Young Guard (21st century)

The Young Guard ( _ru. "Молодая гвардия", transliterated: "Molodaya gvardiya") is a largely pro-Kremlin youth direct action group, similar in many ways to Nashi.

The organization – 'the youth wing of the ruling United Russia party' [ [http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/06/17/in_russia_shame_keeps_order/ "In Russia, shame keeps order" – Erika Niedowski, Baltimore Sun, 17 June 2007] .Retrieved on 2007-08-02.] – uses the name of a World War II Komsomol underground organization, in the Nazi-occupied Soviet city of Krasnodon in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. It claims to have branches across Russia from the country's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad oblast to Vladivostok on the Pacific. [ [http://www.molgvardia.ru/ "Molodaya gvardiya"] .Retrieved on 2007-08-02.]

In 2007,
*"Molodaya gvardiya" claimed that 15,500 of the 18,000 people who turned out at sanctioned events in Moscow on April 14 – when the opposition "Other Russia" had called people out to take part in a 'March of Dissent', which the city had banned – were its supporters. [ [http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?menu=1&id_issue=11713510 "Administrative cases opened against all detained protesters - police" – Interfax news agency, 14 April 2007] .Retrieved on 2007-08-02] .]
*Members of "Molodaya gvardiya" took part – along with members of Nashi and similar groups in a campaign of harassment against Estonia's ambassador to Russia and her embassy's staff – after the authorities in her country removed the 1947 'Bronze Soldier' monument to the Soviet 'liberators' of Estonia at the end of World War II. [ [http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=11725042 "Russian youth movement banned from entering Estonia" – Interfax news agency, 1 May 2007] .Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] [ [http://web-static.vm.ee/static/failid/406/ER_16-17.pdf "Estonian Review" vol. 17 No. 16-17, Foreign Ministry, Tallinn, 2 May 2007] . Retrieved on 2007-08-01.]
*Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet said on Estonian TV's Channel 2 news 1 May 2007: "The direct links of hostile Russian youth organisations like Nashi and "Molodaya gvardiya" to the Kremlin are well known. Just as well known is the fact that each person holding Estonian Embassy in Moscow under siege is being paid 550-1000 roubles per day by the Kremlin." [ ["Reporter", Kanal 2 TV, Tallinn, 1 May 2007] ] [ [Estonian Foreign Ministry press statement, 1 May 2007] ]
*"Molodaya gvardiya" – like other Putin-era youth groups, [the national] Nashi ('Ours!) and [Moscow oblast-based] Mestniye ('Locals'), was believed to have strong financial and administrative support from the government, the US-funded Radio Free Europe reported on 20 July 2007. [ [http://www.rferl.org/features/features_Article.aspx?m=07&y=2007&id=56D4C1EE-843F-4848-8537-12ED286E83AD "Russia: No Idle Summer Days For Political Youth" – Oleg Kusov and Maksim Yaroshevsky, RFE, 20 July 2007] .Retrieved on 2007-08-01]
*Molodaya gvardiya encouraged a protest in Vladivostok on July 6 against what it described as the ‘deplorable state of roads in the Russian Far East’ Demonstrators blocked one of the many nearly impassable highways there to erect a mock monument consisting of a broken wheel celebrating this achievement of their society. The organization claimed its protest ‘quickly drew a crowd of supporters, who chanted Russians “need normal roads! Highways along which one can drive without fearing that your car’s wheels will fall off’. [ [http://www.molgvardia.ru/ "Molodaya gvardiya", 9 July 2007] .Retrieved on 2007-08-02] .]

In 2008,
*In February, members of the 'Molodaya gvardiya' disrupted a medical conference on heroin addiction treatments, protesting the use of the drug Methadone. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/health/22meth.html?pagewanted=all "Russia Scorns Methadone for Heroin Addiction" – Michael Schwirtz, The New York Times, 22 July 2008] .Retrieved on 2008-07-22.]

External links

* [http://www.molgvardia.ru/ "Molodaya gvardiya" website] ru icon

References