They are preparing young people for camps

A presentation of the youth forum “Seliger – 2009” was held in State Duma. This time the gathering will become the central event of the declared Year of Youth in Russia. It is the first time when the organizers of the forum will be not the movement “Nashi” (“Ours”), but the Ministry of sport, tourism and youth policy of the RF, that asks to budget for the youth 1.2 billion rubles. Though there will be mainly realized educational programs and training in the camp, its organizers notified that the opposition will not be allowed to come to Seliger.

The presentation of the summer camp at the lake Seliger was held yesterday in State Duma on the conference on first-priority projects in the framework of the Year of Youth. All the previous years the forum was a political summer camp of the movement “Nashi”, however this time the event assumes All-Russian scope. The gathering will continue nearly whole summer and will become the central development of the Year of Youth, which federal budget will finance. Vitalii Mutko, the Minister of sport, tourism and youth policy has already asked Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, 1.2 billion rubles for the activity of the Year of Youth. Besides Seliger there are some more forums that will be held in the Russian regions: on Sakhalin, in Karelia, in Astrakhan and in Krasnoyarsk.

The participants of the conference headed by Vice-Speaker of State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovski unanimously spoke that the principal objective of these summer forums is “to give every young person an opportunity to prove and fulfill yourself” especially in the case of the world financial crisis. Vasilii Yakemenko, the Head of the Federal agency on youth, did not spare his own nephew striving for making youth active. He announced publicly that this young man wanted to borrow money to buy an automobile “Gazel” from him. However, when Mr. Yakemenko insisted on calculating the profitability of this purchase, the young man vanished and appeared no more. “We are to struggle with it and provide everyone with an opportunity of finding his own business”, he summed up.

There are suggested seminars and training on ABC of entrepreneurship, travel business, journalism and innovation technology for self-realization on “Seliger”. You can sign up for it already now on the website www.godmol.ru. Future entrepreneurs are agitated that “creating one’s own business is the most effective means of coming into one’s own”. Future journalists are promised that their work of making up and propagandizing ideals is “practically like building cities and discovering new lands”. The program of training leaders is called on “to raise social mobility and wish to risk of the whole generation”. It is planned that “Seliger” will bring together 30 thousands of people.

The political constituent of “Seliger” will be kept. According to preliminary data, the President of RF Dmitrii Medvedev, ministers of Russian government, State Duma deputies and senators and also patriarch Kirill may pay visits to youth. Nobody plans to invite oppositional politicians and activists. “Mr.Zhirinovski has already been on Seliger the previous year and may come again. Such format of the meeting can be uninteresting for CPRF. And there is no place in our camp for Mr. Kasparov and others who run down Russia”, Maksim Mishenko, the State Duma deputy, the leader of the movement “Rossia Molodaya” (“Young Russia”) explained to “Ъ”.

Organizers of “Seliger – 2009” promise that the event, in contrast to previous ones, will not have pronounced ideological character and is open for all comers. We would remind you that earlier Seliger had “red-light district” with installation where faces of oppositional politicians were attached to half-naked women bodies. But in spite of this far from all youth associations are going to take part in “Seliger”. “If there will be the same eggs but in profile, we will not even discuss it, Dmitii Gudkov”, the leader of the youth wing of “Spravedlivaya Rossia” (“Just Russia”) declared to “Ъ”. If there will be discussed something essentially new and interesting, then we can talk about it. But for me, the word “Seliger” has been long ago associated with ideology and not with fish that I landed there”. “It is obvious that organizers want to draw budgetary funds under a plausible pretext”, considers Ilia Yashin, the member of the federal political council of the movement “Solidarnost” (“Solidarity”). Mr. Yakemenko and his partners can talk about innovations till kingdom come, but in any case it all will come to brainwash and stories about opposition rocking the boat”.

Andrei Ъ-Kozenko

Original text from: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1130309