Posted on 08/04/2002 4:58:37 PM PDT by aculeus
Viktor has just graduated from a prestigious Moscow school and joined the Moscow Law Academy. He works as a computer systems administrator in the summer, likes President Vladimir Putin and despises communists.
Viktor also hates immigrants, especially those from former Soviet republics. He wears heavy Dr Martens boots, Nazi badges and his fists are covered with scars from street fights.
The 16-year-old is one of about 7000 Moscow skinheads, a fast-growing group who are blamed for a string of attacks on foreigners in the Russian capital.
"The media try to portray us as 'dumbheads' who cannot string two words together. Do I look like one?" he asks as he sips beer in the street cafe next to his old school.
Viktor spends his evenings with his skinhead pals in their neighbourhood on the outskirts of Moscow. They drink beer and listen to Western skinhead bands or their Russian copycats.
Then they go out hunting for victims - dark-skinned traders from the former Soviet republics, African students, Afghan refugees, South Asian guest workers.
"Our neighbourhood has already been cleaned of this filth. We have beaten them all. God help any foreigner that hangs around on his own where we live," Viktor says.
Moscow is a popular destination for migrants from the war-torn and poverty-stricken fringes of the former Soviet Union, attracted by higher living standards than elsewhere in Russia.
The Russian capital has seen a surge of racially motivated violence in recent years. The first known skinhead attacks occurred in Russia as early as the mid-90s.
In the most serious incident, last October, a mob of about 250 skinheads rampaged through an immigrant-controlled street market, killing three people and injuring 30.
In the past year alone, the number of skinheads in Moscow is said to have doubled. While there are several well-organised groups such as United Brigades 88, most are loose bands of youths linked to specific neighbourhoods.
"It has become fashionable to be a skinhead in Russia," says researcher Vyacheslav Likhachev, author of the book Nazism in Russia, the first attempt at analysing the skinhead movement. "Everyone knows who they are and fears them."
Foreign students at the People's Friendship University in Moscow say they feel safe only on the university campus, where they are protected by a private security firm.
"This campus is like a prison for us. I cannot even take my girlfriend to the movies," says Christian Bock, a 30-year-old construction engineering student from Cameroon beaten by skinhead gangs three times during his seven years in Moscow.
The university hosts thousands of students from developing countries attracted by low tuition fees. Lonely African or Asian students travelling on the underground are favourite targets for skinhead gangs that are often afraid to attack people from the Caucasus, who live in close-knit communities and are often able to defend themselves.
"Once on the underground I was confronted by six guys with clean-shaven heads in Dr Martens boots," says Bock. "One of them came up to me and said, 'You, black arse, what are you doing here, have you paid tax yet?' They started beating me while others on the train looked on as if it were a movie." "Skinheads" are often portrayed in the Russian media as children of working-class families living in poor neighbourhoods on the edge of big industrial centres. Poverty and poor education are believed to force disillusioned youths into skinhead groups.
"This stereotype is often not true," Likhachev says. "Skinheads are most often children of the former Soviet middle class, which slid into poverty during the economic reforms [of the 1990s] and could not fit into the new realities.
"Since this movement has become popular you can find many social groups among the skinheads, including children from successful and wealthy families. Skinheads are only part of the problem. What is more important is a widespread xenophobia in society, that their actions find understanding rather than condemnation."
The irony is that neo-Nazis can flourish in a country where tens of millions died fighting Hitler's armies during World War II. Viktor's grandfather, like most of his generation, fought the Nazis, but the two nevertheless agree on some things.
"He doesn't like my badges but he agrees with me about the foreigners," Viktor says.
Translation: children of former Party bureaucrats who didn't get a share of the looting that occurred in the 90s
In the 1930s, Hitler readily recruited from the local German Communists. They just swapped their red shirts for black
Folks, you should be able to see through this garbage.
Folks, you should be able to see through this garbage.
I do see through your garbarge. Your assertions are completely unsubstantiated.
Everyone knows dumbheads wear green suspenders instead of the more common red suspenders that skinheads prefer .
...sounds like Russia still has much growing up to do.Yeah.
Once they start affirmative action for homosexuals, they can be as "grown up" as we are.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.