LAKE SELIGER, Russia (AFP) — Military training, satirical shows and US-style business seminars were among the strange mix of activities on offer at this year's summer camp for Nashi -- the Kremlin's youth movement.
With political power in Russia now firmly in the hands of President Dmitry Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, it seems that the massive group set up to counter any popular dissent has lost its focus.
As the movement searches for a new purpose in Medvedev's Russia, its activists say one solution could be to concentrate on beating the West at its own game by making the most of the country's oil-fueled economic boom.
"Medvedev unfortunately doesn't have the same attitude towards Nashi as Putin," a senior member of the movement told AFP during a visit this month to the camp near Lake Seliger, 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Moscow.
"But it would be dangerous to let these young people go now. They could join the opposition," said the Nashi member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noting that there were three times fewer activists this year than last year.
"The authorities have lost their interest in Nashi," read a report on the Gazeta.ru news website. Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov was quoted in the report as saying: "The movement changes in line with the country's agenda."
Reflecting Kremlin thinking, events at the camp included a wedding of 20 couples who were then told to go and procreate to solve Russia's demographic crisis, and the founding of an Orthodox group against Kosovo's independence.
Nashi, which translates as "Our People", was set up by Kremlin officials under Putin in 2005 immediately after Ukraine's Orange Revolution, where youth activism proved decisive in toppling the country's pro-Moscow government.
They have held large-scale demonstrations as a show of force against Russia's beleaguered opposition and have launched stinging campaigns against Kremlin critics, as well as trying to spread a Putin personality cult.
But this year, Nashi members said they wanted to focus on career prospects.
"We have selected 340 students from 25 regions. Experts work with them to help them join the elites," said Yelena Berezhnikova, head of one of the movement's subgroups called "Personnel for Modernisation of the Country".
The library at the camp contained economic manuals, a biography of former US president Bill Clinton and a book by US management guru Tom Peters. One of the lectures on offer was entitled: "How to overcome US hegemony."
But while some Nashi activists charted out stellar careers to serve Russia's national interests, others were busy mocking Russia critics or undergoing military training to fight against the anti-Kremlin opposition.
Activists organised a show at the camp in which a character covered in dollars representing the United States walked around with a pig on a leash. The pig was named after Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
Relations between Estonia and Russia are testy as Kremlin officials say the Baltic country discriminates against its large ethnic-Russian minority. One of the Nashi slogans for the show read: "If you lose control, you get fucked!"
For more direct action, the movement even showed off a military wing that trains reformed alcoholics and drug addicts and turns them into street fighters who patrol cities alongside Russian police to clamp down on "disorder."
The peaceful transition of power from Putin to his ally Medvedev is paraded by the Nashi as a victory. But Matvei Matyushin, one of the group's leaders, said: "It seems that everything's okay but we have to remain vigilant."
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