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Generation Putin

"Pragmatism” is the key word which characterises "Generation Putin”. Family values and career success are high priorities. The mood is not one of protest. Insights from Johannes Voswinkel, Correspondent in Moscow.

Michail Andrejew is an absolutely typical representative of Generation Putin. He wears pinstripes as a sign of his success in "Business”, and his powerful handshake reflects Russia's newly-found self-confidence. Nearly 10 years ago, the 27-year old finished his training as a financial expert, and added up columns of figures at a cashier's desk until that became too boring. He risked an independent career, washing cars, trading in groceries and developing housing projects. Today, Andrejew is the owner of a flat, a house in the area of Moscow and two cars.

Youth mouvement Nashi, which is Russian for "Ours".
Photo: AP

His rise to property manager coincided with Putin's time in office. "He gave the economy the necessary laws and a structure”, says Andrejew. The fact that the President limited some citizen's rights and has protest marches by the opposition hunted apart does not bother him. More important for Andrejew are organisation, a feeling of responsibility and his own prosperity.

This is because another epoch has influenced him just as strongly as the Putin period – yet in a negative way: the Yeltsin 90's. "That was complete chaos, in which some people ripped state property into pieces before our eyes and enriched themselves with it”, he says. Within a few months, some classmates became millionaire's children. His mother's publishing company, on the other hand, was attacked by bandits and the printer's copies were destroyed. She was left bankrupt. "When Putin became President, our only hope was that he would be a strong man when he came to power”, remembers Andrejew. "Only this could save Russia”. Today, he lists Putin in a row of honours with Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great and Stalin. His job is the prism of political perception: "as investors, we used to have to accept all foreign funds to their conditions”, says Andrejew. "Today, we dictate the rules”.

For eight years, Putin has dominated Russian politics. Russia's youth has grown up with the judo fighter, who says out loud what no-one previously really dared to say: terrorists must be hunted right into the toilets and killed, and the West should stop instructing Russia. "The younger, the more urban and the more successful the voters are”, summarises the sociologist Wladimir Dubin from the Lewada Centre, "the more they will vote for Putin”. For the presidential elections, they will vote for the Crown Prince, Dmitrij Medwedjew, in order to retain Putin as Prime Minister. The President's strongest supporters live in the medium-sized cities with up to one million inhabitants, where the fruits of the economic revival meet with humble expectations. In the "million-plus” cities; above all in Moscow, the critical potential of educated and successful voters is larger. "They have different sources of information and the Internet, which so far hasn't been hit by censorship”, explains Dubin. "They are more active and demanding, and feel the limits set by the regime more strongly. And yet in Moscow, too, more than half of young Russians vote for Putin”. They wish to preserve the present conditions, or hope for a better future. "Young people in Russia are extremely concentrated on their career”, says the philosopher, Michail Ryklin. "If they earn a few thousand dollars, they are already seen as social climbers. These people will support the regime”.

Pragmatism is the sociologist key word for Russia's young generation. They are living in a society out of which all ideals have been sucked; a society which can hardly be shocked or even made indignant by yet another scandal. The majority of teenagers records itself as being rather apolitical in surveys. There is a lack of a general, uniting spirit for protest, and of electrifying topics and leaders. Just as for their parents, their highest priorities are familial happiness and career performance. The mood is not one of protest. "Many of these young people earn more money than their parents, and are the bosses of the household”, says Dubin. "Why should they revolt”?
Not only that, but the teenagers have been split into fractions as reflections of the entire society. The Soviet experience has put them off collectives. Friends and family are their mainstays in life. For many, institutions such as Parliament, political parties or courts of law are seen as corrupt or incompetent. Their main trust is laid in Putin and the Orthodox Church. The student scene limits itself mainly to watching television together in the University café. The school-like university study and the fear of putting an academic career at risk due to inappropriate behaviour also serves to remove political spirit. In a comparison between Poland and Russian, Dubin explains, it was found that only a good 10 percent of teenagers in Warsaw, but 40 percent of those in Moscow stated that they never discussed politics.
For many, patriotism replaces the missing ideology. They like it when Putin threatens internal and external enemies. "Putin thereby becomes the big brother, showing the positive power of age, without exerting repression like a father”, Dubin explains. "Young people find this positive”. Almost 44 percent of teenagers name a respected or even feared world power as a national objective. The national objective of liberal democracy, which often goes hand in hand with a normal, good life and is not placed as being equal to human rights and free voting, lies behind this figure at 41 percent. Not even every tenth person wants to go back into the Soviet Union.

Alexej Schaposchnikow, too, who with his 34 years has remained relatively young, hardly mourns for Soviet times. At that time, he led the Komsomol cohort for his school: today, enthusiasm for Putin is his job as Central Russian Coordinator of the Youth Group of the President's party, "the Young Guard”. As a modernised Komsomol, he has found himself black glasses with massive white side pieces. Like Putin, he wears a black roll-neck jumper under his jacket and counters with self-confidence against smooth attacks. He characterises the president in six words; "clean conscience, clear views, powerful hands”.

In the 90's, Schaposchnikow searched in vain for state youth politics. "All that changed with the advent of Putin”, he says. In fact, the orange-coloured revolution in the Ukraine, which was strongly supported by students, led politicians to think of young people as mobilisation manpower. Some teenagers who have joined the organisations organised by the Kremlim are educated in summer camps on love to their fatherland and on morning sports, in order to defend Putin as a troop should the people revolt. Websites sponsored by the Kremlin show video films with Putin to the soundtrack of "Pirates of the Caribbean". On blogs, too, the young "Putinists” are active with jubilant entries on the President.

The "young guard” have an ambitious personnel policy; for the city council elections in Moscow, they prepared 500 of their own candidates. The project, which should win them a cadre reserve of state elites, bears the title "Polit assembly line”. Schaposchnikow explains the particular charm of his organisation in this way: " Whoever does well gets the chance of taking on higher party offices”. He calls the principle "the social elevator”.

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