Topic: Focus on Russia
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Russian airport special police personnel
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"skinhead" youth
Notes on Russian Interview (IV)
The phenomenon of "skinheads" in Russia
Aiming liu
The skinhead party in Russia is very famous. Many foreigners in Russia, especially some Asians and Jews, have been attacked by skinheads. These news are often reported in Russian and other news media in the world. Not long ago, another China student studying in Moscow University was stabbed more than 20 times by a group of skinheads and almost died. Many China students studying in Russia, especially in Moscow, are afraid to go out at night.
Putin once described "skinheads" as a "cancer" growing on Russia. This cancer is small in number, but it has lost a big face to Russia. We "focus on Russia" also want to pay attention to this social phenomenon, and also want to understand the motivation and purpose of the "skinhead party". I didn’t know until Russia that the skinheads mentioned by the media were not a party or a group, but generally referred to some "problem of juvenile": most of them were middle school students, who deviated from the normal life track due to various social and family reasons, were manipulated by some extreme right-wing groups or parties, and were obsessed with some extremely fanatical political opinions, such as opposing immigrants to ensure Russian employment and protecting the purity of the Russian nation. These right-wing views are often grassroots, violent and even patriotic, so they still have a certain popularity in Russia. Especially in times of economic crisis and sudden increase of unemployment, the activities of "skinheads" will obviously become active.
The most direct way to observe this social phenomenon is to talk to members of the skinhead party. The "skinheads" do not have a fixed group. They are all lower-level organizations of all extreme right-wing parties or groups, and they are a very loose group. To find them, we must pull strings through some far-right political parties or organizations. This is a very difficult thing, because we are obviously critical of the "skinheads", and it is not easy to let others find a target for us to fight. Besides, we don’t know the way of "skinheads", so don’t make them irritable and give us violence, which will be troublesome.
But unexpectedly, Sergei, a Russian who assisted us in the interview, contacted the Slavic League, a very famous far-right organization in Russia. The head of this organization actually agreed to accept our interview and agreed to bring a skinhead youth to meet with us.
The interview was conducted on the lawn of a residential area, because the alliance did not have its own fixed office space at all. At five o’clock in the afternoon, we met these two in a residential area in Moscow. One is the leader of the Slavic Union, which has caused many violent attacks on foreigners in Russia, and the other is a very special Russian youth with five big and three thick faces.
The leader of the Slavic Union is Jim. As soon as he came up, he said that he disapproved of his young people attacking foreigners by force, because the effect was not obvious. Instead of preventing a large number of foreign immigrants from entering Russia, he was caught by the media. However, he said that now they have not found a better way to stop foreign immigrants, and they can only use violence as a last resort to cause social reactions, so as to influence the government’s immigration policy …
However, the more Jim talks about it, the more frightening it makes us feel. He said: The pure Russian nation is Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and people from other places should not come to Russia. Otherwise, Russia will lose its cultural and ethnic purity and disappear. All Russian men should defend their homes and protect their women and children like soldiers. But now the government is wrong in its immigration policy, so we have to act on our own. Ask him how to act. He shrugged and took a dagger out of his pocket and said, I use it to protect myself. He also said that there are two automatic pistols in my car on the side of the road, and I use them to protect my home!
Listening to what he said, we were in a cold sweat. It seems that the two sides do not live on the same planet at all. A China girl who accompanied us to interview and studied in Moscow University began to look pale. She said that what this person said was absolutely true, because one of her classmates was killed by a "skinhead", and she still remembers the dress that was dyed red with blood. In the past, she was afraid of avoiding skinheads, but today she faces them face to face, trembling in her heart.
When interviewing the skinhead youth around Jim, it was even more thrilling. He changed into a t-shirt with Slavic League printed on it in front of us, and when he changed clothes, a long scar appeared on his abdomen! Ask him the origin of this scar, and he said it was left when he fought with foreigners from Central Asia. When asked if he had ever beaten a foreigner, he said, It’s a secret. The implication is "do you still have to ask?"
Then he said: when we see our beautiful Russian girl being hugged by foreigners, this is absolutely intolerable!
During the interview, an episode happened. A window of a nearby residential building suddenly opened and a man shouted at us in Russian. The translator told me that this is a dirty sentence, which means to get rid of the skinheads! Obviously, the residents here don’t welcome these two people very much. After a while, the man upstairs scolded 1 again. Then, Mr. Jim, the leader of Slavic Union, recoiled the man and shouted! The translator said: he cursed a more malicious swear word! Gal, the man upstairs didn’t make any noise.
I’m worried about getting into trouble. In this sparsely populated community, in the face of these two people with obvious violent tendencies, something will really happen. I wonder who can protect us strangers. It is appropriate to end the interview as soon as possible, so I reminded Zhang Yu to end the interview soon.
When they said goodbye, they invited us to visit their training on Sunday, that is, shooting, stabbing and fighting training. There is also a request: please make a copy of your program and send it to us on CD. Jim said that in the past, several foreign TV stations came to interview them, including journalists from the United States, Italy, Poland and other countries. They all promised to send CDs of the programs, but in the end there was no news. I thought to myself, who dares to touch them again? It’s too late to hide. We said that you can directly log on to the website of China CCTV and download all the programs. We also gave them the website of CCTV.
Leaving these two people, we are finally at ease. However, we also wonder why the Russian government, which is so tough to the outside world, can’t control the phenomenon of "skinheads" that discredit itself. Later, I talked about this matter with Russian friends many times before I realized that this is a very complicated social phenomenon. It is an external manifestation of some extreme nationalism in Russian society. It is inextricably linked with the Russian right wing, Russian history, Russian religion and Russian social unrest. It is not as simple as catching a few criminals.
Editor: Wang Yuxi