The Delirious, Dance-Heavy Propaganda of Russia’s International Festival of Youth
Por Anna Merlan — Mother Jones Magazine
“Russia,” Steven Seagal declared , not long ago, “is not interested in conquering the world. We’re not interested in conquering anybody. We’re just interested in protecting our borders and our people.”
Seagal, the American-born actor and ardent supporter of Russian president Vladimir Putin, often appears at Russian political events, like a parade with an ultranationalist biker gang last year celebrating Putin’s reelection. In this case, though, he wasn’t exactly speaking to the home team; instead, he’d taken the stage at the International Festival of Youth, a lavish event that organizers claimed brought 10,000 young people aged 14-35 from 190 countries to Yekaterinburg, the country’s fourth largest city. Attendees at this September’s event, many of whom were given free round-trip tickets by organizers, were greeted with elaborate museum-style displays, a music-conducting robot, dance performances, workshops, musical numbers by people in traditional cultural dress, panels, lectures, competitions, and free conference swag.
“Here, borders are blurred,” the event’s website declares, “and cultures and professional communities come together to work towards a common goal—to make the world a better place.” The political element isn’t subtle: the event was sponsored by some of Russia’s biggest state-owned companies, including nuclear energy giant Rosatom and the financial institution Sberbank; the festival’s “information partners” include state news agency TASS and state TV channel RT. Nor is there any question where the most prominent speakers stand politically: In his speech, Seagal declared that Putin is his “biggest hero,” drawing applause. This year’s talks included an appearance by Sergey Lavrov, Putin’s foreign affairs minister, who then headed to the United Nations to defend Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, which he characterized as “our struggle for truth and justice.”
Youth festivals in Russia and the former Soviet Union have a long geopolitical history and a clear purview: to persuade the outside world, especially young people therein, that the country is modern, forward-thinking, and peace-loving—a center for global cooperation, and innovation. The 1957 World Youth Festival of Youth and Students, for instance, took place during a Khrushchev-era thaw in the Cold War, as the Soviet Union hoped to present a more welcoming face to the world. There was also, as author and historian Rustam Alexander wrote recently, a heavy element of image management at work, and a hope that the festival would salvage the USSR’s international reputation the year after it had deployed military force to crush an attempted uprising in Budapest.
“Apparently, there are plenty of young people who do not care.”
“To make sure that foreign guests did not encounter aspects of Soviet life they were not supposed to,” Alexander wrote, “the government tried to keep them within their national delegations, bused them from one event to another and filled their days with official activities.” This, he adds, did not work: “Foreign visitors began moving around Moscow more freely, visiting stores and restaurants, wandering into courtyards and private homes, and striking up conversations with people they met along the way.” Soviet and international visitors also evidently found time to canoodle romantically, Alexander writes; a subsequent festival in 1985 was much more restrictive.
But presenting Russia as the world’s meeting ground has become increasingly difficult as the country has become more isolated globally given its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, its state-sanctioned murder of dissidents and other regime opponents at home and abroad, the kidnapping of American citizens to use as bargaining chips in prisoner swaps, documented electoral interference in the U.S. and other countries like Armenia, and the repressive domestic control of its citizens.
At this year’s IFY, of course, none of that was discussed—although the event did feature a panel about finding “truth online” in an age of “viral content.” While a video of the panel hasn’t yet been put online, the keynote presenter is revealing enough: it was Artem Zhoga, a military officer who participated in the invasion of Ukraine and is increasingly part of the country’s power structure, including working as a co-chair during Putin’s reelection campaign. Zhoga focused on two “typical manipulation techniques—deepfakes and quoting words out of context,” according to a post on the festival’s website, “and recommended always seeking the full recording of a speech.”
Zhoga is also quoted in the post as saying that the festival itself “is a tool against fakes,” claiming that “interaction among around 10,000 participants from different parts of Russia and the world creates a natural fact-checking mechanism.”
“When you see information about some region—you’ll ask your friend: did this really happen? You have more friends, more sources,” Zhoga is quoted.
The event’s international attendees —people who do appear to be in their teens, 20s, and 30s, and who came from countries including Nigeria, India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Senegal, and China—have made endless social media content proclaiming how open and welcoming Russia is. “I met a different Russia than the media talks about,” declared a Nigerian attendee named John Ogba in a rhapsodic essay on his personal website about the event. “To me, Russia is an experience that stays with you and never leaves. I suspect that it is that way by design.” Other attendees made videos showing off the merch they’d gotten from the festival—T-shirts, lanyards, key chains, stickers, and stuffed animals of Cheburashka, a beloved Soviet-era bear-like creature. There were also a remarkable number of dance videos, with people like a Colombian students’ association showing themselves shuffling across the expo floor.
This mountain of content has been reshared on an Instagram fan page, even though Instagram is officially banned in Russia under a law declaring Meta, its parent company, an extremist organization. According to the Russian independent news site Meduza, international attendees were able to get online because they were granted unrestricted internet access, while domestic attendees were not. Meduza quoted a statement from Sergey Kiriyenko, a senior Putin administration official, explaining that “foreign guests received unrestricted internet access so they could promote the festival to audiences in other countries.”
“It’s good when Russians talk about Russia,” Kiriyenko added. “But there’s much more trust when people in those countries hear about Russia from their own peers. That changes the attitudes of the friends they share it with and their followers.”
According to Olena Nikolayenko, a Fordham professor of political science who has studied youth political participation in Eastern Europe, Putin is keeping up “the Soviet-era tradition of using this youth festival as a tool for state propaganda.” She pointed out that crowds were filmed singing and dancing to the song “Matushka Zemlya,” which was dubbed the “unofficial anthem” of the festival. The song, first released eight years ago, has became immensely popular in Russia over the last few years as a patriotic anthem among supporters of the Ukrainian invasion. (“For me it’s Holy Russia,” the refrain goes, “for others just a thorn.”)
“Foreigners who voluntarily visit contemporary Russia and participate in state-sponsored events de facto condone Russian foreign policy,” Nikolayenko added. “Apparently, there are plenty of young people who do not care about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the war crimes committed by Russians.”
Fonte: Mother Jones Magazine
