RUSSIA: TEN YEARS AFTER A FAILED KREMLIN COUP USHERED IN THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION, A GENERATION OF RUSSIANS HAS GROWN UP SURROUNDED BY COLA, POP MUSIC AND CAPITALISM
Record ID:
648896
RUSSIA: TEN YEARS AFTER A FAILED KREMLIN COUP USHERED IN THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION, A GENERATION OF RUSSIANS HAS GROWN UP SURROUNDED BY COLA, POP MUSIC AND CAPITALISM
- Title: RUSSIA: TEN YEARS AFTER A FAILED KREMLIN COUP USHERED IN THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION, A GENERATION OF RUSSIANS HAS GROWN UP SURROUNDED BY COLA, POP MUSIC AND CAPITALISM
- Date: 16th August 2001
- Summary: RAMENSKOE, RUSSIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) 1. GV THOUSANDS OF YOUTH DANCING AT ROCK CONCERT 0.07 2. SV/SLV BOY AND GIRL DANCING / GROUP OF YOUNG MEN DRINKING BEER (2 SHOTS) 0.15 3. MCU COUPLE KISSING 0.19 4. MCU (Russian) INNA "The what? The GKChP (Emergency State Committee) Is that a rock group." 0.26 5. SLV YOUNG WOMAN CLIMBING UP A HUMAN PYRAMID 0.33 6. MCU (Russian) ANNA "If they [the coup-plotters] had come to power in the Soviet times then people wouldn't even be able to fight for their freedom." 0.42 7. SV TWO YOUNG MEN WRESTLING AS ONE MAN TRIES TO DIAL ON HIS MOBILE PHONE 0.56 UNKNOWN LOCATION, SOVIET UNION (FILE) (REUTERS) 8. SLV GROUP OF YOUNG PIONEERS PLAYING IN CHILDREN'S ORCHESTRA 1.12 MOSCOW, RUSSIA (MAY 19, 2001) (REUTERS) 9. SLV DOZENS OF YOUNG PIONEERS AT SWEARING-IN-CEREMONY ON RED SQUARE 1.20 10. SV PIONEERS SHOUT THEIR MOTTO "ALWAYS READY." (2 SHOTS) 1.27 11. LV PIONEERS ENTER LENIN'S MAUSOLEUM 1.33 MOSCOW, RUSSIA (AUGUST 16, 2001) (REUTERS) 12. MCU (Russian) VLADIMIR ANIKONOV, COMMUNIST PARTY REGIONAL OFFICIAL, YOUTH ORGANISER SAYING "Nothing replaced the pioneer youth organisations after the coup. Children were left to the streets, all on their own. Various groups used the children for their own profits." 1.51 MOSCOW, RUSSIA (MAY 19, 2001) (REUTERS) 13. SLV PIONEERS WALKING ACROSS RED SQUARE (2 SHOTS) 2.08 MOSCOW, RUSSIA (AUGUST 14, 2001) (REUTERS) 14. SLV "WORLD OF NEW RUSSIANS" SHOP 2.14 15. SV SALE FLOOR AT "WORLD OF NEW RUSSIANS" STORE 2.24 16. CU RUSSIAN FOLK CRAFTS WITH CAPITALISTIC RUSSIA THEMES (2 SHOTS) 2.33 17. MCU (English) GRIGORY BALTSER, OWNER OF "WORLD OF NEW RUSSIANS "If you would put [compare] the nation now and ten years ago, then you would see entirely different people. And even the old people with the red flags who ask to please bring back the Soviet Union, if you put then in a time machine and took them back 10 or 15 years, then they would go to the barricades and fight for freedom." 2.57 18. SV SHOP WINDOW 3.01 ISTRA, RUSSIA (AUGUST 11, 2001) (REUTERS) 19. SLV CENTRAL SQUARE AT "NEW LAND" YOUTH CAMP 3.06 20. SV/CU NEW LAND CAMPERS LINING UP, RECEIVING CAMP MONEY FROM CAMP BANK (2 SHOTS) 3.20 21. SV CAMPERS LINED UP BUYING GOODS WITH CAMP MONEY 3.27 22. SLV/SV GROUP OF BOYS BUILDING SHELTERS FOR NEW LAND GOVERNMENT (3 SHOTS) 3.42 23. SV/CU GROUP OF GIRLS PAINTING NAILS, APPLYING MAKEUP AT "'DICURE" SALON (3 SHOTS) 3.58 24. MCU (Russian) IRINA, OWNER OF "'DICURE" SALON "We have strong unemployment support so it's possible to just put your money in the bank and live off that, that means that the only companies that do a brisk business are advertising, massages, and pedicures like our salon." 4.12 25. SLV BOYS SITTING IN FRONT OF TENT 4.16 26. MCU (Russian) MAXIM "Socialism gives somewhat less freedom, especially for youth. Now we can do what interests us but in the past all we could do was join the pioneers organisation." 4.27 27. SLV GIRL READING BOOK 4.31 28. MCU (Russian) OLGA, PRIME-MINISTER OF NEW LAND "If the [coup] communists were to have been in power, then kids wouldn't be as free as they are now." 4.42 29. SLV/MCU MUSIC GROUP AUDITIONING FOR WORK AS PERFORMERS (3 SHOTS) 5.07 30. SV WOMAN MAKING ANNOUNCEMENT OVER CAMP LOUDSPEAKER 5.14 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 31st August 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: MOSCOW, ISTRA, RAMENSKOE, UNKNOWN LOCATION, RUSSIA
- Country: Russia
- Reuters ID: LVA4C5OP12EMNTFSH1C60F9F22VJ
- Story Text: Ten years after a failed Kremlin coup ushered in the
collapse of the Soviet Union, a generation of Russians has
grown up surrounded by cola, pop music, and capitalism instead
of Lenin, Stalin, and class struggle.
The old guard says that this is Russia's lost youth but
the kids say they are a free generation.
This wouldn't have happened in the Soviet Union-over
100,000 Russian kids dancing, drinking, and making love under
the sun at a two-day outdoor rock concert.
Call it debauchery or freedom, these are the fruits of a
generation without communist rule.
Many of the youth don't realise that this week their
nation is marking the 10-year-anniversary of the GKChP--the
failed hardline communist coup that led to the collapse of
communism and brought about these changes.
"The GKChP? Is that a rock group?" asks Inna.
But nearly all of them will tell you that they don't
want to go back to communist rule.
Russian kids of the 1990's generation are used to MTV,
not Marx.
And this is the problem with them, say many adults who
remember a time when kids played a different, communal tune.
Leaders of Russia's still influential Communist Party
have revived the pioneer youth organisation in response to
what they fear is a spread of drugs and irresponsibility among
the post-Soviet generation.
These young recruits promise to always "be ready" to
help their elders before making their pilgrimage into the Red
Square mausoleum that houses the body of Vladimir Lenin.
Communist Party official Vladimir Anikonov [a-ni-KO-nov]
says that without such organisations, children were left to
their own, thrown on the streets, and exploited for profit.
The communists say by this fall they plan to revive
other Soviet-era youth organisations so that teenagers will
also have a Leninist group to join and a red flag to march
under.
And that is a prospect that businessman Grigori Baltser
finds ridiculous.
Baltser is the owner of a Moscow boutique "The World of
New Russians." His store sells tongue-in-cheek folk art with
a twist that winks at and mocks the new class of
mobile-phone-loving, brass nouvue riche that has defined
Russia's post-Soviet economy.
Baltser says that if the older communists who are
organising kids back into Soviet organisations were really to
return to the Soviet Union, then they themselves would jump
behind a barricade and fight for their freedom.
And many other young children are choosing the likes of
Baltser instead of Lenin as their role model.
This summer, a group of kids are busy learning to become
young capitalists at a special summer camp outside of Moscow.
The camp is underwritten by one of Russia's biggest oil
companies which selected 150 campers from a much larger
application pool.
The kids have formed their own government which drafts
laws and helps regulate the economy--but the main business is
business.
The camp bank is busy each day providing business loans
and taking in deposits from the profits of enterprises set up
by the teenage entrepreneurs.
The kids are free to choose their work--be it
contracting with the government to construct state buildings
or opening up their own beauty salon.
Irina is the owner of 'Dicure Salon. Like many business
people, she is concerned that others don't have the same work
ethic. But, with keen business instincts, she has turned this
situation into her own advantage and her salon is swamped by
clients.
"We have strong unemployment support so it's possible to
just put your money in the bank and live off that, that means
that the only companies that do a brisk business are
advertising, massages, and pedicures like our salon."
Many of the kids say that the freedom to choose what
they want to do, or simply loathe, is a reason that this camp
is better than the Soviet-era pioneer camps, and that
capitalism is better than Soviet-era socialism.
"Socialism gives somewhat less freedom, especially for
youth. Now we can do what interests us but in the past all we
could do was join the pioneers organisation," says Maxim.
The camp's prime-minister, Olga, says that she and her friends
wouldn't have as much freedom as they do now if the hardline coup-plotters had taken control of the nation back in 1991.
"Juliette has the boys at her beck and call and they all
fall down after her with a thump-thumpty-thump, yumm, yummy,
yumm, and a knock-knock-knock" sing two aspiring camp
musicians hoping to land a gig at the camp concert stage.
Not exactly the stuff of dialectical materialism. But
Marx never had the chance to become an oligarch or camp
pop-star at age 13. And that, kids of the new Russian
generation might say, makes all the difference.
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