Borovikov defends his alliance with the Kremlin.
"For some reason it's bad to be connected with the authority or the state, but the history of Russia shows the country was only successful when the state was strong," he said. "Career success was always connected to state service, and there's nothing shameful about that."
Nashi, the largest and most prominent of the youth groups, is heavily wrapped up in the concept of upward mobility. Many of the youths have been lured to Moscow with promises of yuppie dreams; they view Nashi as an investment in their careers, akin to joining the right fraternity at a U.S. university.
Not all the Kremlin-backed groups are so clean-cut.
Across town, in the headquarters of Young Russia, students are shooting pool and plotting their next scandal. These are young, radical Putin activists, less squeamish about getting their hands dirty than their peers in Nashi.
They've taken over a prime piece of real estate, a sprawling building that was once a bar at the edge of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University campus. "We kicked the owners out," leader Maxim Mishchenko said casually, shrugging a little. "It was a rotten joint, drunken brawls all the time."
Mishchenko doesn't mind boasting a bit about the considerable influence and wealth commanded by this fierce-eyed pack of students. Like so many shadowy figures in the noir landscape of modern Russia, his power flows from thuggery and connections. Barely out of law school, Mishchenko is expected to get a seat in parliament this coming term; he ran on the slate of a pro-Kremlin party.
When Young Russia needs money, he explains earnestly, they find some local businesspeople to shake down. If the businesspeople are sensible and pay up, Young Russia will "lobby their interests with the organs of state power," he says.
If they prove stingy, forget about it.
"We're talking here about a civilized protection racket," he says, cool as ice. "If they don't give us money, we attack them."
Attacks, he explains, entail blocking roads or holding protests outside shops until they are forced out of business.
Consequences are light: When his activists posed as reporters and assaulted the Estonian ambassador, they were hauled down to the police station. But nobody was prosecuted.
Mishchenko vaguely explains that "a lawyer" showed up and proved the charges of hooliganism were false.
Young Russia was back on the streets.
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megan.stack@latimes.com
