On February 3, an influx of young Russians flooded my inbox and Instagram followers list. Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, had just posted my recent Instagram story: a photo of Navalny in court, raising her hands to form the shape of a heart, which she had made the cover of The Wall Street Journal.
My family emigrated from Russia to the United States in the 1990s, when I was 13, but I didn’t remember meeting Russian teenagers and young people like them before: a whole generation that grew up under Putin’s reign. Through their social media pages on Instagram and TikTok, they seem to be intentional, bold and creative. They made political videos on TikTok and Instagram. Some of them identified themselves as feminists, vegan activists, dancers, musicians and aspiring lawyers. They seemed to march to the beat of a different drum, sharing a different set of universal values from those of their parents and grandparents. It was as if they were visitors from another planet.
When Navalny returned to Moscow on January 17 and was quickly arrested, his team was able to mobilize thousands of people in cities in Russia’s eleven time zones. After the Russian court sentenced Navalny to two and a half years in prison, his followers continued to protest in the streets. Videos shared on social media showed teenagers ripping out Putin portraits in schools and replacing them with photos of Navalny.
On February 14, Valentine’s Day, Navalny’s team conducted a campaign they called “Love is stronger than fear,” inspired by Navalny’s gesture to his wife in court. “We ask all residents of major Russian cities to do something simple on February 14 at 8pm,” Navalny’s team wrote. “Go outside and turn on the flash on your phone, pick it up and be there for a few minutes.”
On Sunday, there were several protests, mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where a few hundred women gathered in solidarity with Navalny’s wife, Yulia, according to AFP. Separately, “tens of thousands” of people responded to Navalny’s call for the Valentine’s Day campaign, facing winter temperatures and going out with lanterns for symbolic vigils in “hundreds of courtyards” across the country, according to Navalny’s team estimates.
This time, participation was lower and more peaceful, without the violent clashes with police and mass arrests that characterized pro-Navalny protests last month. Instead, the government’s response moved behind the scenes, focusing on pressure from social media platforms and taking action against those who imply they are even thinking of taking to the streets. Immediately after the Valentine’s Day events, retaliation was reported against those who participated in the campaign, including a COVID-19 nurse, Saidanvar Sulaimonov, who was fired after participating in the “Love is Stronger” campaign. that fear “and take a picture of Meduza reported that, inside, with protective equipment.
Even before Sunday’s events, many young people expressed skepticism about the long-term impact of this new wave of protests. Aram Badalyam, a 25-year-old indie folk musician based in Krasnodar, southern Russia (the region where Putin’s alleged palace is located), calls the protests “toothless.” Navalny’s research and the outbreak of political activism he saw in the country and in Krasnodar inspired him to write a song about the palace. “Navalny speaks his language,” he says of the new generation of supporters. “He is persistent, brave and brave. Courage is a rarity in Russia.
This is the kind of grassroots mobilization that has differentiated Navalny from other opposition leaders and allowed him to connect with this new generation through social media, as in this TikTok video, where he shows his research about his own poisoning. From providing copies of flyers to their neighborhoods on a Google disc to continuing to post investigative videos even while Navalny is in prison; his team teaches this new generation a new methodology of protest and political activism.
“Navalny’s supply of instruments, protests for example, where other members of the opposition can show up and unite to achieve common goals,” says 23-year-old Nikolai, based in St. Petersburg, who spoke with The Daily Beast with a pseudonym. “For me, Navalny is also about the people he gathered around him, people who fight against the system and who help others.”
Navalny’s anti-corruption activities have not only educated this new generation about the state of affairs in their country, but have also taught them how to fight corruption in the existing system. He showed them what works. “I trust Navalny because she provides arguments and facts,” says 17-year-old Catherine Shipilova, an aspiring lawyer, who counts the months until she officially becomes an “adult” in Russia. “I plan to apply to law school, I would like to help people,” he says. “I love Russia, but I am against our current government.”
In an interview with Russian radio platform Echo Moskvy, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian oil tycoon who was imprisoned for a decade, noted that Putin’s response to Navalny’s latest investigation into the president’s alleged palace showed disconnection. between the ruling regime and this new generation. This nearly two-hour investigation into an imperial-style palace in southern Russia received more than 112 million visits in one month. Putin has dismissed the video as boring, calling it a “montage” and claiming that “nothing that appears on it as property belongs to me or my close relatives, and it never did.” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov continued to deny ownership.
Khodorkovsky considered Putin’s response to the viral video to be more shocking than the investigation itself. “It’s a joke,” he said. “It’s natural for the younger generation to want something different. The government can listen to them. But for that, you need institutions where you set rules and young people live their lives within the framework. But our government does not want to set frameworks. They want to govern everything to stay in power. “
An opinion poll from the Levada Center showed that a quarter of Russians had seen the video of the palace and that younger people, aged 18 to 24, absorbed it more. According to the survey, 37 percent of the younger age group had seen it, more than any other group.
Putin’s first public response to Navalny’s viral investigation into Putin’s palace in southern Russia was widely mocked on social media. A TikTok video showed Putin speaking from a deep purple “hookah” room showing a metal stick in the middle of the room as he explained that there were no documents linking him to the palace.
The Kremlin’s response has included a series of denials of any connection to the palace, heavy mass detention and smarter measures to detain participants before protests using facial recognition technology. But the main focus of the government’s response has been to crack down on social media sites that allow information to be shared, mobilized, and involved in politics.
After the first wave of protests, the Russian censorship agency Roskomnadzor concentrated on the most popular social media agencies, even ordering them to remove the materials related to the protest. On January 29, Roskomnadzor convened representatives of TikTok, Facebook, Telegram and VKontakte, arguing that it was their responsibility to remove publications that encouraged participation in “unapproved events,” according to the agency’s statement. The agency also ordered several media outlets to clear reports of the Valentine’s protest.
Certainly, these young people are only a fraction of the Russian opposition and Navalny himself does not share all his values. Most Russians still receive news from the traditional media, which are more loyal to the Kremlin. But at this moment – after the last attempt at intoxication, recovery, return from Germany and hasty sentencing in Moscow – Navalny is the one who unites the Russian opposition, including this younger generation that can only remember one Russia under Putin.
Navalny was able to capture his imagination and the government’s response was swift. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs even opened an official TikTok account in early February, dedicating the first two messages to Navalny. For some of his supporters, what resonates most about Navalny is that he provides a tent for the opposition, provides them with tools and educates them on how to make their voices heard: through activism on social media, video and street protests. . And they keep listening and taking notes, even with Navalny behind bars.
Nikolai says he plans to continue participating in protests despite his arrest. “I think the protest movement will continue, but it will take different forms, not just going to specific streets at a particular time,” he says. “I see that the future of Russia is democratic, free, with respect for the rule of law and for each other. The new generation is less susceptible to state propaganda.
“If the ruling order remains the same, we won’t see anything improved.” Shipilova explains to The Daily Beast. He is concerned that serving a prison sentence will affect Navalny’s chances of running for office again. “I hope our country improves and we have important and necessary laws.”
Even Alexei Navalny’s tone took on a more smiling and thoughtful tone after the Valentine’s Day events. He was sentenced to almost three years in prison. “Prison is in the head,” he wrote in a recent Instagram post, proceeding to compare his cell and prison conditions to that of flying a spaceship. “Right now, I understand I’m on a space trip, flying into a beautiful new world.”