I find the tone of this NYT photo essay on Putin’s “Patriotic Youth Camp” to be disturbingly lighthearted. Now, granted, this is the New York Times we’re speaking of here, but did no one look at these images and find the concept of a youthful paramilitary organization in a (cough) “previously” Communist country more worrisome than winsome?Let us all rememeber, please, that Vladimir Putin is ex-KGB, and if he has his way, these are the kids who are going to be parachuting in over Colorado.
Can we get someone on this, please? Kthx.
on 
on Aug 9th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Ugh. That photo of his face hanging over the campsite is so creepy. Not to mention, very Leninist/Maoist. And all the red stars on things. If it's accidental, it's very bad planning.
"Nashi sees its job as preventing the kind of revolution that brought pro-Western politicians to power in neighboring Ukraine in late 2004."
Aaaaaaarghhh!
on Aug 9th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I wish I could read the backs of the shirts in photo 9. It looks like Cadre something Modern something, but the picture's too blurry to make it out.
on Aug 9th, 2007 at 9:51 am
These are my favorite quotes:
Members of Nashi — which wants to reduce the rate of Russians dodging conscription to the army — run through the camp's military drills.
And this winnar:
Going to the camp's lectures — like this one on the military — is compulsory. An electronic chip in members' name tags tells organizers if anyone has cut class.
Niiice. And then what? Solitary? A visit with Dr. Lao and his car battery?
on Dec 19th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
[...] of both how idiotic are the editors of Time, and how thoroughly snowed is the media in general. Youth camps [...]