Pavel Martynov exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The youth camp Seliger has opened in the Tver Region. In recent years it has become less politically ideological than it was in the mid-2000s. Socio-economic trends are appearing in the North Caucasus youth camp Mashuk which is also being held in Pyatigorsk.
This year Mashuk will take place in August at two levels: all-Russian level and international level. About 3 thousand people are due to come there. Participation in Mashuk-2013 was confirmed by Azerbaijan, South Ossetia, Armenia, Ukraine, Estonia, and the Czech Republic.
Negotiations with possible official partners of the forum, including Rostelekom and Resorts of the North Caucasus, are undergoing. The volume of financing will be about 55 million rubles. However, some problems with state purchases appeared during the preparation. TV-sets and computers were delivered; food service was organized; but suppliers are holding back on fencing the camp, producing flooring and benches. According to the director of Mashuk-2013, Sergey Chernyshov, “this year 30 orders for a tender were presented; last year there were no more than 10. The geography of suppliers represents the whole of Russia, and the orders are fulfilled unprofessionally sometimes.”
The presidential envoy to the NCFD Alexander Khloponin was very displeased. Speaking about the tenders, he stated that this issue should be interesting “to not only the Committee on the Youth Policy of the Stavropol Territory, but also the regional Committee on State Orders.” “There was enough time to organize qualitative and modern state purchases for the forum’s needs,” Interfax cites Khloponin. “The Stavropol Region is the main initiator of the forum, so resources from the federal budget are transferred to the regional budget.” The envoy pointed to the low quality of order execution, spending resources and money. This year the Russian government has changed the form of encouraging the forum’s participants from prizes to grants, which enables spending of budget money to be controlled more strictly.
The topic steps beyond minor household problems, especially considering the fact that they wanted to establish a year-round multifunctional educational and tourist youth center on the basis of Mashuk. Khloponin also proposed establishing a youth movement which would be called Mashuk to unite participants of the federal camp of various years.
Even though Mashuk presents itself as a social and educational project directed at searching for the best young people of the NCFD regions, it is obvious that major problems of the region are directly connected with the youth. “Extremism and terrorism, drug and alcohol abuses, the low level of morality – it is not a full list of social diseases which prevent full-scale development of our society. Obviously, they can be settled only if the efforts of state and social structures are united. From this point of view, traditional religious organizations are reliable supporters of the state,” the vice-premier of Karachay-Cherkessia, Dzhanibek Suyunov, says.
