human resource pool for ultranationalist parties and movements.
31:06 Anton, a former member of the ultra-right movement in the Nizhny Novgorod region:
On the one hand, skinheads and members of the Russian National Unity, were very similar, but on the other hand, they were different. Then it seemed to me that skinheads were more uneducated, or something, more straightforward, with a bias towards some kind of runes, a swastika, Hitler, and so on. And the RNU members were more well-read, educated, and, of course, with a bias towards Orthodoxy, although a very specific one. But in fact, of course, it still could not be clearly distinguished, and there was a single party. Naturally, everyone dressed very similarly, the same way. Bombers were popular, everyone cut their hair very short or shaved baldly, wore army boots, dark clothes, greeted each other the same way. Yes, and, as a rule, some events were also held together, because they were similar in temperament, had common goals, hug out together.
Besides, in addition to the first question, I’d like to correct it. It may seem from my explanation that all the skinheads were some kind of stupid and uneducated, while all the RNU members were smart and well-read. Not really. Among the skinheads there were both very well-read and absolutely stupid guys, and at the same time among the RNU members the situation was absolutely similar. There were very literate people who had read a million books and were straight-A students. They could also speak different languages. And there were absolute blockheads who could only break someone's nose.
32:44 Rudoy:
For the masses of young people, the whole skinhead movement was a fashion, but the most ideologically motivated of them joined skinhead groups, and then some of them migrated to nationalist parties and movements.
Moreover, since about 1997, international ultra-right structures from Germany, the Czech Republic, and the USA have begun working with Russian skinhead associations. Experts from the Ku Klux Klan and the NSDP/AO come to share their experiences with local youth. German fighters from the "Wiking-Jugend" (WJ, "Viking youth", an organization banned in Germany), the German People's Union, the Steel Helmet (also banned in Germany), the National Popular Front, the Union of Right Forces and other groups also visit Russia, organizing the supply of equipment, literature, audio products, including through the Baltic States.
But this is not all the trends and changes of those years. Due to the popularization of hip-hop in Russia (at that period, some iconic performers appear: from Detsl whose career was launched by his father to more real rapper bands, such as Kasta, Mnogotochie, Yu.G. and others), skinheads have a new target - rappers. I remember how local skinheads used to say that they were fighting against Caucasians, rappers and communists. That was quite an amusing set! Even then, I realized that the Communists are probably not bad guys.
It also makes sense that the petty-bourgeois public comes to the skin movement. There is such a link between the interests of business and bonds. Business circles often use skinheads for their own purposes. Business people begin to finance groups of radical nationalists. And those, for example, attack the markets or outlets of their opponents
34:25 Former member of the ultra-right movement (1):
Around 1999, some people began to appear who seemed to bring the ideology that it was necessary to unite around the Russian rich, the oligarchs, to support them in every possible way. However, there was no way to get out of this poverty. That is, they told us: “Yes, you were born poor, and he became rich, so you must support him. After all, he is Russian, he is building a kind of Russian world.” So, crap like this happened. It was unpleasant to listen to. So I ended up with it.
34:58 Anton, a former member of the ultra-right movement in the Nizhny Novgorod region:
Answering a question about entrepreneurs... Yes, of course, some entrepreneurs supported the movement, but to be honest, I don't understand the reasons. By and large, I saw entrepreneurs several times, who, I know, paid. They paid some expenses, sometimes they financed uniforms, sometimes some events, and the reasons are not clear, because they didn’t demand anything special in return. I know that in some situations, they asked the most violent for special services, so to speak, in an illegal field, meaning physical impact on someone, but to be honest, I don’t know more. It didn't really concern me. There was something like that, but not massively, I can definitely say. I think they were the same part of our society, and in many ways they were annoyed by the same people of non-Slavic appearance everywhere. But maybe they also interfered somewhere in some way: for example, in the markets. Maybe they took some share of sales if they had grocery stores or something. Some businesses, perhaps, were transferred to other diasporas. ... For some, so to speak, more mass events, such raids on the market or something else, we were hired buses. Someone paid for them, paid salaries to drivers, they brought us, took us away, these buses waited in a certain place. Of course, someone paid for it.
36:30 Rudoy:
Sometimes it came to truly bizarre situations: in 2002, in St. Petersburg, fascists from the Freedom Party staged a rally against the seizure of Russian forest land by Zionist capital, that is, the Ilim Pulp company of Zakhar Smushkin, a Jew by nationality. But the whole joke is that it was soon revealed: the rally was sponsored by Smushkin's competitor, businessman Vladimir Kogan, also a Jew.
– As Göring said, "I decide who is a Jew in the air force"
In general, it was the golden age for the skin movement in Russia. Just imagine: there is a social base in the form of young fanatics, there is support from the international skinhead community, there is support from political parties and even business. Plus, the skinhead police didn't really harass the skinheads back then.
And all this predetermined the sharp rise of the skinhead subculture in Russia and the growth of the aggressiveness of the skins themselves. If in 1998 the skins began with attacks on one person, on a small group, sometimes even women and children, then over time the scale of actions expanded. The first major actions were mass fights with fans of rap music on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow on September 4 and 5, 1999, a mass attack on rappers during the Beat-Battle music rap festival at the Dynamo Sports Palace on March 20, 2000, raids on markets in Yasenevo on April 21, 2001, in Tsaritsyno on October 30, 2001 (by the way, there were four killed, 80 wounded, a second pogrom occurred in 2004), raids on several central streets of St. Petersburg (Prospekt Prosveshcheniya, Prospekt Kultury) on February 19, 2002.
Well, you understand, who prevented Russia from becoming a great new Reich, rappers are to blame. And of course, raids on retail outlets continued at the suggestion of business partners, plus attacks on communists. In particular, in 2003, 30 boneheads attacked the headquarters of Labor Russia. Four Labor Russia activists were hospitalized in serious condition. The impudence of the Nazi skinheads is gaining momentum. For example, an attack on students of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) took place in 2003 not only on the territory of the university, but also during a visit by the Minister of Education.
38:45 Voice-over:
In 2000-2010, skinheads killed at least 20 people (many experts are unanimous that statistics of this kind are greatly underestimated). In 2003, according to Amnesty International, there were 204 racially motivated attacks. In 2004-2005 their number increased. Human rights activists record a sharp increase in the activity of skinheads over the next three to four years. In 2004, there were 268 racially motivated attacks in Russia, resulting in the death of 50 people, twice as many as in the previous year. In 2005, according to the SOVA Center, the number of such killings slightly decreased (47), while the number of racially motivated attacks increased sharply (to 465).
According to the same human rights activists, in 2006, 588 people suffered from attacks, and 66 of them died, and in 2007 the number of victims increased again - the corresponding figures amounted to 707 victims, of which 89 died.
Finally, the above trends made themselves felt, and in 2008, according to human rights activists, 110 people were killed, and there were 597 victims in total.
In other words, in four to five years, the number of victims of racially motivated attacks increased by 2-2.5 times. And only in 2009, after law enforcement agencies seriously dealt with the problem of youth extremism, did a turning point come. In 2009, as it turned out, 72 people were killed, and 431 people were injured in total. However, as before, there are reasons to consider these figures as underestimated.
Viktor Shnirelman "Moscow Street Cleaners"
40:35 Dmitry, a member of the skinhead movement in the Moscow region in the 2000s:
The second attack, in which I participated, ended in a stabbing. The man we attacked took out a knife... He was what is called "from the Caucasus region", and young. He took out a knife. One of the so-called seniors knocked out a knife from him. They picked up the knife and plugged it in a circle. He died after some time, literally in half an hour, he bled to death. It was the last thing I did in that group, because in less than a month we were caught. There was a consequence.
At first I was in a prison near Moscow while the investigation was underway. Then we were transferred to Moscow (“Water Stadium”, pre-trial detention center No. 6). This is already 2007-2008 - it was there that I met a large number of youngsters who were involved in quite high-profile cases. There I crossed the path with notorious Artur Ryno, with "Mob 13" (Moscow and suburban skinhead and neo-Nazi gang), basically, that's all about what kind of people and from what environment they were, and what we did.
41:55 Voice-over:
In December 2003, 6 local public organizations and a number of prominent public figures of Nizhny Novgorod appealed to the mayor of the city, the governor and the leadership of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate with a joint demand to curb skinheads, since attacks on representatives of national minorities since October 2003 have become massive and systematic. Representatives of human rights organizations in Nizhny Novgorod claim that "there has not been anything like this in the city since the pre-revolutionary Jewish pogroms."
Alexander Tarasov “Nazi Skins in Modern Russia” (report for the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights)
42:28 Ore:
In parallel, remarkable facts are beginning to be revealed. For example, in 2002, it turns out that the skins from the already mentioned NBP (Nazbol Party) trained on the basis of the Moscow OMON and with coaches from the Moscow OMON. Goddamn journos cast a shadow of suspicion on decent people, declaring that all this was done with the sanction of the top leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It also turns out that the presidential administration is working with the skinheads through the well-known organization “Idushchiye Vmeste” ('Walking together', the prototype of the “Nashi” — 'Ours' movement). In fact, the Tsaritsyno pogrom was a consequence of such an alliance that got out of control. Initially, the skinheads were supposed to beat up the protesters against the international forum at the Marriott hotel, but since there were no protests in the end, whereas the skinheads still gathered ("We're here, right?" ), they came off on the Afghans. It's also funny that Nazi-skinheads from circles gravitating towards Korporatsiya Tyazhelogo Roka "Hard Rock Corporation" of Sergei "Spider" Troitsky, known for his right-wing views, even participated in actions in support of the then head of the presidential administration, Alexander Voloshin.
In subsequent years, there is also interaction between, for example, the pro-Kremlin "Nashi" movement and skinhead communities. Here, by the way, is one of the revelations of the head of "Nashi", Vasily Yakimenko.
43:42 Voice-over:
“Skinheads are people just like you. Why provoke hostility? Moreover, skinheads sincerely believe that they are patriots of Russia. We should offer them an alternative. Why not invite 20-30 people here and show that they have something to do?”
Vasily Yakemenko
43:58 Rudoy:
However, action also breeds reaction. In Russia, at some point, the so-called red skinheads or Antifa appear.
44:08 Andrei, former member of the Antifa movement:
Well, Antifa is much smaller in number than the right, so all the time we probably had more anarchists in the Antifa movement, and there were quite a lot of, you know, traditional events, such as various charity events like “Food instead of bombs ". We fed the homeless, carried out various anti-militarist campaigns, and collected toys for orphanages, organized anti-fascist concerts. Well, we also conducted anti-fascist agitation among the youth. Unfortunately, from time to time we had to enter into various violent conflicts with the rightists, because they were very “pleased” with the presence of Antifa in the city. Because they could finally unite among themselves, arrange various raids. We had to somehow resist this, to give some kind of rebuff.
45:02 Former member of the Antifa movement:
Anti-fascists in my years were engaged, firstly, in concerts ...
Actually, how did the confrontation between the Nazis and anti-fascists appear? It's just the Nazis disrupted the concerts. Concerts played a rather large role in the anti-fascist movement in general (leftists, punks, skinheads, just some ordinary people who sympathize and love music). Speaking of our fights with the Nazis... We walked the streets, figured it out. We knew where they were going, and when we were in the mood, we just went to these places, caught and beat people.
And here we must see that anti-fascists are also different: there were more inclined towards anarchism, and there were more apolitical ones, that is, people who did not fit particularly into politics. Those more inclined towards anarchism were closer to the Autonomous Action organization. And our apolitical party, in fact, demonstrated only on May Day. So, we didn’t do anything particularly political.
46:29 Rudoy :
Time runs. In 2005-2009, such groups as the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI, now banned), Dmitry Dyomushkin's Slavic Union and the National Socialist Society intensified their contacts and cooperation with skinheads. At the same time, the same Dyomushkin managed to establish contacts with some deputies of the State Duma of Russia: met with Zhirinovsky, Baburin, Ishchenko, Kuryanovich. The last of them, by the way, a former member of the Liberal Democratic Party, was also a member of the Slavic Union for about a year. Such organizations are also systematically used by the presidential administration for political purposes. It is noteworthy that the skins are set against the left, and even Limonov's Nazbol Party, the members of which themselves did not shy away from fascist aesthetics.
47:14 Voice-over:
Later, "Nashi" attracted ultra-right fans to fight against representatives of the radical opposition, Limonovites (the NBP) and members of the "Other Russia". There have been repeated statements in the press that it was "Nashi" leader Vasily Yakemenko who was responsible for the attack on journalist Oleg Kashin, for which football ultras may have been used.
In addition, Surkov's "Nashi" were noted for their cooperation with the xenophobic Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) by Alexander Belov-Potkin, which was later recognized as extremist. "Nashi" did not hesitate to involve shaven-headed thugs from DPNI in their project of “people's squads”. Thus, the state's monopoly on the use of force was destroyed by the hands of the authorities themselves.
Avrorin S.D. "Black International"
47:59 Ore:
In 2005-2008, members of the Slavic Union (or, as they call themselves "SS", which stands for Slavyansky Soyuz) and allied organizations took part in organizing the Russian March. Members of the group are especially active on the Internet. In addition to propaganda, the Slavic Union is known for hacking hostile websites of political opponents. In general, the SS is an organization of the classic Hitlerite National Socialist version. The bulk of the organization are skinheads and football fans. Although there are no direct calls for violence in the official documents of the Slavic Union, the members of the Union promote the cult of power, the war against the invaders, and approve of those who commit xenophobic crimes. Members of the organization have been involved in racist attacks. Individual members of the group, including Dyomushkin himself, were repeatedly prosecuted or under suspicion, and some of them were convicted of serious crimes, including those committed on the basis of hatred.
It is worth saying that in the 2000s, especially in the second half of the 2000s, the skinhead subculture in Russia is undergoing changes. Still, Russia was inundated with petrodollars, the situation with poverty is improving a little, and this deprived skinheads of their social base. The redistribution of markets is no longer so urgent. Plus, there are show trials on some skinheads, and some just get smarter, get families, or move from the category of such active street fighters to the state of everyday racists.
Plus, often the old skin movement is transformed into fan organizations. In general, this near-football theme finally replaces the old skin movements of the 1990s by the end of the 2000s. The football theme of both Western and Russian skinheads was strong from the very beginning. There is even a version that the skinhead subculture entered Russia through football. But it is precisely the shift from the classic skinhead subculture towards football that occurs in the capitals in the mid-2000s, and in the provinces at the end of the 2000s. By 2005, for example, in St. Petersburg and Moscow, only completely deranged fellas considered themselves Nazi skinheads. In the near-football environment, skinheads were replaced by hooligans and ultras. However, the essence of this does not change. Football fans, like skinheads before, are used to the fullest by uncles from high offices. The most notable incident occurred in Khimki during the historic protests against the deforestation of the Khimki forest. Then far-right fans were set against the protesters. In the future, this trend will continue. Fans will be used to disperse the protests in Yekaterinburg, and from them they will recruit near-church militant squads such as the "Sorok Sorokov" organization.
50:37 Rudoy (via video link):
Listen, how do you now, so to speak, in retrospect , evaluate the then confrontation between the Nazis and Antifa?
50:47 Former member of the Antifa movement:
Well, it was just a subculture. Essentially, many anti-fascists I know were found by other anti-fascists before Nazis did it. I mean, they didn't care, for the most part. Well, maybe they didn't like "Sieg heil!" They liked violence ... Or not violence, but cool concerts, great music. Therefore, basically , neither the Nazis nor the anti-fascists had a political idea ... People just had a lot of fun, although they killed each other at times.
51:30 Rudoy :
It is also interesting that it was at this time that the star of the most famous of the skinheads "of all the Russias", Maxim Martsinkevich, rose. On July 2, 2007, Martsinkevich better known as Tesak (Russian for Cutlass, Hatchet or Slasher) was detained and charged as a defendant under Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Inciting ethnic hatred with the threat of violence" for the incident he committed in the "Bilingua" club, when several Nazi skinheads led by him and his colleague Rumyantsev appeared at political debates, shouting threats and Nazi slogans. The statement, as you may know, was written by Navalny. On February 18, 2008, Tesak was sentenced to three years in a penal colony. He was also suspected of other crimes, including murders, which were filmed. Evidence of old crimes would suddenly surface 12-13 years later, when the authorities will take on Tesak more thoroughly. In the meantime, when he was in jail, his "National Socialist Society" (NSO) — perhaps one of the most powerful and promising Nazi organizations of that time — was being split and destroyed.
In terms of ideology and organization structure, the NSO differed markedly from other associations of its kind. For example, in their ideology, in addition to the traditional apologetics of Hitler, the theory of German National Socialism during the Third Reich and the idea of the Holy Race War, there was a rejection of anti-Semitism. In their program documents we read the following.
52:53 Voice-over:
“On the way to the creation of the Russian National Socialist State, we no longer consider the nationally oriented Jewry as our enemy.”
53:01 Rudoy:
Even the appearance of skinheads in the 2000s began to change. Bald heads, grinders and so on fade into the background. Skinheads are increasingly mimicking ordinary passers-by and their subculture faded into the background at that period. Tesak would be released three years later, will sell his face wherever possible, especially against the backdrop of the rise in Navalny’s popularity, would organize the extremist right-wing radical movement “Restrukt”, would gain popularity with his “Occupy Pedophilia”. And things seemed to go on, there was a commercial success, popularity. Tesak is actually one of the first video bloggers who began to use advertising integrations and thus cash in on gullible Aryans from his audience.
53:44 “Tesak”:
"But you have the right to drink when you want. Every Russian should have the right. Russians are worth only the best! "
53:56 Ore:
But, firstly, the project participants, in addition to catching pedophiles, begin to engage in robbery and other illegal things at the same time, and secondly, Tesak also begins to catch drug dealers. And this is already a more serious subject than pedophiles, and with much more serious patrons.
54:15 “Tesak”:
"I am making an official statement that I have nothing against Tajik drug dealers, Uzbek drug dealers, but against this particular citizen - look here! look here! - I don’t like you personally. Oops ... Oops ... Oops ... What the [ __]! ... They've sprayed again ? [ __ ] [ __ ] youngsters!"
54:35 Rudoy:
At the same time, part of the Nazis fed by the authorities is getting really insolent. Feeling the support of the very top, the neo-Nazis felt that they were allowed everything, because they were under they are backed by the administration. As a part of the "Russian Image" - a neo-fascist movement encouraged by Surkov's businessmen - the so-called Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists (BORN) was created.
This gang was responsible for a number of high-profile political murders: Moscow City Court judge Eduard Chuvashov, lawyer Stanislav Markelov, journalist Anastasia Baburova, leaders of the so-called Antifa Fyodor Filatov, Ilya Japaridze and Ivan Khutorskoy, as well as world Thai boxing champion Muslim Abdullaev and others.
55:09 Voice-over:
During the trial of the BORN leaders, one of the defendants, Yevgenia Khasis, admitted that their curator was Leonid Simunin, a functionary of the pro-Kremlin nationalist movements Mrestnuye ("Local") and Rossiya Molodaya ("Young Russia") , created during the Surkov period, engaged in provocations against radical oppositionists. As Yevgenia Khasis testified at the trial, Leonid Simunin looked after the radicals on behalf of the presidential administration and gave them "small change" from the money allocated to finance youth policy.
“I don’t know for sure whether Surkov knew about all this. But I know that Leonid Simunin was Surkov’s representative, he said phrases like “I consulted with the leadership,” “the leadership did not recommend.” For their monstrous crimes, BORN participants received serious sentences, up to to life imprisonment, however, the investigation apparently did not dare to investigate the connections of the militants with their high-ranking curators.
Avrorin S.D. "Black International"
56:06 Ore:
However, the games of power with the ultra-right, in principle, often resulted in excesses. They were able to develop large-scale combat-ready groups of booms, but they did not succeed in creating a completely controlled neo-Nazi space, and the most striking event was the Manezhnaya Square riots in 2010, when a rally of ultra-right football fans in memory of Yegor Sviridov, who was killed by Caucasians, turned into simply riots that even could not appease the brave riot police, who for some reason were then beaten, and not thrown at him with plastic cups.
Apparently, it was these events that became an important milestone in changing the policy of the authorities towards neo-Nazis. Individual representatives began to be even more actively integrated into power, while others were even more actively pressed.
Strange as it may seem, it was Ukraine that completely changed the layout of the skinhead movement in Russia. If we can talk about their subculture in 2013-2014, then as a thing already so local and fading away. The fashion to be a skinhead iis becoming a thing of the past, the social base is being eroded. Here, we ciuld talk about, rather, about such a post-skinhead movement, when many simply leave politics. Someone migrates to parties and movements of a nationalist persuasion, someone even tries to pose as national democrats and such "cultural right" (the best example is, of course, the site "Sputnik and Pogrom"), and someone is re-educated and even goes to the left
. 57:39 “Builder”, former member of the ultra-right movement:
I got away from this very simply, I grew up, just grew up, and that's it. There was also a comrade from AKM (Vanguard of Red Youth), with whom we crossed paths at school and so forth. He began to tell me about Marxism. I liked this idea better, and kind of walked away from my past. I just got fired up with the idea of Marxism.
58:02 Dmitry, a former member of the skin movement in the Moscow region in the 2000s:
After serving part of the term, I was released on parole, and during this term I met different people, with different ideas. I read different books: about Marxism, paganism, - in general, I actually read everything in a row, got information, and in such a way, in my opinion, I changed my views on ideology. Plus, I thought a lot after the release. Speaking of remarkable moments, it is probably worth noting that I began to drink, but not a lot at first. Gradually, I started to drink more and more. Then there were drugs, and somehow I decided to go, but I understood that it was impossible to live like that.
I decided to go to a psychotherapist. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Again, this is like a warning to all those who are thinking about something violent. Remember, it's not worth it. This will ruin the life of another person, and ruin your own life, respectively. This means an undermined psyche, and so on.
Yes, I probably haven’t mentioned: after I was imprisoned, this reflection began after a certain time. I started having nightmares. At first I did not even perceive them as nightmares, but later all this began to torment me. I had nightmares very often: the murder and then I a lot of cruelty, a lot of violence, which, by and large, drove me crazy. Actually, here's the backstory.
What else can be said? What happened to our movement? We were imprisoned, and after that everyone got away and decided to live a normal life. As for the movement itself in general in Moscow… Well, what can I say, they started jailing, and the people began to act just differently. What previously had been a subculture of those who liked to have a drink and beat up browns, has gone underground, as far as I know. I don’t really know anymore: in fact, I’m no longer interested in this topic. As for the change in my ideology and political views: at first, after I was released, I was very neutral in this regard. I tried to keep neutrality, but at the same time, some attitudes from the past were still preserved, with which I slowly struggled. Well, this is the attitude towards visitors and so on. Then I came across a series of video lectures about anarcho capitalism, about libertarianism. I was fascinated by this idea, but later I met a girl who had anarcho-communist views, and slowly my political preferences began to turn in the direction of anarchism, anarcho-communism, and I, in principle, adhere to libertarian socialism. I am interested in these theories, but I didn’t get to practice and special cases. Although I went to some demonstrations, something like that, in fact.
1:01:16 Rudoy:
But here came 2014. The Kremlin puppeteers suddenly see, using the Kyiv events as an example, that the hordes of neo-Nazis, brought up with their own knowledge or with their connivance, can, it turns out, be seriously used against them as well. And in order to save themselves from Yanukovych's mistake, and also to show once again that Russia is not Ukraine, the authorities suddenly stop the mass destruction of Soviet monuments (although before that they did it like no one else, there was even a long-standing article about this on Vestnik Buri ), and also begin to clean up the most zealous far-right.
1:01:50 Voiceover:
After the riots on Manezhnaya Square, the authorities saw a threat in the ultra-right," says Mikhail Remizov, president of the National Strategy Institute.
“After the [Ukrainian] Maidan, this feeling finally took root, and a course was taken to counteract in this political spectrum,” he told URA.RU. According to him, in 2013-2014, a number of far-right organizations that had previously operated with the knowledge of the security forces were banned. At the same time, the authorities began holding preventive talks with nationalists, Remizov said. “They were explained in simple words that they should not be engaged in active street politics. And the criminal cases against the leaders of the nationalists - Daniil Konstantinov, Dmitry Dyomushkin, Alexander Belov (Potkin) gave credibility to these conversations,” remarks Remizov. Stanislav Zakharkin, Nurlan Gasimov, "Where did the skinheads disappear from the streets of Russian cities?"
1:02:47 Former member of the Antifa movement:
I can say that, probably, a very serious turning point, in general, the confrontation between Antifa and the right, of course, in 2014, because, of course, it split both the left, and the right strongly. The ultra-right neo-Nazis, without hesitation, had associated themselves with various radical regimes of the first half of the last century, that is, they had not tried to hide their sympathy for Hitler, Mussolini, and so on. After some time, they had to make certain choices. Some of them supported Maidan, some of them supported Anti-Maidan. They began to quarrel with each other, perhaps even more radically than they had previously quarreled with us. It's quite an interesting process. And now the old wave of precisely radical neo-Nazis is again facing the following choice: what should they do in the context of ongoing special operations. And I see a bunch of different old neo-Nazis who are now going to serve in the army, going to fight. They occupy some specific positions in the army, and not only in the army, in law enforcement agencies, too.
They, of course, behave differently than when they shaved their heads and chased Antifa with fittings around the city with a piece of rebar. They behave more civilly, but, on the other hand, they have not lost their views and pose a rather serious threat to us in the future.
We need to understand this.
1:04:22 Rudoy :
It is worth saying that Vladislav Surkov, who oversees the Ukrainian direction, manages, how to say it, to "utilize" Russian skinheads. That is, they go to work as cannon fodder either on one or the other side of the front. Moreover, even outright sadists find a use there.
1:04:47 Person in the frame
I am a Nazi. I will not go into depth, whether I am a nationalist, a patriot, an imperialist, and so on. I'm just a real Nazi. I can even raise my hand to give the salute. You must understand, that when you kill a person, you feel: a) hunting excitement. Who has not been on the hunt - try it, it's interesting ...
Those who condemn me in this can go to hell, because this is my trophy. I am like a hunter. It's like, "that's it, I've taken a picture".
1:05:13 Voice-over:
Judging by the materials of the hacked mail of V. Surkov, he selected and approved the leaders of the South-East from the list proposed by Konstantin Malafeev, and later sought to adjust the composition of the governments of the DPR and LPR, controlling all serious appointments. To date, a paradoxical and extremely dangerous situation has developed in the Donbass: open neo-Nazis from Kyiv are confronted by therepublics, which for the most part are also headed by hidden ultra-rights. The “joke” is quite in the spirit of the well-known cynic and postmodernist Surkov, who acted as the main architect of the regimes in the LPR and DPR.
But the matter, unfortunately, is not limited to this, because in the conditions of the war in the East of Ukraine, the Russian ultra-right, thanks to the situation created by Vladislav Surkov, receive the unique experience of a war in the conditions of urban guerilla, as well as real political and administrative control, that they did not have before. We can only be horrified by imagining what will happen in Russia itself if such people, having learned the experience in the LPR and DPR, try to repeat it in our country.
Avrorin S.D. "Black International"
1:06:23 Rudoy:
I definitely share the final fear of the author of the quote. A particularly interesting situation has developed in the last 7 months. Against the background of the declared denazification of Ukraine, at least two neo-Nazi formations take part in the hostilities on the Russian side: the Russian Imperial Legion and Rusich. Of course, if you visit their telegram, you can sometimes laugh out loud at the fact that these guys, it turns out, are fighting against Ukrainian Bolshevism and communist power. It's not clear where they found it, but still. However, at times it becomes no longer funny, but truly disgusting.
1:07:00 CZAR.CHAT. "Conversations about the Russian war"
When a man goes to war, this is sexual attraction, you know? It's like libido. Like a man sitting there saying: “I wanna fight!” This is like a man who wants a woman ... This is your realization ... You kill, let's say, a piglet (well, everyone understands who I call a piglet). Well, I am sure you that you are enjoying the fact that his wife was left a widow there, and they are crying there with the whole family, and that he will come home in a coffin, and so on.
And at this moment, you get an erection, don't you? Am I right ? Well, just a little? Well, that's what I'm trying to say.
1:07:45 Rudoy:
All this is a regurgitation of the very neo-Nazi subculture that was nurtured in Russia, and which Putin's government is still trying to use for its own purposes.
It is noteworthy that even the interpellation of Anatoly Wasserman who was indignant by the presence of ultra-right volunteers at the front (and I remind you, he is now a State Duma deputy) did not produce any results. The authorities stimulated the inclusion of right-wing football fans in the fighting by introducing a fan ID. For example, a CSKA fan, "Spaniard", spoke about the participation of fans in the hostilities in the Donbass: after the introduction of the Fan ID, the guys had nowhere to go, a large number of people who wanted to go and fight appeared. Niw, only a complete idiot does not understand that these people with combat experience, completely deranged, accustomed to killing, will sooner or later return to Russia (at least some of them). And this is where the most fun will begin, if Putin's cunning puppeteers do not find the strength and desire to court-martial those who have worked their job, in time. However, there is not much hope for this. Practice shows that the former skinheads can be used against people who are dissatisfied with the construction of the temple in the next square, and against direct opposition.
For a long time there have been no skinheads in Shcherbinki. The air is clean. There is no sense of danger. But this may be a temporary phenomenon, because the war that goes on 1,000 km from here inevitably breeds monsters that we have yet to face. Think about it.
This was Vestnik Buri. See you again.