Russia's Skinheads: Exploring and Rethinking Subcultural Lives (Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series)

Russia’s Skinheads

Russia’s Skinheads: Exploring and rethinking subcultural lives provides a thorough examination of the phenomenon of skinheads, explaining its nature and its significance, and assessing how far Russian skinhead subculture is at the ‘lumpen’ end of the extreme nationalist ideological spectrum. There are large numbers of skinheads in Russia, responsible for a significant number of xenophobic attacks, including 97 deaths in 2008 alone, making this book relevant to Russian specialists as well as to sociologists of youth subculture. It provides a practical example of how to investigate youth subculture in depth over an extended period – in this case through empirical research following a specific group over six years – and goes on to argue that Russian skinhead subculture is not a direct import from the West, and that youth cultural practices should not be reduced to expressions of consumer choice. It presents an understanding of the Russian skinhead as a product of individuals’ whole, and evolving, lives, and thereby compels sociologists to rethink how they conceive the nature of subcultures. Hilary Pilkington is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, and former Director of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham. Elena Omel’chenko is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Sociology at the Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg, and Director of the Scientific Research Centre Region, Ul’ianovsk. Al’bina Garifzianova is a Senior Research Fellow at the Scientific Research Centre Region, Ul’ianovsk.

Russia’s Skinheads Exploring and rethinking subcultural lives

Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omel’chenko and Al’bina Garifzianova

First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2010 Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omel’chenko and Al’bina Garifzianova All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Pilkington, Hilary, 1964– Russia’s skinheads: exploring and rethinking subcultural lives / Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omel’chenko and Al’bina Garifzianova. p. cm.—(Routledge contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Youth—Russia (Federation) 2. Skinheads—Russia (Federation) 3. Russia (Federation)—Politics and government—21st century. I. Omel’chenko, E. L. (Elena L.) II. Garifzianova, Al’bina. III. Title. HQ799.R9P494 2010 305.2350947⬘09049—dc22 ISBN 0-203-85274-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN13: 978–0–415–57596–6 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–85274–3 (ebk) ISBN10: 0–415–57596–6 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–85274–5 (ebk)

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Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgements 1

Introduction: Rethinking skinhead lives

vii ix 1

HILARY PILKINGTON

PART 1

Growing up in a harsh climate

23

2

25

The weight of the Vorkuta sky: Placing youth cultural identities HILARY PILKINGTON

3

‘At home I was a nobody’: The roots (and limits) of skinhead solidarity

49

ELENA OMEL’CHENKO

4

‘Upgrading’: Cultural interests and strategies

75

AL’BINA GARIFZIANOVA

PART 2

The meaning(s) of skinhead 5

‘Skinhead is a movement of action’: Ideology and political engagement

97

99

HILARY PILKINGTON

6

‘Any skinhead likes to fight’: Ritual, racist and symbolic violence HILARY PILKINGTON

121

vi

Contents

7 No longer ‘on parade’: Style and the performance of skinhead

143

HILARY PILKINGTON

8 In search of intimacy: Homosociality, masculinity and the body

166

ELENA OMEL’CHENKO

PART 3

Reflections on the research process 9 No right to remain silent? In search of equality in the field

187 189

ELENA OMEL’CHENKO

10 Research emotions: The view from the other side

200

AL’BINA GARIFZIANOVA

11 Does it have to end in tears? Reflexivity and team-based ethnography

211

HILARY PILKINGTON

12 Conclusion: Solidarity in action

224

HILARY PILKINGTON

Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Notes References Index

Parties and extra-parliamentary groupings Biographical characteristics of respondents

235 245 248 263 274

Illustrations

Table 6.1

‘Ethnic others’ in the narratives of respondents

134

Figures 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

The geographic location of Vorkuta Skinhead gathering The Vorkuta walk Road to nowhere ‘Vorkuta welcomes you’ Graveyard for miners massacred in the 1953 strike Abandoned factory The ‘Komsomol’ mine ‘Cement’ settlement Reindeer herders Passer-by, ‘North’ district Snow fences from train Sky from train The night shift begins Kitten Pink sky Rust turns to gold: goods containers at the railway station Opening in sky Absent fathers Working lives Friends forever? The group before the conflict Best friends ‘Not a woman’ Training room in the zal At a gig at the ‘Biker club’ Singing ‘The Skinheads are coming’ at respondent’s flat Individual training regime

17 28 29 30 31 32 32 33 33 34 35 39 40 43 44 44 45 46 51 56 60 69 72 78 83 84 86

viii 4.5 4.6 4.7 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 9.1 9.2 9.3 10.1 10.2 10.3 11.1 11.2

Illustrations Hanging out in the zal Smoking weed Syringes with vint Staged fight The aesthetics of violence Hanging out at the Aut club Nazi symbols White power symbols Global white power and Russian national symbols Stickers used for propaganda purposes ‘On parade’: members of the group display their boots Boots and braces Designer skinheads? Body politics Hanging out at a respondent’s flat Swastika tattoo acquired in prison Kolovrat tattoo Piercing practices Shaving each other’s hair The common room Legitimate closeness Bodily aesthetics Reflexive nudity Routine nudity Masculinity – the right of the strong Masculinity – happiness in freedom Instruments of torture The sociological impact People you are close to A boxing lesson First snow Unpredictable emotions The emotional labour of fieldwork Reviewing film footage with respondents

89 91 92 123 129 131 139 139 140 141 149 149 150 152 154 159 160 161 162 169 169 172 178 178 183 184 191 194 195 206 207 208 215 218

Acknowledgements

The research in 2006–7 upon which this book is based was made possible by the financial support of the European Community and the kind invitation to participate in the Society and Lifestyles: Towards Enhancing Social Harmonisation through Knowledge of Subcultural Communities (STREPCT-CIT5–029013) project extended by the project co-ordinator, Egidija Ramanauskaite˙ Kiškina, for which we are very grateful. A number of colleagues have kindly commented on earlier drafts of chapters or assisted with finding or corroborating sources and information. Thanks on this front to Roger Griffin, Les Back, Anton Shekhovtsov, Lera Akhmetieva, Dominique Moran, Christina Hughes, Anton Popov, Irina Kosterina, Susie Reid, Dan Healey and other participants at the CEELBAS-funded ‘Doing Culture’ workshops (2008). Special thanks to El’vira Sharifullina for allowing us to reproduce a number of her photographs in the book. A previous version of Chapter 7 was published in Russian Review 70 (April 2010): 187–209, © 2010 Russian Review. The fieldwork on which this book is based has been, in different ways, lifechanging for us all, and we recognise that it is only thanks to the ‘emotional labour’ of each other and of those around us that the scars from it are not deeper. We would like to thank our families and friends for their confidence in and support of us, especially through the many moments of crisis before, during and after our field trips. We are indebted in particular to our colleagues and friends from Region, who shared the experience of that ‘field’ with us – especially El’vira Sharifullina and Ol’ga Dobroshtan, without whose help, advice and friendship this book could not have been written. We appreciate also the efforts – professional and domestic – of our partners, parents, children, friends and colleagues ‘back home’ that made the fieldwork possible. Finally, and most importantly, we would like to thank all those who participated in the research in Vorkuta. Particular thanks are due to ‘Andrei’, for engaging and challenging us constantly, to ‘Slava’ for his humour, loyalty, friendship and patience, and to ‘Valera’ for sharing so much with us. You have, whether you like it or not, become an integral part of our lives. Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omel’chenko and Al’bina Garifzianova September 2009

1

Introduction Rethinking skinhead lives Hilary Pilkington

Russia’s Skinheads is a book that turns ‘skinhead’ inside out. It considers skinhead ‘style’ and ‘ideology’ as physical and verbal positionings within the youth cultural sphere but understands these aspects of skinhead as surface and exposes what lies inside: the blood, the guts, the heart, the soul. It is a book about the meanings young people attach to ‘skinhead’ when they choose to call, and to stop calling, themselves such. In this sense it is a book that tells the story of skinhead from the inside. But it retells these stories from the outside – as we, as researchers, understand them. It is thus about the forces that shape the choices a particular group of young people makes and about what it is that binds them together and makes them drift apart. Above all it is a book that explores and rethinks subcultural lives as it tries to explain why being skinhead continues to mean so much to so many.

What is skinhead? Perhaps more than any other of the classic post-Second World War ‘subcultures’, skinhead has retained its familiar external shape while its meaning has shifted radically. It has, as Timothy Brown (2004: 160) suggests, developed from a subculture ‘organized around appreciation for black cultural forms to one organized around white and frequently racist forms’. This book does not consider any of the locally and temporally specific incarnations of skinhead over the last four decades to be its authentic or definitive form. Rather, it starts with a discussion of how the term has been used to denote a range of movements in different times and places and ends by reflecting on what it is that connects them and continues to make skinhead meaningful for new generations of young people. Skinhead first took shape as a style-based movement emerging out of the mod scene in the UK at the end of the 1960s, as ‘hard’ or ‘gang’ mods took the short cropped hair, Ben Sherman shirts and Levis of mod style in a more fight-friendly (donkey jackets and combats) and industrial (boots and braces) direction (Knight 1982: 10). At its point of inception, however, skinhead style was also deeply bound up with elements of West Indian culture, in particular rude boy style (especially the pork-pie hats and long black coats) and

2

Introduction

‘skinhead reggae’, which emerged from ska, blue beat and rock steady music (ibid.: 10, 14). Shards of this scene still exist; in academic writing they are captured in David Moore’s (1994) ethnographic study of second-wave skins in Perth in the mid-1980s and in among the range of scenes presented by Klaus Farin (2005) as constituting the contemporary German skinhead movement. After fading in visibility, at least in the early to mid-1970s, a second wave of skinheads appeared alongside the punk scene from 1976. The emergence of the punks – and their confrontations with Teds in the King’s Road, Chelsea (Savage 1991: 374–5) – split the skins into a ‘traditional’ wing, who supported the Teds, and a new brand, intent on out-shocking the punks by reviving and exaggerating the most extreme elements of the old skinhead style (Knight 1982: 23–4). A new generation of skinheads thus grew up on a second wave of ska music, in the form of Two-Tone as well as Oi! music, both of which had their roots in punk. Indeed, according to Watson (2008: 12), punks and skins shared suburban gigs and scenes amicably.1 However, while Two-Tone remained racially mixed and committed to trans-racial dialogue (Back 2002: 106), and skinheads who were part of this new punk-inspired wave hung out in gangs that were ‘black, white and Asian’ (Watson 2008: 13), a racist version of skinhead was also developing apace around the very different sound of White Power rock (Back 2002: 106). This second wave emerged in a period of economic decline and increased immigration, and, given their territorially defensive predisposition (manifest in so-called Paki-bashing in the 1960s), skinheads quickly became a target for recruitment by racist movements (specifically the National Front and the British Movement) that were gaining momentum in the UK at the time. This racist strand of the movement was associated with the use of Nazi symbols and Oi! Music, and it was on the back of punk, and with a right-wing political agenda, that skinhead first emerged in the USA (Moore 1993), Germany (Brown 2004: 161) and numerous other countries. A central figure in the transnational development of this variant was Ian Stuart Donaldson (and his band Skrewdriver formed 1977), who had his musical roots in punk and also held extreme right-wing political views. The two coalesced in a mission to mobilise the skinhead scene for political purposes that was implemented through the ‘Rock against Communism’ and subsequently the ‘White Noise Club’ project financed by the National Front. Through extensive tours with Skrewdriver, and through the ‘Blood and Honour’ organisation which he established in the mid-1980s, Ian Stuart not only recognised but realised the potential for music to unite racists across the world in an international, centreless, politico-cultural entity (Back 2002: 106; Griffin 2003: 32). The release of a string of albums by Skrewdriver on Rock-O-Rama Records and the opening of a German chapter of Blood and Honour were central to the development of right-wing skinhead in Germany, for example (Brown 2004: 164). In its various local and national forms, this ‘white-power rock’n’roll’ (Lööw 1998) or ‘Nazi-rock’ (Brown 2004) subsequently became an important force in recruitment to the radical right across the world.

Introduction

3

The trajectory of this second-wave skinhead movement’s association with the politics of the far right is perhaps most clearly illustrated in the case of the USA. Skinhead did not take off in America during the first phase in the UK in the late 1960s because, according to Jack Moore (1993: 30), there was ‘no cultural place in America for a youthful class expression of discontent and open, ugly antagonism to the middle class’. After punk had paved the way for its emergence in the mid-1970s, American skinhead developed both racist and non-racist strands. From the early 1980s some organised skinhead gangs subscribed to the range of xenophobic, racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic views expressed by bands such as Skrewdriver and were recruited actively by organised racist groups, most notably the White Aryan Resistance (WAR) movement (ibid.: 106). However, the racist agenda spread unevenly. As an urban phenomenon it mapped uneasily onto established racist cultures such as the Ku Klux Klan, which operated most vigorously in rural or semi-rural areas (ibid.: 60), and throughout the 1980s there remained skinheads connected to the punk or new wave/new music scene who, by the end of the decade, openly rejected their racist compatriots (ibid.: 70). It would be wrong to see the development of the skinhead movement in a racist direction as a wholly external process, however. While reggae music originally brought young skinheads to black music and dance scenes, as dub reggae and its accompanying Rastafarian philosophy came to dominate those scenes, skinheads did not follow (Knight 1982: 15; Hebdige 1993: 150). The tension between the two movements is captured in Hebdige’s (1982: 32) characterisation of the skinhead movement as the mirror image of black youth cultural practices. ‘The skinhead style’, he writes, ‘is a defensive assertion of whiteness just as Rasta is a celebration of the black cultural roots.’ The aggressive force behind this assertion of whiteness, moreover, could be seen in other urban spaces, most notably the pub and the ‘home end’ of football stadia (Robins and Cohen 1978: 133–49; Clarke and Jefferson 1976: 140–42, 154–6), while ‘Paki-bashing’, racist repartee and stand-offs between local black and white youths were found far beyond skinhead circles (Pearson 1976; Robins and Cohen 1978: 115–18). At the same time, the battle waged by ‘traditional’ (‘Trad’) skins to reclaim the movement from its racist variant should not be ignored. As the public visibility and concern about racist skinheads in America rose through the 1980s, a consciously anti-racist strand of the movement – SHARP (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice) – emerged in New York and, by the late 1980s, had taken off across Europe. Around this part of the movement there also emerged left-wing (red and anarchist) skinhead groups. However, the relationship of anti-racism and anti-fascism to skinhead remains a deeply disputed and emotional issue; Farin’s overview of the contemporary German skinhead movement, for example, found that more than 60 per cent of members rejected ‘Redskins’ while almost 70 per cent refused to accept Naziskins as part of their scene (Farin 2005: 5). A further challenge to skinhead identity emerged from the active adoption of skinhead style within gay scenes

4

Introduction

as a means of reclaiming forms of masculinity that had become ‘off-limits’ for homosexual men (Healy 1996) and the widespread eroticisation of the skin body for both the heterosexual and the male homosexual gaze. Disagreement over whether ‘real’ skins listen to ska, punk or Oi! also problematises any consensus as to what constitutes ‘authenticity’ within the contemporary skin movement. For some, the right to define that authenticity is worth fighting for. For others, authenticity has been replaced by an understanding of skinhead as constituted anew each time by those who feel themselves to be such; as one of Farin’s respondents explains, ‘Skinhead is not about putting on a uniform but about embodying a feeling’ (Farin 2005: 6). The emergence of a global, or, more properly, translocal, racist skinhead movement has been facilitated by the rapid acceleration in the use of the Internet (Back 2002). Les Back (ibid.: 107) argues that the proliferation of racist skinhead style in this way has challenged previous explanations about the centrality of particular local conditions to the movement’s formation. In the diffusion of racist skinhead style, he writes, ‘two things have remained constant: its appeal as a translocal emblem of national chauvinism and white pride, and the transposition of a language of racist rhetoric and style from a variety of European contexts to specific local concerns’ (ibid.). This translocal movement has forged around the music and rhetoric of White Power – in which the North American-based Resistance Records, founded by George Burdi in 1994, was central – and, as is demonstrated clearly in Part 2 of this book, much of its symbolism and rhetoric has been re-exported to European movements (see also Nayak 1999: 82). As Back (2002: 128) notes, the circuit of this international system is made possible by a shared translocal notion of race encapsulated by Don Black’s (Stormfront) slogan ‘White Pride World Wide’, which was also adopted by Resistance Records as a title for their compilation albums of White Power music. Weinberg (1998: 14) estimates that by the end of the 1990s just under 20,000 individuals belonged to extra-parliamentary right-wing extremist groups in Western Europe, while in the USA there were 15,000 members of racist anti-government militias and around 3,500 right-wing skinhead gang members. Analysing the linkages between extreme right-wing groups in Western Europe and the USA, moreover, Weinberg (ibid.: 26) shows that more than 50 per cent of Western European groups emulate2 foreign groups and 28 per cent of Western European organisations have personal, interactive relationships across national borders (ibid.: 27). Thus, despite its deeply local roots and the twists and turns of its historical trajectory, skinhead today is a global cultural resource employing extensive translocal networks to articulate particular fears and hatreds, both local and national.

The Russian scene Skinheads appeared in Russia in the early 1990s. The first skins (no more than a dozen in Moscow and St Petersburg) were in evidence in 1992

Introduction

5

(Tarasov 1999) grouped around the journal Pod nol’ in Moscow and the band Totenkopf in St Petersburg (Likhachev 2002: 116). I first encountered them in 1994 when, according to respondents, there were 150 to 200 skins across Moscow, with an elite ‘core’ to which others aspired (Pilkington 1996: 254). Respondents interviewed at that time articulated their behaviour in terms of participation in a pan-European neo-right youth movement and punctuated their speech with German slogans such as ‘Ausländer Raus’ (‘Foreigners out’), references to Jean-Marie Le Pen and knowledge of internationally recognised signifiers of ‘skinhead’ (Doc Martens, cult films such as Romper Stomper) and combined these with locally rooted everyday racisms, focused on a resentment of men from ‘the Caucasus’ dating Russian women. However, this group of skins all had long youth cultural (tusovka) histories and remained closely linked to those scenes (ibid.: 252).3 Tarasov (1999, 2004a: 1) interprets these early skins as products of ‘teenage aping’ as discussion of Nazi-skins in Western Europe and America became fashionable in the Russian press. However, from 1994 the movement began to expand rapidly in response to the profound economic and political upheavals taking place in Russia at the time. The mid-1990s was a period in which all the social consequences of price liberalisation, rapid privatisation and marketisation were felt without the anaesthetic of optimism of the first post-Soviet years. Moreover, the political events of September–October 1993 – when President Yeltsin ordered tanks to shell the parliament building in which elected deputies were barricaded, protesting against the dissolution of parliament ordered by the president – appeared to legitimate violence as an extension of politics. Perhaps still more significantly, against the backdrop of preparations for the first Russian military campaign in Chechnia, the introduction of a ‘state of emergency’ in Moscow on 3 October 1993 allowed the arrest, frequent beating, and deportation from Moscow of almost 10,000 people, primarily of ‘Caucasian appearance’, for violation of the internal passport system, creating an atmosphere of officially sanctioned ethnic cleansing (Tarasov 2000: 46; Domrin 2007: 134; Burt 2004: 5). According to Tarasov (cited in Dolgopolova 2004), these events turned the skinhead movement into a mass phenomenon in a matter of weeks. Subsequently, during the period of the first Chechen war (December 1994–May 1996), not only did the authorities fail to challenge racist rhetoric and violence but skinhead gangs often perceived that law enforcement agencies tacitly supported their actions (Tarasov 2000: 43). Thus, despite reluctance on the part of the police to acknowledge motivations of ethnic hatred in incidents of violent crime, the mid-1990s saw a number of violent attacks on individuals or groups organised by skinhead groups, including a series of attacks on Arab students’ hostels in Voronezh in 1996 involving skinhead groups and members of Russian National Unity (RNE).4 This joint action is indicative of the significant effort invested by extreme right-wing parties in actively recruiting and cooperating with skinhead groups. In many provincial cities, such as Voronezh, it was the RNE and its

6

Introduction

splinter groups that were most active (Tarasov 1999, 2004a: 13). In Moscow in this early period, however, the Russian National Union (RNS) was particularly visible; it created a dedicated department for work with skinheads, financed the skinhead publication Pod nol’ and invited the leader of one of the main Moscow skinhead groups, Skinlegion, to speak regularly at its meetings (Tarasov 2000: 40). Another close collaboration was formed between the People’s National Party (NNP) and the small but well-disciplined skinhead group Russkaia Tsel’ after the NNP leader Aleksandr Ivanov-Sukharevskii shared a cell (following his arrest in February 1999 for incitement of racial hatred) with the leader of Russkaia Tsel’, Semen Tokmakov (ibid.: 40–1). Tokmakov subsequently led the youth section of the NNP (Pushchaev 2002: 78). The National Front Party (PNF), founded by Il’ia Lazarenko, was also highly active in recruiting skinhead members in Moscow. In St Petersburg, the National-Republican Party of Russia (NRPR; from 2000 known as the Freedom Party; PS) pioneered collaboration with skinhead groups (Tarasov 1999), but thereafter the St Petersburg branch of the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) and the pagan organisation the Union of Veneds (SV) proved more successful (Likhachev 2002: 119). Notwithstanding these efforts, most skinheads remained in small groups or gangs, with no ‘party’ organisation or formulated ideology. In Moscow there were around twenty skinhead gangs, the more organised of which had a name, a leader, a regular meeting place and a structure that allowed rapid mobilisation for participation in some kind of ‘action’ (Likhachev 2002: 117; Pushchaev 2002). In addition to the Skinlegion and Russkaia Tsel’ groups noted above, in Moscow there were a number of other major skinhead groupings (each with 100 to 150 members): Blood and Honour–Russian branch; Hammerskins-Russia; and Ob’edinennye Brigady 88, formed in 1998 when around a hundred skins from the Belie Bul’dogi and Lefortovskii Front united (Tarasov 2000: 40; Likhachev 2002: 116–17). There was one exclusively female skin group, calling itself Russkie Devushki (Likhachev 2002: 117). In St Petersburg around 150 skins were organised in the Russkii Kulak, while other major skin organisations were Solntsevorot and Totenkopf (ibid.). Tarasov (1999) estimated that, by spring 1999, there were more than 2,000 skinheads in Moscow and St Petersburg, up to 2,000 in Nizhnii Novgorod, and between 500 and 1,000 in a number of other cities across the country.5 A significant new stage in skinhead violence began in 1998, signalled by the announcement – via faxes sent to Moscow newspapers – of an impending coordinated campaign of violence to ‘commemorate’ Hitler’s birthday (Likhachev 2002: 121; Dolgopolova 2006: 10). These actions were organised over a period of one month from 20 April by Semen Tokmakov, the 22-yearold leader of Russkaia Tsel’; during this month there were, on average, four violent acts per day, the most notorious of which was that on a United States marine (William Jefferson) at the Gorbushka music market (Tarasov 2000: 49).6 Over succeeding years a series of mass violent actions – most notably the ‘pogroms’ against ‘foreign’ traders at markets in Moscow in 2001 (at

Introduction

7

Yasenevo on 20 April, and at Tsaritsyno on 30 October, during which three people were killed) – brought the skinhead movement into the public eye and made it synonymous with the perpetration of racist violence.7 The extreme nature of the violence perpetrated by this second wave of the movement distinguished it from that of the early 1990s (Tarasov 2004b: 38), and the notoriety received appeared to encourage the perpetrators to step up their action further, resulting in a sharp increase in the number of fatal attacks (Dolgopolova 2006). Tarasov (2004b: 38) explains this as the result of a generational change in the movement; if the first wave consisted of the children of the Soviet middle class destroyed by the economic reforms of the early 1990s, then the second wave came from more economically secure but less educated backgrounds and was significantly more brutal. The social data available on the origins of this second wave, Tarasov argues, confirm the classic image of fascist pogroms being carried out by those from the petite bourgeoisie who see ‘foreigners’ as their primary economic competitors (Dolgopolova 2006).8 Data on neo-Nazi and other racist violence collated and analysed by the Sova Center suggest that the tendency towards the intensification of violence has continued. The number of hate crimes have grown year on year; the number of deaths annually rose from 49 in 2004 to 97 in 2008 and the total number of victims from 267 to 525 (Kozhevnikova 2008; Kozhevnikova 2009). The last five years has also witnessed a tendency for the public expression of xenophobic sentiments to be increasingly routinised and legitimised. Central to this process has been the series of marches organised since 2005 by ‘patriotic’ forces to mark the newly constituted National Unity Day (4 November). Although key figures in the organisation of these marches – for example, the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) – avoid overt racist rhetoric, the marches nonetheless allow thousands of extreme nationalists, including groups of skinheads, to parade through the centre of Moscow demonstrating Nazi symbols and articulating racist or xenophobic views. Parliamentary parties have also played on xenophobic sentiments, most notoriously during the 2005 elections to the Moscow city Duma, when both the Rodina bloc and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) used xenophobic campaign materials (see Appendix 1). At the same time, however, the adoption of the Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity (July 2002), under which it became illegal to display in public Nazi attributes or symbols, to incite social, racial, ethnic or religious conflict, and to circulate propaganda of exclusiveness, superiority or inferiority of an individual on the grounds of racial or ethnic identity, and the subsequent increased vigour in the application of elements of the existing criminal code (especially article 282 on the prohibition of incitement to hatred on social, racial, ethnic or religious grounds), has seen a rise in prosecutions for the publication of ‘extremist’ materials and hate speech.9 The most recent high-profile prosecution under this legislation has been that of Maksim (Tesak) Martsinkevich (leader of the skinhead group Format-18), whose arrest in 2007 and subsequent

8

Introduction

sentencing to three years in prison triggered the demise of Format-18 (see Appendix 1, under National-Socialist Association). The relative severity of Martsinkevich’s sentence, Kozhevnikova (2009) suggests, may well have been on account of his association with the initiation of a new dimension to ethnic violence; the filming, and distribution of images via the Internet, of racist attacks, including murders.10 Another significant development in hate crime has been the increasing level of organisation manifest in the ability of networks of small groups to coordinate actions11 and the emergence of a parallel ‘system’ of support – legal, financial, social – for those within this network (ibid.). Moreover, the ability of organised groups to whip up wider ethnic tensions around routine disputes continued following the notorious events in Kondopoga in August and September 2006, when a fight between men drinking in a restaurant (owned by a man of Azeri origin), in which two Russian men were killed (by members of the local Chechen population), resulted in widespread ethnic rioting by Russian youth (coordinated by the DPNI and others from Moscow) and calls for the forcible resettlement from the city of people from the Caucasus. Similar incidents were recorded in the regions of Krasnodar, Perm’, Moscow, Rostov and Volgograd in 2008 alone (ibid.). Media interest in the skinhead movement in Russia is focused almost entirely on neo-Nazi skinheads. However, at least in the larger cities, there are also active groups of ‘Trad’, SHARP and RASH (red and anarchist) skinheads (see, for example, Tarasov 2005). Indeed the relative paucity of both ‘traditional’ (non-racist) and actively anti-racist and left-wing skinheads12 is ascribed by Tarasov (1999) to the failure of the Russian media to discuss these kinds of skinheads in the West. Nevertheless such strands of the movement do exist in a number of Russian cities, most actively in St Petersburg, and have been another target for Nazi-skins. Although Kozhevnikova (2009) notes that, as a proportion of victims of racist violence, this category reduced in 2008 (from between a quarter and a third of all attacks to 16 per cent), violent incidents took place in a number of cities. These included, in October 2008, the kicking to death of a 16-year-old girl in Irkutsk by a group of three young men wearing neo-Nazi gear, ostensibly because the victim was dressed as a punk and her boots had red laces – associated with the antifascist (antifa) movement – and the fatal stabbing of Fyodor Filatov, one of the founders of the anti-racist Moscow Trojan Skinhead group (Sova Center 2008). Indeed the number of attacks on antifa (and those associated with them) may not have decreased at all but simply have ceased to be reported, as they turned into routine events in the long-running battles between Nazi-skinheads and antifa groups (Kozhevnikova 2009). The skinhead movement in Russia is no transitory fashion. Aleksandr Tarasov has charted its exponential growth from around a couple of dozen members in 1992 to more than 2,000 in Moscow and St Petersburg by the beginning of the ‘second wave’ in spring 1999, and to 35,000 to 40,000 across the country by April 2002 (Tarasov 1999, 2004a). By 2004 the number of

Introduction

9

active skinheads was estimated at 70,000, and the movement was predicted to grow until it peaked at around 75,000 to 80,000 (Tarasov 2004a: 13). However, even these estimates now appear modest; Grishin (2007) cites the head of the Russian Interior Ministry press service as estimating that, at the start of 2007, there were at least 100,000 skinheads in the Russian Federation, while Verkhovsky (2009: 92) has suggested that the movement remains ‘the largest and most dynamic segment of the Russian nationalists’. The repositioning of skinhead in Russia in this way as an integral part of extreme rightwing political movements partly reflects the numerical dominance and transnational connectedness of this strand of the movement in its contemporary Russian incarnation. Yet scholars in Russia remain uneasy about understanding skinhead as a political organisation and invariably choose to declare it to be a ‘subculture’ rather than a political movement (ibid.; Likhachev 2002: 109; Kürti 1998: 181).13 In so doing, however, they appear to relinquish responsibility for further theoretical explanation – as if branding skinhead a ‘subculture’ renders it either theoretically self-explanatory or so socially and politically marginal that it does not merit further understanding. Whatever the reason, the skinhead subculture in contemporary Russia remains untheorised, and thus, in the next section, the subcultural reading of skinhead and its critiques are reviewed briefly before outlining the theoretical approach adopted in this book.

Understanding contemporary skinhead culture: revisiting theory Skinhead – in its first-wave (British) constellation – was one of the styles central to the development of the theory of ‘youth subculture’ by researchers at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University and has shaped all subsequent academic engagements with skinhead culture. There are a number of distinct elements to this reading of skinhead, each being emphasised more or less by different researchers within the centre. At its core is the understanding of skinhead as an attempt to re-create symbolically the traditional working-class community at a time when it was under increasing pressure from structural dislocation, via a combination of enactments of territoriality, collective solidarity and ‘masculinity’ (Clarke 1993a: 102). This class- or community-based defensiveness, Clarke argues, was coupled with a sense of exclusion from the existing ‘youth subculture’ (dominated in the public arena by music and styles derived from the ‘underground’) among lower-working-class youth, producing an intensified ‘Us–Them’ consciousness (ibid.: 99). The cultural response – of some – was the articulation via subcultural style of an exaggerated version of the values and concerns of the community; this exaggerated form was itself a product of the fact that the real bases of solidarity of that community were already so undermined that what young people drew on was only an image of it (ibid.: 100). The specific subcultural style of the skinheads, it was argued, was related to these values in a ‘homological’ way, via the ‘fit’ between ‘the

10

Introduction

objective potential of the cultural form’ and ‘the subjective orientation of the group’ (Clarke 1993b: 179). In the case of the skinheads, their style presented a caricature of the model worker; heavy industrial boots, work clothes (jeans and braces) and shaven heads were appropriated to articulate a tough masculinism, chauvinism (anti-gay and anti-black), puritanism and working-class communalism (Cohen 1972: 24–5). Skinhead was only one example of a range of cultural responses explored by researchers of the CCCS that they described as ‘youth subcultures’. The notion of youth subculture was elaborated with the aim of unpicking the functionalist and ‘incipiently classless’ notion of ‘youth culture’ (Clarke et al. 1993: 15) that was theoretically dominant at the time and replacing it with a more materially, or structurally, located understanding of the cultural practices of young people in the post-Second World War period. ‘Subculture’ as an analytic concept, therefore, aimed to illuminate how youth cultural practices were doubly articulated, in relation to both their ‘parent culture’ (the class culture from which they emanate) and the ‘dominant culture’ (ibid.). In this sense ‘youth subculture’ was not a theory that engaged only with the ‘spectacular’ forms of youth culture; although such subcultures were the conscious focus of the CCCS’s more detailed empirical accounts, the group acknowledged that, alongside style-based subcultures, there were others, especially ‘delinquent’ subcultures that were persistent features of the ‘parent culture’ (ibid.: 14).14 Indeed, the CCCS approach to youth subculture was developed also in critical tension with symbolic interactionist approaches to ‘deviancy’ that had emerged out of the Chicago School study of subcultures. In particular, Howard Becker’s seminal work Outsiders (Becker 1997) became a touchstone for the CCCS, marking both a crucial move towards understanding social action as process rather than event and, at the same time, sparking concerns about losing sight of other factors important in explaining ‘deviance’ beyond the power of labelling (Hall and Jefferson 1993: 5). This intellectual context is important for understanding the emphasis placed by CCCS researchers on the material underpinnings of subcultural practices, which, combined with the concern with social structure and class culture, lent the body of writings a sense of structural determinism. Today, ‘subculture’ feels a rather tired term – battered and bruised by sustained criticism for failing to account for less permanent, less subversive but more global and more consumer-based modes of sociality among young people. This has led to much recent debate among sociologists of youth about what should replace the term – ‘post-subcultures’, ‘neo-tribes’, ‘scenes’? – which has resulted in the widespread abandonment of the ‘subcultural’ approach (as per the CCCS) among a new generation of researchers of youth culture in favour of an apparently more sociological, more empirically based and more globally aware ‘post-subcultural studies’. Rather than rehearse here the full critique and counter-critique of the CCCS understanding of youth subculture,15 I want to take up two elements of that critique that are particularly pertinent to the contextualisation of the approach taken in this book.

Introduction

11

The first concerns the overemphasis of the role of class in the formation of subcultures. This criticism has a number of components, including the absence of empirical evidence that members of the subcultures that the CCCS discuss were predominantly of working-class origin (Muggleton 2000: 21–2) and the overprioritisation of class in relation to other social structural relations, such as gender, race and sexuality (McRobbie and Garber 1993). The strongest criticism, however, relates to the weight class is given in explaining the emergence and meaning of youth subcultures. Thus Bennett (1999: 607) argues the CCCS approach ‘supposes individuals to be locked into particular “ways of being” which are determined by the conditions of class’ and thus that consumption by them is interpreted only as a strategy of resistance rather than as an opportunity to break away from constraining class-based identities and to experiment with new, self-constructed forms of identity (ibid.: 602). While this criticism is often reduced to a simple labelling of the CCCS as ‘neo-Marxist’, central to it is a fundamental epistemological and methodological divergence between the approach of the CCCS – which considered subcultures primarily as an example of a cultural response to structural change within a particular class fraction – and a generation of ‘post-subcultural’ sociologists, whose interpretativist sensibilities were offended by the lack of attention in the work of the CCCS to meanings attached to their cultural practices by members of subcultures themselves. While, on this question, I would largely agree with the ‘post-subcultural’ perspective,16 I would want to hold on to the commitment of the CCCS approach (even if unrealised in the case of the research actually conducted) to understanding micro-cultural practice in relation to deeper (and historically rooted) social structural change. This is, I think, central to a critical approach to youth cultural studies. The second core element of critique important to address here concerns the inapplicability of the CCCS theory of youth subculture to more recent phenomena of the youth cultural scene, which are characterised both by less rigid demarcations between the ‘subcultural’ and the ‘mainstream’ and by transient and fluid membership, and which are no longer specifically ‘youth’ phenomena (Muggleton 2000: 52–3; Bennett 1999: 605–8; Bennett 2006). At one level, of course, it is right to review and revise existing theory when new phenomena challenge it, as in the case, especially, of rave and the subsequent urban dance scenes of the 1990s (see, for example, Redhead 1997; Malbon 1999). At the same time, the characterisation of the CCCS notion of youth subculture as envisaging a rigidity and fixedness of boundaries is unhelpful; in fact, CCCS writings illuminate the connections between mods, skins, Teds, punks, rude boys, Rasta and others. The difference is that the CCCS described these movements and fluidities primarily in terms of style (and on the basis of ‘anecdotal’ evidence) and explained them historically and structurally, as a process of positioning within the parent culture. In contrast, contemporary theorists of post-subcultures seek to describe such fluidities empirically and at the level of individual trajectories and to explain them

12

Introduction

through consumer choice and identity construction. The CCCS also clearly recognised that specific subcultures may be more or less ‘fleeting’ or ‘permanent’ and that they change over time – appearing and then fading or losing their distinctiveness – and that individuals move in and out of, or indeed between several, subcultures in their subcultural ‘careers’ (Clarke et al. 1993: 16). Moreover, with regard to the apparent rigid distinction between conventional and subcultural groups, while the CCCS might be criticised for not conducting their own research into ‘conventional’ youth cultures, they certainly did not perceive these two spheres as existing in isolation from one another. On the contrary, as Clarke and his colleagues write, The relation between the ‘everyday life’ and the ‘subcultural life’ of different sections of youth is an important question in its own right . . . For the majority, school and work are more structurally significant – even at the level of consciousness – than style and music . . . (Ibid.) This, surely, is an open invitation to explore precisely this space between everyday life and ‘subcultural’ life, recognising that the ‘subcultural’ things that the group share – be it ideology, style, music tastes or sporting activities – are important but constitute only a part, and not the most important part, of their lives. In this book, therefore, we neither position ourselves as critics of the notion of ‘subculture’ nor do we seek to rehabilitate it. Rather we explore young people’s cultural practices in the wider context of their whole lives and the lives of those around them. We make no absolute differentiation between ‘subcultural’ and ‘mainstream’ youth, although we recognise that for many this distinction remains an important marker of ‘authenticity’. Rather we envisage all young people as engaged in positioning themselves on the youth scene, whether they do that through ‘spectacular’ style or by consciously choosing to be ‘normal’.17 Indeed, we focus our attention not on defining the nature of the group – its relative boundedness, closedness, fixedness, differentiation from ‘other’ groups or ‘mainstream’ society – but on its substance. Our interest lies first and foremost in the cultural practices and affective bonds that bind a particular group of people. This ‘substance’ is more than the dress, music, ritual and argot quartet of subcultural style (Clarke et al. 1993: 45–7). As Paul Corrigan notes, the main action of subculture is, in fact, ‘doing nothing’, and a key element in ‘doing nothing’ is talking: Not the arcane discussion of the T.V. talk show, but recounting, exchanging stories which need never be true or real but which are as interesting as possible. About football, about each other, talking not to communicate ideas, but to communicate the experience of talking. (Corrigan 1993: 103)

Introduction

13

Out of this emerge the jokes, the banter and the ‘weird ideas’ (ibid.) that fuel the group stream of action and the next round of talk; here Corrigan’s words evoke exactly the prikoly that infuse youth cultural practice in Russia (Pilkington 1994: 266). We think about the substance of youth cultural practices, therefore, as ‘embodied communication’ (ibid.: 236–68) – as the constitution of youth groupings ‘by communicative practices, by the everyday social activities that are the setting for their creation of shared symbols’ (Frith 2004: 173). The notion of ‘communicative practice’ is important because it effectively allows for the ‘shift’ in style with which post-subcultural theory is concerned without reducing style to a fleeting, consumer-led practice. In other words, shared symbols may be important if temporary foci for group identification, but the group is constituted by more stable communicative practices and affective bonds that define a particular emotional community. This constitutes the core of the micro- or phenomenological element of our approach, which focuses on the way in which, as Phil Cohen (2005: 90) puts it, ‘subculture is actually “lived out”’.18 By setting ‘subcultural’ lives firmly in the context of everyday lives, however, our approach remains sensitive to the social structures that shape both. Here, rather than imagining a sharp division between ‘ordinary’ deviancy and ‘subcultural’ style, we employ the concept of ‘youth cultural strategy’ (Pilkington et al. 2002: 101–32) to express how young people negotiate a range of cultural regimes – rooted in social divisions of class (understood as a socio-economic and socio-spatial category), gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, (dis)ability – that enable or constrain their cultural possibilities. This allows us to reconnect with critical criminology or ‘deviancy’ literature that has established so importantly that ‘deviant behavior is behavior that people so label’ (Becker 1997: 9) and that the perspectives of ‘deviant’ groups are in fact only extensions of those held by ‘ordinary’ members of conventional society (ibid.: 175). This is particularly important in the context of the study here, where, as is explored in Chapter 6, there is much in common between the articulated views of the skinhead group at the centre of the research and the ‘everyday’ racism and xenophobia of the general public. The notion of ‘youth cultural strategy’ also allows us to understand individual life trajectories of group members as evolving. As outlined in Chapter 4, key respondents in this study had long and varied ‘street’ or ‘subcultural’ careers that crossed the boundaries of ‘ordinary deviancy’ (gang culture, petty crime, drug dealing) and ‘subcultural’ identities. This should not be interpreted as the specificity of the Russian scene or as evidence of a gap between ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ (‘hooligan’, ‘thug’) skinheads. As Corrigan argues, fighting is the second key element to ‘doing nothing’ (1993: 104), and we know from existing literature (Ryan 2003: 23; Lööw 1993: 77) that involvement in territorial gangs, informal economic practices and crime is not uncommon among groups that are normally talked about in relation to their skinhead ‘style’ or racist ideology.19 Thus, the notion of ‘youth cultural strategy’ recognises the

14

Introduction

very real constraints that inequalities based on social cleavages hold for many young people, while acknowledging also the agency and creativity of young people’s cultural lives and allowing for the fluidity and ‘moving on’ in which they routinely engage.

The structure of the book This theoretical approach shaped both the empirical design of the research conducted with young people in Russia and the structure of this book. The first part explores the everyday lives of the respondents who participated in the research. It situates those lives in the context of growing up in a postindustrial city literally ‘on the margins’ of contemporary Russian society and in their family, friendship, educational, work and leisure contexts. Chapter 2 considers the origins of Vorkuta in the gulag system and the cultural imprint this leaves upon the city today. Based on visual and verbal representations of the city, the chapter aims to evoke Vorkuta as it presented itself to respondents and researchers and pays particular attention to understanding how these different representations evolved and shaped each other. The chapter argues that, notwithstanding globalising processes, place – in its material and imagined forms – plays a central role in shaping youth cultural identities. This part of the book also seeks to provide a portrait of everyday life for respondents – their working lives and their private and public leisure time – which is essential for understanding the particular ‘skinhead’ cultural practices explored in more detail in Part 2. Chapter 3 considers respondents’ experience of, and attitudes to, family life, work and study. It outlines how the particular group at the heart of this book formed and functioned, paying particular attention to the importance of friendship, trust and loyalty in maintaining and regulating relationships. It also analyses how respondents’ increasingly divergent understandings of friendship and trust precipitated an irreconcilable rift in the group. Chapter 4 considers the shared and individual cultural interests of group members, including sport and music as well as a range of practices – hanging out, drinking and drug use, money-making – which formed the background or context of much of the time they spent together. The diversity within, and changing nature of, these interests and practices, it is argued, demonstrates the limits of understanding ‘skinhead’ identity as encapsulated in a static, ‘homologous’ relationship between style and values. By looking back into their pre-skinhead lives and anticipating respondents’ movement out of skinhead, this part of the book aims to provide a more rounded understanding of how cultural choices and strategies are shaped by family, peer and neighbourhood networks and the interpersonal communication and understandings of intimacy that take shape there. Part 2 turns specifically to the question of ‘why skinhead?’ by exploring what being a skinhead means to those who call themselves such. Chapter 5 threads together the ‘ideology’ of the group. It outlines the overtly racist and/ or neo-fascist views of members and traces the commonalities and differences

Introduction

15

between their articulated worldview and external discourses of transnational right-wing extremism and the ideological positions of established extreme nationalist political groupings and parties in Russia. It concludes, however, that the group’s political engagement is so heavily weighted towards acts of an anti-systemic nature or aggression against ideological enemies, rather than ideological dissemination and networking, that it is best described simply as ‘a movement of action’. The form and content of this ‘action’, including racist (‘ideologically motivated’), ritual and symbolic violence, is the focus of Chapter 6. It suggests that ritual fighting is in evidence in group practices but had decreased in significance over time and was limited by the relatively undeveloped subcultural scene in the city, providing few subcultural ‘others’ to target. Its place is taken by racist violence; indeed it is these ‘actions’ which, respondents say, differentiate their active and principled position from that of ‘kitchen racists’. The role of a range of actions that fall short of physical violence – intimidation, propaganda and hate speech – is also discussed, especially in relation to the young women in the group (whose participation in street actions is curtailed). Chapter 7 considers the role of style in the group’s skinhead identity. It suggests that members display a relative lack of attention to style, that the importance attached to this declines significantly over time, and that style practices express not only the internal values of the group but an ongoing engagement with the outside world. The chapter also argues for a theoretical approach to the understanding of style that pays more attention to the performative dimensions of style practices and the intimacies, bonds and solidarities they engender. Chapter 8 turns attention specifically to the male, homosocial, bonds that, although not articulated as such by the respondents, were observed to be central to group solidarity. It argues that the group constitutes a particular, contemporary, form of fraternity based on homosocial bonds of friendship, closeness and (dis) trust. It discusses the aesthetics and ethics of intimacy within the group, including practices of displaying the – naked and bare – body and explores these in the context of the wider and competing masculinities through which they are enacted. The final part of the book addresses some of the epistemological and ethical issues arising from the research. Chapter 9 discusses respondents’ reflections on participating in the research, focusing especially on the experiences of those with whom the team has been in communication since 2002. Using, as an illustration, respondents’ jibes that they were treated like ‘reusable condoms’ by researchers, the chapter considers the sources of inequality in research relationships and the consequences and effectiveness of techniques employed to address unequal relations in the field. Chapter 10 reflects on the intensity of the fieldwork experience, the vulnerabilities of the researcher and the challenges of managing emotions in (and beyond) the field. It sets this in the context of a growing attention to the question of ‘emotions’ in the discussion of social science methodology and argues that the recognition of the emotional labour of fieldwork does not undermine but,

16

Introduction

on the contrary, can enhance sociological knowledge. Chapter 11 explores the unusual experience offered by the research of conducting ethnography as a team. It suggests that team-based research can be helpful in meeting some of the challenges set out in Chapter 10, as it provides an intellectually and emotionally supportive environment for individual researchers. At the same time it can generate claustrophobic field environments, limiting the space for individual reflection, and brings with it additional sets of power-infused relationships (researcher–researcher, ‘other’ researcher–research participants) that must be managed. Setting this discussion within current epistemological debates, the chapter argues that, although the idea of a collaborative ethnographic practice seems counter-intuitive in a research environment in which the ‘reflexive’ turn has led to an ever greater focus on the individual relationship between researcher and research participants, in fact the precariousness of subjectivity experienced while conducting team-based ethnographic research can help enact a more profound reflexivity in which researchers place themselves squarely within rather than outside the social relations of research. A particular feature of this research was the capacity, and desire, of respondents to recognise and play with such power, and illustrations of how this shaped the research present themselves through all three chapters in this part of the book. In the concluding chapter we reflect on what the approach adopted in this book and its resultant findings add to our understanding of why skinhead continues to find resonance with new generations of young people in ever wider parts of the globe. This is addressed, first, by considering directly the personal meanings attached to ‘skinhead’ by individual respondents. This discussion reveals the importance of skinhead’s promise of lending transcendent value to one’s life – a value embedded not so much in skinhead’s ideology or political aim but in the bonds between people that it engenders. This leads us to conclude that the meaning of skinhead may be located in neither style nor ideology but in the existential comfort of solidarity.

Survival city: contextualising the research The research upon which this book is based was conducted in the city of Vorkuta in the Komi Republic of the Russian Federation. Vorkuta is a territorially isolated and rapidly deindustrialising and depopulating city in the north-west region of Russia. It lies 2,266 kilometres to the north-east of Moscow and is connected to the outside world primarily via rail; there are no road connections to other cities, and the small airport links directly only to the Komi Republic capital, Syktyvkar (see Figure 1.1). In the winter – which lasts around 230 days of the year – the temperature can fall as low as minus 52°C. Registered unemployment (3.3 per cent) is low, but educational and employment prospects are nonetheless limited. The city’s economy remains heavily dependent upon the extraction of coal (74 per cent of its industrial production),20 and further and higher educational

Introduction

Kara Sea

Norwegian Sea Tromsø

TAYMYR

SAKHA

Matochkin Shar

Kiruna Murmansk

Umea

17

Dudinka

Barents Sea

EVENKI

Vorkuta

Tampere

YAMALONENETS

Arkhangelsk St Petersburg Pskov Vologda

KOMI Syktyvkar

Surgut

Buy Kirov Moscow Nizhniy Novgorod Ryazan Penza Gubkin

RUSSIA

Tomsk

Perm’

Ufa

Nizhnevartovsk

Isil’kul

Krasnoyarsk Bogotol

Novosibirsk Omsk Barnaul

Figure 1.1 The geographic location of Vorkuta

establishments are oriented towards training skilled workers for employment in the mines. Thanks to the premiums paid to extraction sector workers, average monthly wages remain relatively high; in 2006, salaries were 1.5 times higher than the Russian national average. However, the economic and territorial isolation of the city is fuelling a process of rapid out-migration; in 1995 its population was 181,000, but by 2007 it had fallen to 120,000.21 The material drawn on in this book comes from three periods of ethnographic research in Vorkuta with a group of young people with a selfdeclared ‘skinhead’ identity. Those involved were first encountered in the course of conducting research into young people’s attitudes to, and use of, illegal drugs (2002–3).22 This project was a mixed method study; a survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2002, followed in 2003 by six weeks of ethnographic research. During this period, close ties were forged with a group of 16- to 19-year-olds who identified themselves as skinheads.23 This was a serendipitous encounter. However, subsequent participation in a transnational European project on Society and Lifestyles (SAL)24 (2006–8) allowed a focused study of xenophobic youth cultures that included a case study sited in Vorkuta. A small team of researchers returned to Vorkuta in October–November 2006 and again in September–October 2007. Having

18

Introduction

re-established contact with two of the original ‘skinhead’ respondents encountered during the fieldwork conducted in 2003, the main field researcher in 2006–7 (Al’bina Garifzianova) developed a core group of a dozen respondents within a wider network of around 30 young people with whom she worked. Elena Omel’chenko and Hilary Pilkington joined her in the field for the final third of the fieldwork period in October–November 2006 and October 2007. This book thus draws on a wide range of research materials from two distinct projects and the ethnographic work of a team of researchers with different national and ethnic backgrounds, of different ages and at different stages of their working lives. The materials drawn on from 2002–3 are the researcher’s field diary; photographs taken by respondents and the researcher; and two interviews with respondents – Slava and Nikolai – who were at the heart of the original Retribution-1825 skinhead brigade (see below). It should be remembered, however, that these materials were part of a much broader research project – about the role of drug use within youth cultural practice – in which some members of the group happened to take part. The materials from 2006–7 were from a project directly focused on the group and are both visual and narrative in kind. Visual data include photos and video produced by each of the researchers and images given by the respondents from their personal collections. Among narrative data are 15 audio and video interviews conducted in 2006; eight audio and video interviews conducted in 2007; and field diaries from 2006 and 2007. All interviews were transcribed, and both interviews and diaries were analysed with the help of qualitative data analysis software (NVivo 7). To protect the anonymity of respondents, all names used in the book are pseudonyms and quotations from interviews are cited with reference only to the interviewee and the year in which the interview was recorded. Biographical details (age, educational or employment status, connection to the group, etc.) for all core respondents are collated in Appendix 2. All photographs were taken with permission of the respondents or were given freely to researchers in the knowledge that they would be used for research and publication. Nonetheless, in cases where photographs clearly link individuals with skinhead-related activities, faces have been blurred to protect anonymity. The implications of conducting ethnographic research as a team are discussed in detail in Chapter 11 of the book. It is worth noting here, however, that, in contrast to our past practice of developing a common coding scheme for analysing transcribed materials, on this occasion the decision was taken to analyse the material individually. The members of the team have met frequently, shared thoughts on emergent themes, clarified details, tried out ‘hypotheses’ on each other and argued about interpretations. We have of course also reminisced, laughed, joked and cried about experiences during fieldwork. But largely we have written separately. Of course there are always both intellectual and pragmatic reasons why writing individually appears more productive, but on this occasion our decision was probably at least

Introduction

19

partially a product of the experience of such close collaboration in the field. The counter-side to the intellectually and emotionally supportive environment that resulted from working as a team was a periodic sense of claustrophobia caused by the torrent of ‘experience’ evoked by mutual debriefings and the lack of time on our own to reflect without the competing demands of different interpretations of events. The outcome was a kind of deferred individualism, and it was not until more than a year after returning from the field that the decision was made to write this book collaboratively. This also explains why, although in the course of the preparation of the manuscript we shared our NVivo databases, discussed ideas, negotiated what issues should be addressed where, commented on each other’s contributions, etc., each chapter has been written by an individual member of the team.26

Introducing the respondents The group of young people at the centre of this book was first encountered in 2002 and at that time might best be described as a friendship group aged around 16 to 19 years centring on a core group of respondents with a more or less active ‘skinhead’ identity. According to respondents, this was already the ‘second wave’ of skinheads in the city; the first wave (about ten people) had emerged in 1998–9, but, following the imprisonment of a number of them (mainly for petty crime), skinheads disappeared from the city for a while. The movement became visible again in 2002, at which time, respondents reported, between 40 and 80 could be gathered for ‘special occasions’. In 2002–3 at the heart of the group with whom we were acquainted were Andrei, Slava and Nikolai, who described themselves as being the core of one ‘brigade’ – called Retribution-18 – of the skinhead movement in the city. The ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2003 suggested Andrei followed by Slava were the key authorities in this brigade, and they became, along with Zhenia, core respondents in the later research (Ol’ga Dobroshtan’s diary, 2003). Nikolai and Vasia were also known to both Ol’ga Dobroshtan and to Al’bina Garifzianova. The group was in the middle ranks of the movement at that time – the ‘veterans’ being those over 20 years of age, the ‘young ones’, like them, being aged 14 to 18 and the novices (karliki) being under 14. Between 2002 and 2007, however, the articulated identity of the group of skinheads with whom we worked shifted significantly; it moved away from practices focused on style and ‘street violence’ and towards the maintenance of racist views as an ‘inner conviction’, accompanied by a more ‘civilian’ (work, leisure, family) orientation and/or a more formal political engagement. This period was mirrored by a decline in the visibility of the movement as a whole in Vorkuta. In 2006 respondents reported there to be a ‘core’ group of about ten individuals.27 The total number of active skinheads in the city, however, was impossible to estimate, since the whole movement never met; important issues were discussed by meetings of ‘the core’ and resolutions passed down the chain of command. Separate survey research conducted by the authors

20

Introduction

among 16- to 19-year-olds in Vorkuta’s schools, colleges and higher education institutions in October 2007 found that skinheads retained relatively high visibility on youth scenes; 51.2 per cent of respondents said that skinheads were active not only in the city in general but in the district where they lived themselves (Omel’chenko and Pilkington 2009: 34).28 The empirical research drawn on in this book emanates primarily from two six-week periods of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in 2006 and, twelve months later, in 2007; it thus captures respondents at the age of around 20 to 22 and during the period in which they both saw themselves as ‘veterans’ of the movement and were moving, in diverse ways, out of active or visible skinhead identity. It is also important to note that, during the first stage of fieldwork in 2006, the group underwent a significant split as a result of an argument (primarily between its two leaders, Andrei and Slava) and, although contact was retained with all original respondents, by 2007 they no longer constituted a single unit.

Ethical concerns The ethical and personal issues raised by our engagement as researchers with this group of young people have been reflected on extensively within the team of researchers and together with the young people with whom we worked.29 Some of these reflections have been published (Dobroshtan 2004; Garifzianova 2008; Omel’chenko 2008a; Pilkington 2008), and Part 3 of this book is devoted to their more detailed discussion. Together they reveal the range of questions raised for individual team members during the research and the different ways in which their personal politics, ethics and subjectivities were challenged. Beneath the issues faced by individuals, however, lie two shared core dilemmas: how to marry commitments to being both an ‘empathetic field researcher’ and a ‘critical analyst’; and how to live with the necessity (and desire) to be ‘accepted’ by a community that is perceived itself to be ‘unacceptable’. While we would not claim to have resolved these dilemmas, we have handled them by understanding that ‘acceptance by respondents’ does not mean ‘acceptance as one of them’; as an ethnographer one needs to be ‘accepted’ as a person, not as a like-minded racist or xenophobe. Adopting this position is premised on an understanding of respondents as practising a particular politics, rather than being consumed by it. It assumes that one approaches respondents not as empty bearers of xenophobic ideology, but as rounded individuals whose participation in xenophobic youth cultural groups plays a particular role in their lives. This approach can, and does, lay one open to criticism of lending at least tacit support to their xenophobia. While such accusations remain painful, and are the site of frequent reflection, they do not undermine or contradict the aim at the heart of this book, which is to understand and explain the experiences and attitudes of young people in the often complex and contradictory form in which they appear. This aim is

Introduction

21

rooted in the conviction that no young person should be viewed, literally or metaphorically, as black or white, integrated or marginal, ‘socialised’ or antisocial. It is expressed in a research practice that tries to treat the young people we encounter as multidimensional human beings to be understood in their full complexity, however anti-socially they present themselves to us. This involves listening to them in a non-judgemental way and committing to that process of listening over a period of time. We do not think this condones or legitimates their views: at worst it provides an additional audience for them; at best it opens both researcher and researched to the important ‘art of listening’ (Back 2007). Listening is an art that carries hidden responsibilities, however; it brings with it the expectation of being understood. This is the ethnographer’s burden, for in our hearts we know that there is nothing more certain than the knowledge that we will let our respondents down. They will seek a ‘true’ portrait of themselves in what we write and will, inevitably, fail to find it. Moreover, they will interpret that experience not as a necessary outcome of a reflexive research practice but as our failure to live up to the trust invested in us or, worse still, our speculation upon that trust. The impact of this on our relationship with respondents is only just beginning to be felt. As our research progresses through the cycle of presentation and publication, in the phone calls, texts and emails that constitute our ongoing communication with respondents, we find ourselves exchanging playful(?) warnings that they ‘have heard’ that we have been writing bad stuff about them and earnest(?) assurances that this is not the case. Meanwhile, although enjoying the advantage of being in the driving seat of that cycle, we ourselves experience in it the same, frequently disappointed, desire to be understood. Indeed, perhaps ironically,30 the ‘presenting’ of the research has turned out in many ways to be more challenging than ‘doing’ it. This is partially because its ethnographic nature tends towards giving voice to research subjects and thus conflicts with the desire not to provide a platform for xenophobic views. In reality today, however, the researcher no longer plays the role of mouthpiece for such views. The group of people with whom we have been working are themselves media savvy. They post their views and pictures to websites dedicated to the politics and style to which they adhere and themselves contribute directly to journals and other publications. At the same time, as researchers we are also much more exposed to the media; the dilemma now is not whether or not to release information but how to retain control over what is reported about our research and to present that information adequately, and simultaneously, to very different audiences. Nonetheless, our nervousness about presenting our research has proven to be well founded. While on the one hand it is always uplifting to elicit an active response from audiences, it is fair to say that the responses we have received have not always encouraged the desire to present the work further. Our attempts to explain the particular life trajectories of respondents into, and out of, skinhead and the ambivalences that surround all (sub)cultural

22

Introduction

identities have been derided as evidence that our respondents were simply not ‘real’ skinheads. Our attempts to contextualise their lives have been understood as apologising for their violence. Our reflexive approach and honesty about the relationships we have with them have been described as ‘emotionality’ and lack of objectivity. Our attempts to unpick the ambiguity and contradiction in their lives have been trivialised as no more than ‘description’. From the outside, it seems to some, we are engaged in ‘playing a game – of they pretend to be skinheads and we pretend to be sociologists’.31 The reality is that we are profoundly aware that this is not a game. Our hands are dirty and our faces tear-stained, precisely because it is no game. At the academic level these lives may be ‘subcultural lives’, open for analysis and theorisation, but at a much more important level they are real lives – ours and theirs. And, like it or not, they are lives that are, at least partially, skinhead lives. It is these skinhead lives – ours and theirs – that we present in this book for readers to explore and rethink for themselves.

Part 1

Growing up in a harsh climate

2

The weight of the Vorkuta sky Placing youth cultural identities Hilary Pilkington

An integral part of the collective imagination, the neighbourhood is nevertheless only constituted by the intersection of ordinary situations, moments, spaces and individuals; moreover, it is most often expressed by the most common stereotypes. The town square, the street, the corner tobacconist, the bar at the PMU, the newsagent, centres of interest or necessity – just so many trivial examples of sociality. Nevertheless, it is precisely these instances that give rise to the specific aura of a given neighbourhood. I use this term deliberately, as it translates beautifully the complex movement of an atmosphere emitted by places and activities, giving them in return a unique colouring and odour. (Maffesoli 1996: 22)

Globalisation challenges the theory and practice of social sciences that have traditionally relied on notions of ‘society’ or ‘culture’ as complete and discrete systems – hermetically sealed – for investigation and understanding. It exposes such assumptions and redirects attention to time–space distanciation (Giddens 1991: 20–21) and exposes the way in which social relations and processes are connected across time and space. In so doing it necessitates a new way of envisaging place as not static and bounded but unfixed and constantly reconstituted – moments in intersecting social relations that are both contained within and stretch beyond the particular locality (Massey 1994: 120). This is a particular challenge for ethnographic practice which privileges the ‘here and now’, the local and the present. The beauty of the ethnographic art is in the ‘thick description’ it produces; the cost can be the loss of ability to see how the everyday lives described play out large-scale historical and structural processes. This means we may fail to appreciate what Giddens (1991: 21) calls the ‘intersection of presence and absence’ or Beck (2000: 53–4) understands as how the ‘global imagination industries’ introduce people to visions of a greater range of ‘possible lives’. The recognition of ‘imagination’ and its relationship to the social world, of course, has been central to critical sociological thinking for some time (Wright Mills 1959). Globalisation simply demands new ways of understanding this relationship. The theoretical

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and methodological dimensions of this challenge are captured in Appadurai’s recognition of the link between the imagination and social life to be increasingly deterritorialised and to call upon ethnography to ‘redefine itself as that practice of representation that illuminates the power of large-scale, imagined life possibilities over specific life trajectories’ (Appadurai 1996: 55). However, the recognition of deterritorialisation need not imply that everyday cultural practices be understood as disembedded from time and place. Writing about the impact of globalisation on youth cultural practices in the UK, Anoop Nayak (2003: 175) argues convincingly that place retains a material and symbolic prominence in young lives. What it does mean is that ethnographic practice must engage with time and space in a way that extends our understanding of their role beyond the here and now. Understanding the impact of time on young people thus requires our engagement with imagined futures as well as the influence of history in shaping localised presents. Similarly, the recognition of the constraints of physical or territorial locality on everyday cultural practices should not be interpreted as signalling a disconnection from ‘possible lives’ elsewhere. Indeed this connection is itself at least partially created through reflection on the imagined geographies in which people find themselves located. Places do not have single, unique, historically determined identities but nevertheless retain a specificity that is continually reproduced (Massey 1994: 155). Envisaging place as ‘movement’ – in motion across both time and space – is central to the contextualisation of young people’s lives that this chapter attempts. It seeks to reconstruct the ‘aura’ of a particular place – Vorkuta – and understand the role it plays in shaping young inhabitants’ lives. ‘Place’ is understood here as neither ‘neighbourhood’ nor ‘city’ but as something less territorially, even less socially delimited – as Maffesoli (1996: 22) puts it, something that cannot be found but is constituted in ‘the intersection of ordinary situations, moments, spaces and individuals’. The aura of this place is a ‘complex movement of an atmosphere’ (ibid.) and its shifting nature is re-created here through comparing and contrasting the researcher’s and respondents’ representations of it and the verbal and visual narratives of the city generated in the course of research. This chapter thus seeks to understand how young people’s lives and experiences in the city of Vorkuta have been shaped by ‘big’ – historical and social – processes. But it does so in a way which resists the temptation to lock respondents in the here and now of the ethnographer’s notebook and to shut out the sensuality of the ethnographic experience. What emerges is a story that starts with the exotic, the visual and the historical and ends with the banal, the verbal and the immanent. Its narrative thread is woven by the evolution of the meanings attached to this place by a team of researchers and the young people they hung out with, and the emotional bonds that allowed those meanings to be shared and contested.

Placing youth cultural identities

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Russia’s badlands: the silent pull of history Vorkuta is a new city with a disproportionately sized history. It owes its existence to the geological expeditions beginning in 1929 that sought to locate and exploit oil and coal deposits in Russia’s far north (Bacon 1994: 46–50). The very first expedition used prisoners from the Solovetsky camp system (specialists imprisoned as ‘wreckers’), but, once a base camp had been established at Ukhta, it was used to set up new camps across the region, among them one at Vorkuta, constructed in 1932 to exploit a major coal deposit. The original camp populations were diverse and included professional criminals, political prisoners, dispossessed kulaks and ordinary people convicted of petty theft or poor labour discipline. The prisoners were also ethnically diverse; many were from Soviet republics, including the newly occupied Baltic states and western Ukraine, deemed to be Nazi collaborators as well as German prisoners of war (Scholmer 1954: 52, 117–19). Over time Vorkuta’s population was supplemented by friends and relatives who followed prisoners to their place of exile, and Scholmer (ibid.: 76) estimates that between 10 and 20 per cent of the workers in its mines in the immediate post-war period were drawn from the ‘free’ population. In 1943 Vorkuta was granted status as a city, and by 1951 it had 70,000 inhabitants (Applebaum 2004: 95). After the camp closed in 1962, the city and its mines were populated by young specialists who were attracted to the region by the high salaries and early retirement rights offered to workers in the extraction industries in the North. While almost all these young workers and professionals intended to stay temporarily, many of them, as well as former prisoners, ended up staying permanently, as they found it difficult (materially or psychologically) to leave a place that had, involuntarily, become ‘home’. For the interpretative sociologist such history is profoundly seductive1 – still more so when it appears to be silenced. Although, from subsequent sustained engagement with respondents, it transpired that a number had grandparents who had first arrived in Vorkuta as prisoners or who had been imprisoned or executed there, had been part of the original gulag construction brigades that built the mines, or had worked as prison camp guards (Sasha, cited in Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006; Slava, 2007; Roman, 2007), the city’s gulag past was strikingly absent from respondents’ talk in 2002–3. At the same time, survey and interview data revealed an unexpectedly high prevalence of and tolerance towards a range of ‘deviant’ practices (illicit substance use, hard alcohol consumption, membership of gangs, everyday extortion and bullying, recourse to the informal economy, stealing, deceit and cheating) among young respondents in Komi Republic, and Vorkuta in particular.2 Moreover, ethnographic fieldnotes from this period captured the ebb and flow of mobiles and cameras stolen, sold and recovered; early teenage years spent in gangs; money earned through extorting from others; and the social networks and tough masculinities required to enable

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one to become the extorter rather than the extorted. This is verbalised in 2002 by Slava as he talks about his early teenage years: SLAVA:

. . . A lot of people do it, it’s simple, you go up to some little one and say, ‘Do you want a hassle-free life? Then give us 500 roubles and everything will be fine.’ INTERVIEWER: Protection? SLAVA: Yes. He’s little – of course he wants it. A day is fixed and the little one brings the money. Then you tell him, if he wants to be rid of you, he has to bring the same amount again. This is the most widespread method. (Slava, 2002)3 And it is visually represented in Figure 2.1, taken by the same respondent of a skinhead gathering (sbor) in 2003. In analysing field data collected in 2002–3, I became intrigued by ‘history’ as a textual lacuna central to understanding the ‘aura’ of the place. I re-created that aura as a ‘collective sensibility’ shaped by and shaping the city’s social body (Maffesoli 1996: 18) but unable to speak its name. That sensibility, it seemed to me at that time, was the performance of a ‘gangster culture’ that mobilised a deviant heritage – in the absence of almost any other cultural capital – into a youth cultural strategy for surviving life, literally, on the margins of society. Just as ‘the look in their eyes’ (Applebaum 2004: 4) marked out gulag inhabitants for each other years after release, so today the

Figure 2.1 Skinhead gathering Source: Photo by respondent, 2003

Placing youth cultural identities

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‘gangster jacket’ and swaggering walk of the region’s youth told the world they were from Vorkuta. INTERVIEWER 1: Are people from Vorkuta distinguishable in any way? DIMA: Yes, of course. You can always tell someone from Vorkuta wherever

you are. INTERVIEWER 1: Seriously? DIMA: By their jacket, by the way they look at you, by their clothes. INTERVIEWER 2: What is it about their clothes that distinguishes them? DIMA: Almost the whole of Vorkuta wears ‘gangster jackets’ [banditki] in the

winter. INTERVIEWER 1: What are banditki? DIMA: Those kinds of leather jackets, like Slava’s [Figure 2.2]. And they walk

with their shoulders swinging . . . (Dima, 2002)4

Figure 2.2 The Vorkuta walk Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

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The aura of Vorkuta, I suggested (Pilkington 2007), was a silenced history of deviance whose material traces were to be found in its symbolic performance.

Extreme ‘place’: retelling the tale through the camera lens Respondents in Vorkuta joke that the city is the ultimate destination for ‘extreme tourism’. The first-time visitor struggles to see the intended irony, for the territorial isolation of Vorkuta is striking. It lies within the Arctic Circle at the very northern tip of the Ural Mountains and within 100 kilometres of the Arctic Ocean. For eight months of the year the city is snow-bound. There are no road connections to any other city (Figure 2.3). Access in and out of Vorkuta is dependent on a tiny airport with direct flights only to the republic’s capital, Syktyvkar, and a single railway track by which it takes more than two days to reach Moscow. Historically the railway

Figure 2.3 Road to nowhere Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

Placing youth cultural identities

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is a source of local pride; it is a miraculous feat of engineering in the harshest of climes. The disused engine at the station is a monument to that effort, and invites those returning to the city to reconnect with its heroic past; with the Donbass mines in Ukraine under Nazi occupation, Vorkuta continued to deliver coal to fuel Soviet armaments factories during the Second World War (Bacon 1994: 74). A huge sign on the approach to the platform simply declares to inhabitants and visitors alike: ‘Vorkuta welcomes you’ (Figure 2.4). Linguistically the sign posits the city as the active subject in the relationship between place and people – symbolic perhaps of the way in which it developed as a repository of human resources (voluntary and involuntary) for the fulfilment of production targets. During my second engagement with Vorkuta, during fieldwork in 2006, the visual dimension of the city predominated.5 Through my visual representations, it was reconstructed as a place of ‘extreme’, its identity born of the confluence of extreme landscape and extreme history (Figure 2.5). While the history of the city’s birth might have been verbally silenced, the slow death of Vorkuta at the hands of deindustrialisation and depopulation was a constant physical presence, especially in the mining settlements (poselki) on the outskirts (Figures 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8).6

Figure 2.4 ‘Vorkuta welcomes you’ Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

Figure 2.5 Graveyard for miners massacred in the 1953 strike7 Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

Figure 2.6 Abandoned factory Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

Figure 2.7 The ‘Komsomol’ mine Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

Figure 2.8 ‘Cement’ settlement Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

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Growing up in a harsh climate

Through this lens, Vorkuta emerged as a place on the physical margins of the world – where modernity runs out and tundra begins (Figures 2.9 and 2.10). An early self-consciousness about expressing this ‘outsider’s gaze’ on the city, however, was gradually replaced by a realisation – through listening to respondents’ verbal narratives – that it constituted no more than a visual representation of the ‘imaginary geography’ (Shields 1991: 29) of Vorkuta that respondents encountered regularly. As Massey (1994: 170) notes, it is today difficult ‘to distinguish the inside of a place from the outside; indeed, it is precisely in part the presence of the outside within which helps to construct the specificity of the local place’. How respondents imagined others imagining them is articulated by Artem in a classic montage of snow, bears and prison camps: Those who don’t live in this city, who live in other cities, they imagine us living in the tundra . . . [they imagine] an enormous complex named after the prison. Around it stand barracks in which we live. We work at the prison, we provide control. . . . Parked outside are reindeer. White . . . hungry bears roam around, so it’s best not to leave the house. The temperature is constantly minus 50 or 60 and the summer is very short. So if you don’t manage to dash outside, it’s too late, the summer’s

Figure 2.9 Reindeer herders Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

Placing youth cultural identities

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gone . . . Vorkuta is a prison and that’s it. I think that impression of Vorkuta is embedded in the minds of the whole of Russia – an abandoned settlement in the tundra, and that’s it. (Artem, 2006)8 Later in the research other respondents complained that ‘Vorkuta’ was often used as a ‘term of abuse’ (Andrei, 2007) by those from outside the city – as if living there continued to signify some kind of punishment. And even for outsiders who chose to visit the place, Vorkuta signified a kind of ‘extreme’: So many people have started to come here. Everyone is interested in Vorkuta – it’s on the edge, the remote North, you have to go and see. There’s snow there, and even bears, and the camps – it’s like bear corner, a kind of crazy lair. You have to go there. (Slava, 2007)

Figure 2.10 Passer-by, ‘North’ district Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

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Growing up in a harsh climate

While Slava ridicules the idea that Vorkuta is in reality ‘extreme’, such imaginary geographies have real implications for how people there interpret their own lives. This is shown by Lida’s use of another metaphor for the frozen North – ‘frost-bitten’ – to describe young people from the city: Young people here – because it is a northern city, our young people are frost-bitten [otmorozhennaia].9 That’s a generalisation of course: they are all hardened in their own particular way. And they all have their own groups. There are young people who don’t have any affiliations, who are just ordinary, but as a rule there’s a lot of pretension, a lot of attitude – as if every other lad is virtually a gangster and every other girl is practically a model. So they don’t have specific life principles like work, career . . . but live, measure everything, by money basically. Everything is measured in money – who’s got more and who less. (Lida, 2006) With morality ‘frozen’ out of them, it is a place that appears locked in a struggle to keep the chaos of the natural order under control as the imagined criminality of the city generates the need to display criminal credibility: Everyone has criminal acquaintances because in our city every other person is a criminal – well, every third. One in five is actually a criminal but every other person thinks he’s a criminal. You know the type – a real nobody but thinks he’s God basically . . . (Sergei, 2006) Reading across and between these visual and verbal narratives, it was tempting to find space and time coalescing in a confirmation of the deviant heritage I had earlier envisaged. Indeed, from this perspective, Vorkuta might appear as a classic example of the workings of the human ecology of deviance – the kind of ‘moral region’ described by Robert E. Park (1925: 33) as emerging when ‘the poor, the vicious, and the delinquent’ are ‘crushed together in an unhealthful and contagious intimacy’. Yet now, with both feet firmly embedded in the field, and without any direct, traceable connection between criminality in the city past and present, the argument seemed tenuous. Artem captured for me perfectly the dilemma of proceeding any further down this interpretative route: Vorkuta’s past, the prison and all that is associated with it . . . to be honest, basically, has no connection with the city . . . Maybe it has left its imprint somewhere. Maybe you can see it somewhere, but, more often than not, the gangsters don’t have their origins there [the camp]. They are people who have no connections with that. Who are these gangsters? They are people who earn money not in the way ordinary people earn it. (Artem, 2006)

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While for Artem, therefore, there is an ‘imprint’ of time on space in the social relations of Vorkuta, the city is also more than the arbitrary location of historical processes. This inevitably begs the question of whether there is also an imprint of space on time. And, in the next stage of analysis, this question directed me back to interviews, diaries and photos that might re-evoke the ‘ordinary situations, moments, spaces and individuals’ (Maffesoli 1996: 22) and reveal traces of the imprint of place on young people’s lives.

The weight of the Vorkuta sky: crushing ‘possible lives’? The verbal narratives of respondents revealed they experienced Vorkuta as profoundly constraining. This constraint was often rooted in a physical engagement with the natural environment10 expressed through allusion to emotional and cultural frustration. At the most tangible level, the territorial isolation of the city severely constrained cultural opportunities for respondents. Slava joked that, when his mother had disappeared unexpectedly for five days earlier that year, it turned out that she had gone out to buy a winter coat, which meant a two-day trip each way to the city of Kirov. But there was a serious element to his joke too; reflecting on where he would like to be based in the future, he commented: Probably [I’d like to be] in some town that is at least only five or six hours by train from Moscow . . . you see, in Briansk . . . I wanted to buy a t-shirt – this one, yeah – and I jumped on the train and went to Moscow, walked around Moscow and came back the next day. That was it, home already. I slept in the t-shirt – happy . . . (Slava, 2007) Young football fans found the territorial isolation of Vorkuta equally frustrating. Since there was no city football team there were no home games to watch,11 and they rarely had the time or money to travel to matches of the teams they supported based in other parts of the country: If we were near to Moscow – you know, a big city – it would be a lot easier. Take Andrei, he was saying he just came back. He was talking to some fans in Moscow basically. And they asked him if he travelled to the away games [of CSKA]. And he said ‘no’. And they were, like, ‘You don’t go to the games when you’re a fan and it’s your favourite team?’ And he goes, ‘It’s two and a half fucking days even to get to Moscow. How can I get to the games? A ticket costs five grand12 basically to get there and back. So, I don’t know, it’s also like, you know, fuck knows. It’s not realistic to do anything in our city. No it is possible: you have to keep moving, you have to keep moving. And we are moving, trying to make progress, to do something basically. (Slava, 2006)

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Growing up in a harsh climate

Instead, until the club was closed, they gathered in the sports club Aut to watch matches together (see Figure 6.3). It is not only difficult to get out of the city, it is equally problematic to get the outside world to Vorkuta. Lida, a fan of punk and other alternative rock music, complains that bands don’t come and play in the city: Just about everybody has tried to come, but you always get let down. At one point Sektor Gaza were trying to come, but Klinskikh13 died just before they were due to come. Then Grazhdanskaia Oborona were going to come and they had sold tickets for it and everything. Then Letov said that not enough tickets had been sold so they wouldn’t come . . . (Lida, 2006) Lida also dreams of a summer house (dacha) with a patch of land to grow her own vegetables. This is another common aspiration that is physically impossible in Vorkuta: LIDA:

I would love to grow something on the balcony if the weather was warmer here – some tomatoes or something. I don’t know why, but that’s what I like, maybe because I live in the city all the time, I would like, not all the time of course, not be there all year round, but in the summer to have like a dacha.14 In winter of course it would be [impossible] there . . . INTERVIEWER: Somewhere warm you mean? Not here in the North? LIDA: No, nothing grows here. (Lida, 2006) As identified by research into youth cultural identities among young people in other territorially isolated areas, such narratives of cultural and consumer deprivation and lack of opportunity can coalesce into a ‘peripheral consciousness’ (Kjeldgaard 2003: 299). While Kjeldgaard’s Greenlandic respondents found their natural landscape a source of ‘calm’ (ibid.: 295), which they missed when away, for respondents in Vorkuta the local environment was experienced as, literally, suffocating: People in the South don’t even take advantage of the fact that they are in the South. They forget about the parks, forget completely about the forest, about the pines. You can choke on the air there . . . from the surplus of oxygen in the mountains, you can faint, I’m telling you. Here you can’t get such a high from drugs as you can get from nature [there], really. . . . here it’s all about how to survive as best you can, how to manage to get away at least for a month or six weeks. (Roman, 2006) For others it is the psychological consequences of the city’s isolation that are debilitating. One respondent describes this through the symbolism of the snow fences (Figure 2.11) that meet you as the train approaches Vorkuta.

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Figure 2.11 Snow fences from train Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

These fences are what stand between the city and the outside world of movement, progress and prospects; they symbolise the psychological block the respondent senses among the inhabitants of the city that stops them communicating openly and freely. INTERVIEWER:

My impression from the conversation last night was that you all share a desire to be on the move, to be going somewhere, but that something is stopping you, something is missing. Is that right? PASHA: Yes, something’s missing. Naturally there are simply barriers. Here, as you approach Vorkuta you see that first fence – it really says a lot. It’s a snow fence supposedly – to keep the track clear. But it’s an important symbol – I believe in symbols. Symbols hold a lot of meaning for me . . . a lot of people are good really but there’s a kind of barrier . . . (Pasha, 2006)15 It is Slava, however, who most lucidly evokes how the sheer physical weight of this landscape bears down upon you (Figure 2.12):

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Growing up in a harsh climate

Figure 2.12 Sky from train Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007 SLAVA:

Fuck knows, I have to get out, somehow. Seriously, imagine, yeah, not being out of Vorkuta for two years. I’d go anywhere, just to look at the sky. Have you seen how low the sky here is? INTERVIEWER: Yes. SLAVA: Well then. It sits right here. (Slava, 2006) In 2007, returning to our conversation about the physical landscape of Vorkuta, Slava had clearly reflected on the researchers’ gaze as outsiders and explained in more detail the emotional toll that living in this place took: SLAVA:

Yeah, about the natural landscape, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear . . . no, I mean the natural landscape is fine. Let me just explain . . . this snow, these bushes . . . you see, you see this tundra . . . it seems wild to you [because] you don’t have it, you have all those trees and a sky that is beyond spitting distance, you can’t reach, not like here. Arrgh – the sky, you know, [feels like] it’s fallen in on you again. Seriously, I’ve had enough. Do you see the difference here? You, and me too when I come [back after being away], [then] I’m also kind of on holiday from it. The natural landscape of course is fine, I like it, but you know it’s also

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oppressive. It’s like, there’s very little green. That’s oppressive, you know, that crushes you. You understand, that tiny bit of joy – that green, everything is green, everything is flowering, and the birds have all flown away . . . and then, suddenly, there’s a sharp fall [in temperature] and everything’s grey-blue, you know, and yellow. And the sky, that sky constantly bearing down on you. It’s like I’m really in a cage. I’m caged in by this sky. INTERVIEWER: [You feel] like you are inside? SLAVA: Yeah, like indoors, seriously. You look up and it’s like you might as well just get rid of the ceiling and put in a glass window. Why do you need it [the ceiling]? Here the sky is like [a ceiling] . . . (Slava, 2007) Thus, while the direct discussion of Vorkuta’s origins – the history of the camp – remains largely absent from young people’s narratives, it reappears metaphorically and symbolically via the fences, cages and oxygen deficits that restrict them and re-creates the city as a place of involuntary confinement. In Pasha’s case this is expressed as a feeling that his own life in the city is simply ‘like being in prison’ (Pasha, 2006), while Roman envisages Vorkuta as a place from which they are unable to leave and in which – just as in the days of the gulag – their labour is extracted: ROMAN: This city is just a ghetto . . . INTERVIEWER: How do you mean? A

ghetto usually means a place you are trapped in. ROMAN: Well, everyone is kept here by the work, nothing else . . . The city manipulates these people. Here, those who can earn themselves a bit of money, accumulate contacts, they get out of here . . . Everyone wants to leave but they live here all the same. That’s what a ghetto is. (Roman, 2007) Thus the city is re-evoked in a way which seems to embody the local past (prisoners and guards) but in a contemporary guise that links it to the imagined future of global connection (democracy). According to Slava (2006): ‘You see people now are just surviving. You know what it’s like in Vorkuta. Here in Vorkuta there are just gangsters and coppers. That’s all, nobody else. That’s fucking democracy for you.’

Should I stay or should I go? Imagination and survival The constitution of place through its linkages to other places ‘beyond’ (Massey 1994: 156), and imagined futures, dominates the final part of this story. On my arrival back in the city in October 2007, the atmosphere of Vorkuta that had settled in my mind – reified as, away from the field, I had looked at my photos, read and reread the interview transcripts, and talked

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periodically but intensely with my colleagues about the attachments we had formed there – was rudely disturbed. Vorkuta was shifting. Its motion was driven, first and foremost, by the movement of key respondents – a number of whom had left the city. They’d told us about their plans to do so in our intermittent communications while away from the field, but so often ‘plans’ to leave did not materialise16 or people were somehow pulled back to the city before we had had time to miss them. Finding some people gone opened us to the feeling that our respondents live with all the time – the constant expectation of others’ departure and a compulsion to plan your own future ‘elsewhere’. But it also drew us into the web of social relations that linked the place with those places ‘beyond’ – a constant exchange of information about who had heard from absent friends last, what they were doing, what mad things had happened to them and, crucially, whether they might visit before we left. Even respondents who had stayed – primarily those who were earning relatively decent money in the mines or the power station – were on the move. In 2007, Slava, for example, had split up with his girlfriend and started hanging out with a new friend, Egor (a recovering heroin addict), and together they planned their summer vacation travelling across the country by train, wherever the mood took them. Motivated in part by a desire to move away from a city he associated with his drug addiction, Egor also planned a more permanent move; he wanted to find a job in Moscow, get set up, and then ‘come back for Slava’. Slava also talked about leaving. Although he maintained that Vorkuta was a ‘normal, cool city’ about which there was nothing that he disliked, he had come to find it stiflingly predictable, a life in which ‘You know your whole next year off by heart’. The other movement was, of course, our own return to the city. It is hard – from the inside – to evaluate just how this impacted on the networks of social relations that constitute place, but it certainly foreshadowed a change in relationships. For me, personally, in contrast to the previous year, when I had happily taken up the role of ‘visual effects operator’ in order not to intrude on what I felt to be my colleagues’ field (see Chapter 11), I now felt I had my own relationship with the respondents and sensed the difference in the conversations we as individuals had with them. When we returned in 2007 we also had a new research project under way, and so life was divided between the day job, in which we conducted a survey and semi-structured interviews with previously unknown young people in schools and colleges, and the night and weekend shifts, spent with our long-time respondents. Logistically this worked well – our day shift tended to finish around the same time as they came home from work or college – but the situation further blurred the already porous boundaries between ethnography and ordinary life. Meeting with respondents quickly became associated with ending the working day, and now for us, just as for them, our time together had to be combined with eating, drinking and relaxing, for which there was no other time. And, like them, therefore, we felt some of the heaviness of the obligation of ethnographic participation when one is tired from a hard day’s work.

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One immediate impact of my greater involvement in, and appreciation of, these trivial socialities was a significant change in my own visual representation of Vorkuta; in stark contrast from the photos taken in 2006, images from the field in 2007 reflected ‘kitchen life’ together, drinking, eating and playing ‘associations’ (Figure 2.13) and the small joys and surprise pleasures we experienced with respondents, such as playing with Lida and Viktor’s kitten (Figure 2.14) or drawing pictures in the snow as we walked home late one night and discovered the first snow of the long winter had begun to fall (see Figure 10.2). At the same time, my camera sought out visual evidence of the ‘weight’ of the Vorkuta sky that Slava had talked about (see Figure 2.12 above) and the ‘weird’ pink colouring (Roman, 2007) that both he and other respondents constantly ascribed to it (Figure 2.15). But these representations of Vorkuta were static; they captured an atmosphere of place from which we had all moved on. Now the Vorkuta sky drew

Figure 2.13 The night shift begins Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

Figure 2.14 Kitten Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

Figure 2.15 Pink sky Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

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my gaze more than ever – not, however, when it hung heavy on the city, crushing its inhabitants, but when the sunlight broke through, transforming the rusty debris of the post-industrial landscape into golden treasure chests (Figure 2.16) or sending down ladders connecting this ‘abandoned settlement in the tundra’ (Artem, 2006) to other places and other lives (Figure 2.17). It was in these moments that the sheer imagination and creativity required to live in what Roman described in 2007 as ‘survival city’ became visible. It would, he said, probably be easier to live in other cities, but he was proud to be part of this collective struggle for survival. Nowhere is the miraculous nature of this struggle captured better than in the following metaphoric tale of involuntary migration and survival against the odds in a hostile natural environment, recounted by Artem: ARTEM: By the way, there are reindeer living in the park. INTERVIEWER: In which park? ARTEM: Just here, where the lake is. INTERVIEWER: Where the musk-rats are, you mean? ARTEM: Yeah, there are musk-rats too. You know, two

years ago I tried to catch those musk-rats on camera. I was running around the lake. I brought some friends of mine and we were just running happily around the lake.

Figure 2.16 Rust turns to gold: goods containers at the railway station Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

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Figure 2.17 Opening in sky Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

INTERVIEWER: ARTEM: Yeah.

Calling ‘Musk-rats, musk-rats!’ It’s just amazing. Someone must have brought them there. Someone must have brought them there from somewhere further south where they lived, and let them go by this lake . . . It’s incredible – muskrats in our climate. Dogs can keel over and drop dead on the street, the reindeer keep close to the campfires, and then you find out musk-rats are living here . . . (Artem, 2006)

These moments of opening, light, articulation, expression, play that puncture the dull weight of the Vorkuta sky are what came to constitute the aura of the city as constructed through my relationship with respondents there. It is an aura that is neither constant nor inherent in the place itself – its spectacular natural landscape, its monstrous post-industrial decay or its painful history – but is constituted continuously by the intersection of individuals, moments and spaces.

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Conclusion SLAVA:

Well, yes. How should I put it? Yes, probably I do want to [leave]. The prospects, well the prospects are minimal. Even at this power station, if I stay working there and become the fucking shift manager, I’d earn fucking 40 grand.17 Fucking hell, but fuck knows, I don’t know. It would be better in another city, you know, somewhere where there would be an opportunity to open a prison. I really want to. It’s something I’d like to do. INTERVIEWER: Why? SLAVA: For the profit. (Slava, 2006) Ethnographers have for some time accepted that they must resist the temptation to record as given the ‘social reality’ they encounter through their informants and to interrogate what lies beneath both what is presented to them and their own perceptions of it (Willis 1976; Clifford and Marcus 1986; Back 1993). More recently, any epistemic advantage initially accorded to ethnographic naturalism has diminished still further, as not only do processes of globalisation challenge the boundaries of distinct communities and cultures open for research but ‘global imagination industries’ also bring individuals’ own lives and their imagined ‘possible lives’ into what Beck (2000: 53–4) terms ‘ironical conflict’ with each other. Thus, understanding the lives of young people – or any other social phenomena – demands we tread a fine line between the need to locate them in time and place (Abbott 1997: 1152) and yet, in so doing, avoid locking them into their localised lives. Today the ethnographer must look for the ‘elsewhere’ in the ‘here’ and for the past and the future in the ‘now’. In the reconstruction of the ‘aura’ of Vorkuta in this chapter, I have attempted to illustrate the challenges of understanding the sense of ‘place’. I have detailed how I came to doubt the adequacy of both my original attempt to understand ‘place’ by reading for ‘absences’ (of ‘the past’) in respondents’ interviews and my subsequent visual reconstruction of ‘extreme Vorkuta’ (as marginal space). By counterposing my own and respondents’ photographs and moving between interview narratives and visual representations,18 I have suggested an alternative mode of analysis that helps to elicit how young people not only play out their lives in that place but project and connect their lives with other places and times, both real and imagined. This approach draws on what Edwards (2003: 279) refers to as seeking a ‘dialogue between surface and depth’ in the analysis of visual images and suggests that the work of the sociologist is not to uncover the imprint of the extreme history and geography of the city on its inhabitants but to understand the intersections of ‘time’ and ‘space’ in the evocation of place. Finally, in seeking to evoke the ‘character’ (Massey 1994: 156) of this particular place, I have drawn on Maffesoli’s (1996: 22) notion of ‘aura’ as

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‘the complex movement of an atmosphere emitted by places and activities’. That aura, I have suggested, is repeatedly (re)constituted in the intersection of individuals, moments and spaces and thus is constantly shifting. In this particular story those intersections have evoked Vorkuta as a place to which people came involuntarily, where they stay unintentionally, and in which they make no long-term investment. But they have also presented the contemporary city as a site of collective survival, made possible by demonstrating, as does Slava above, the imagination not only to connect the local past with future possible lives, but to profit from the process.

3

‘At home I was a nobody’ The roots (and limits) of skinhead solidarity Elena Omel’chenko

This chapter investigates the roots of skinhead solidarity. It explores the significance of family relationships and working lives for how respondents understood themselves and their relationship to the world. It also considers the everyday cultural practices of the group and the role of friendship and trust, and the meanings attached to these emotions by respondents in, first, maintaining and, subsequently, undermining the solidarity underpinning the group. In contrast to the majority of existing secondary literature on skinhead groups, therefore, the focus of this chapter is those practices that appear connected only loosely, if at all, to the production of skinhead identity. Moreover, at the analytical level, the chapter attempts not to evaluate the relative importance of ‘environment’ and ‘upbringing’ on the formation of individual personalities or to model or classify ‘xenophobic-nationalist’ behaviour, but to understand the processes and mechanisms via which xenophobic feelings are recognised, nurtured and reproduced through interpersonal communication and group bonds.

Beyond skinhead: family, work, study SLAVA:

. . . before their kids have reached even a decent age, their parents have given up caring about them – they’re getting on with their own lives. EGOR: Everyone’s out for themselves, everyone. Parents have their own lives to live, you see, and the kids live their own lives . . . SLAVA: Here in Vorkuta, to the question ‘Where are you going?’, there’s only ever one answer: ‘Things to do’. ‘Here and there – stuff to do.’ Your son might be away, three, four or five nights, off in Moscow somewhere . . . Our parents forgot about us long ago . . . (Slava and Egor, 2007) The home lives of respondents in this study are unusual in that many of them have been shaped by separation from their parents at a relatively early age.1 This is partially a product of the peculiar history and contemporary context of the city outlined in the previous chapter. Respondents were for the most

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part the children of young families who had come to the North to earn better salaries and who became trapped there as a result of the economic transformations that gripped the country following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their parents survive the dismal present of the city, and the forgotten promises of the government to resettle them, through mobility strategies that involve temporary work in other cities, the maximisation of the opportunities provided by annual leave, or even permanent moves to other cities (often in central or southern Russia where they still have relatives), leaving their teenage children behind. This situation is compounded by the fact that the majority of respondents’ parents were separated, meaning that respondents were living either with only one parent or alone (as divorced parents established new families). This independent living was facilitated by the relative ease – on account of the high out-migration – with which housing could be obtained. While many young people initially relished such opportunities to commence an independent life, the context in which they arose meant that respondents often came to experience and understand their independence as abandonment and often felt hurt and lonely. Absent fathers and unforgiven mothers The separation of respondents’ parents is partially explained by the high level of mobility – working away – among this generation, but the premature death of fathers was also a relatively common experience. Whatever the reason, the majority of respondents had grown up mainly alone with their mothers; as a rule, grandparents lived in other parts of the country and were visited only in the summer. However, even if absent, fathers played a particular role in respondents’ understandings of their own lives, characters, convictions and cultural choices. Slava’s and Masha’s fathers had both died early, and their narratives are characterised by a certain sentimentalisation of their bonds with them despite the fact that both had been violent at home (Figure 3.1). Slava talked of his father as dearer to him than anyone else, even though he had brought him up in a regime underpinned by the threat of physical punishment. His father had worked for 17 years in the central power station, and Slava had followed him there and talked proudly of the work ethic and labour heritage he perceived he had inherited from him: I lived in a harsh regime. . . . I certainly took some medicine! . . . my father disciplined me . . . [my] father could really have been the director [of the power station] but he remained shift leader . . . When I’m at work, work is paramount for me . . . Now it’s all about just mindlessly putting in the bolts, tightening them, fitting a washer, yeah? . . . But when I do that, right, fit a bolt, for example, I really tighten it. For me it’s a question of [professional] responsibility. (Slava, 2007)

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Figure 3.1 Absent fathers Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

Masha also emphasises that, despite her father’s violence towards her mother, she had loved him very much: At the age of five, Dad was the most important thing for me. I remember him really well. I really loved him. And he loved me very much too. . . . before I was born they were expecting a boy, you see, but because Dad hit Mum – he struck her and she hit her head on the radiator – she had a miscarriage . . . So I might never have been born. (Masha, 2006) For other respondents, fathers were presented as being important to their philosophical and ideological development. Andrei, for example, said in 2006 that he respected his father greatly ‘for his constantly logical and rational manner of thinking’ and that he had ‘made that a rule for myself’. Lera’s father was even more directly implicated in shaping his daughter’s philosophy. He had served in the army in Afghanistan, Dagestan and Tajikistan but, like Slava’s father, felt he had never achieved his full potential either in the army or in his civilian career thereafter. The stories he recounted from his military service were given particular weight by Lera, for whom her father acted as an example in everything.

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Growing up in a harsh climate Every time he came home he told me all these things that went on. How he was offered duty at the ‘golden gates’ . . . That’s where you stand and, when cars with non-Russians come through, they shower you with money and you let them pass with their weapons or drugs. Just like that. They would pay you whatever you asked. The problem was that Dad isn’t like that – he said he didn’t want that post, that his conscience would torment him. So he was beaten up badly, once, twice, and as a result he moved to another unit. The same happened again there . . . (Lera, 2006)

After their parents’ divorce many respondents tried to maintain contact with their fathers. Despite having moved to Vorkuta with his mother, Zhenia (2006) said that he had managed to maintain ‘good relations’ with his father. In Lida’s case both her father and her mother had remarried but both new families lived in Vorkuta and were in regular and friendly contact (Lida, 2006). Lida’s natural father also helped pay for his daughter’s further education. Mothers were treated somewhat differently, although also diversely. In many households, mothers worked long hours in order to support the family. While respondents who were in employment themselves tried to help out financially, those who were still studying were either wholly or primarily financially dependent. Consequently, in relation to their mothers, respondents talked not so much about their authority as about the sense of injustice that their mothers’ lives evoked in them. Valera is a classic example, often expressing his feelings for his mother in dramatic and highly sentimental terms: I ended up in prison and everyone forgot me. I had 20 or 25 friends but none of them wrote to me, only my mother phoned me . . . Not my brothers, not my sister, not my father, only my mother. She will always be dearer than anything to me. It makes me want to cry, seriously. (Valera, 2006) His mother had worked two jobs all her life to support a large family – five children, of whom Valera was the youngest – thus, after his release from prison, Valera had vowed to stop drinking and get a job that would allow her to give up work and ‘do nothing more than hoover’: Why does my mother wear a sheepskin [coat]? I want my mother to wear a mink coat. That’s what I want. She likes them, she wants one. But she can’t afford it because of us. Now I’ve got a job . . . a weight has fallen from my shoulders . . . Mother for me is just dearer than anything. I’d be prepared to bloody kill for her. I think anybody who has done time knows what a mother means . . . A mother is something holy. (Valera, 2006)

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Valera’s relationship with his mother, especially as narrated just after his release in autumn 2006, contained a lot of prison romanticism. In reality the relationship had always been a volatile one. After their divorce, both parents had left the family flat, leaving Valera completely alone for a year: . . . they kind of divorced and Mum went to live in one place with my brother and Dad [went to live] with his woman, with whom he had some big love affair . . . And I stayed there . . . they left me on my own . . . It was just easier, better for them. At that time I was uncontrollable. (Valera, 2006) Although here Valera blames himself for being impossible to live with, elsewhere he recalls that, at that time, just before he went to prison, he had detested his mother because she interfered with his drinking and drug dealing. By the end of our research, the relationship had turned sour once more, and so not only did the good life in a ‘mink coat’ he had imagined never materialise for his mother, but relations with her broke down completely.2 My mother and I argued. . . . she wanted to send me back to prison . . . it happened after my birthday . . . I was drunk, argued with everybody, basically I kicked off at home and then fell asleep. In the morning I went to work, came home and there was a summons to the local police station waiting for me . . . the next day, after work, I went to the station and he goes, ‘So, your family have reported you’. I was just lucky that I know the local head of station, and he said, ‘Okay, we’ll forget about this for now . . . ’ . . . But next time he will send it to the prosecutor’s office . . . and they would put me away whatever . . . I had a four-year sentence and only served 16 months, the rest is suspended. So if it happens again basically the station head can’t help. (Valera, 2007) Slava, although continuing to share a flat with his mother, talked with ambivalence about her. Although, on the one hand, he expressed admiration that she still looked young and glamorous, he also described his relationship with her as ‘distant’. This distance, it transpired, had resulted from a row he had had with her during which she had said ‘such horrible things’ that he was unable to forgive her (Slava, 2007). Perhaps most significantly he found it impossible to address the issue with her, and their communication often consisted of leaving notes to each other about what needed doing in the flat.3 Learning to hate: everyday xenophobia4 and the family Of particular importance to the discussion here is the degree to which the xenophobic attitudes and sentiments expressed by respondents were shared, or contested, within the family.

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Many respondents reported that they had routinely heard their parents speak contemptuously of ‘foreigners’ (chuzhaki). In 2006, Masha, for example, was convinced that her mother shared her ideological convictions because ‘the absolute majority don’t like them’. As evidence, she recounted an incident that took place while she was staying with one of her Mum’s friends, when she had overheard a group of them saying, ‘“These blacks, they’ve all come over here. The bastards, all with their slanty eyes.” I went in and Mum goes, “Here, Masha will tell you all about it” [laughs]’. When asked if her mother knew about her participation in the skinhead movement, Masha claimed that she ‘didn’t object to it’. Artem (2006) recounted a similar story, saying, ‘Once I went to the market with my father and he said, “Good God, it’s like a zoo here. Not a single white face” . . . .’ In contrast to extensive public discussion of xenophobic youth groups, however, little attention is given to the widespread xenophobic sentiments among this generation – feelings intensified by the material and symbolic displacement and deprivation experienced by large sections of both the working class and the ‘Soviet’ intelligentsia (teachers, doctors, engineers). In some cases, primarily among the more ideologically motivated respondents (see Chapter 5), parents appeared to have an interest in skinhead ideas that went beyond ‘everyday xenophobia’. Andrei, for example, was proud of the fact that his father had read Nesterov’s Skins: Russia Awakes (2004) and had asked to keep the book for a while because it interested him. According to Lera (2006), her father also supported the skinhead movement and, after returning from military service, had treated all khachiki5 with ‘contempt’. The degree to which this was embedded in her understanding of right and wrong from an early age is evident from the following description of a particular episode from her childhood: I remember once, I was little, and this boy came in and started chasing me for some reason, a khachik, basically. I left and said ‘Go away, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t like you!’ When I got home and Dad grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, lifted me up and said, ‘If someone like that calls on you again . . . ’ I said, ‘Dad, he came in uninvited!’, and he just said, ‘then you’ll get one from me!’ (Lera, 2006) The fact that her mother does not share these prejudices – expressing hostility only to those who engaged in armed struggle or terrorism against Russia – Lera attributed to the fact that her profession (she worked in a nursery school where ‘the children are far from all Russian’) required an essentially ‘kindhearted’ disposition. Zhenia, who also adopted a strong ideological position in the group, was the main exception to the rule. His mother, he said, did not share his principles and, despite her son’s numerous attempts to change her mind, had held on to ‘her own point of view’ and, much to Zhenia’s dismay, ‘can calmly buy stuff – food, vegetables – from some Azerbaijanis or other’.

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His father, meanwhile, was largely indifferent, Zhenia said: ‘For him the main thing is that I don’t get involved in anything and don’t get hurt’ (Zhenia, 2006). Everyday life: work and play A significant part of the life of our respondents was spent at work, and, within the group, talk about work, its physical and ethical dimensions, and about workmates was much more common than, for example, discussion of skin ideas or action. For some, work had constituted a harsh introduction to the ‘real world’. Andrei, for example, who was still in full-time education but worked during the summer vacation on a building site, described in 2007 his experience as a physically exhausting test of endurance. He complained of ‘all the banging, all the dust you breathe in’ and said he had ended up sleeping overnight on the site, using construction materials for a blanket, to avoid the otherwise ridiculously early starts. This holiday employment also brought him into contact with migrant workers – in his words, ‘ . . . there were a lot of khacha6 working there . . . ’ – alongside whom he worked nonetheless. For Artem, who had taken a job at 16, work had also been ‘like landing on another planet with a completely different atmosphere, where people walk on the ceiling’. Having first been ‘burnt very badly’, he had subsequently ‘acclimatised’ and abandoned his previously ‘childish, rosy image of life’ (Artem, 2006). Zhenia talked with pride about his work experience at the mine, even though he had once nearly killed himself when he lost his footing and almost disappeared down a shaft. In contrast to Andrei and Artem, however, he described the team he worked with as caring, especially towards those who were just starting out: If they see that you’re really tired, they help you, tell you to sit down for a bit, that they’ll sort it out . . . because anything could happen to anybody down there. It’s not like, if you really can’t work any more, they just tell you to get on with it. Although of course the boss could do. . . . But there the workers and the management are basically out to get one over on each other. That’s how it works. (Zhenia, 2006) Although Zhenia did not intend necessarily to work down a mine for the rest of his life, he thought of it as a profession with prospects. Important in this evaluation, and in the appreciation of and integration into the work team, is a strong sense of labour heritage. Zhenia’s father had been a miner himself, working in mine rescue, and it was he who had suggested Zhenia train as an electrician. After being released from prison, Valera (2006) talked excitedly about the prospect of being employed at one of the mines, where he imagined – based on the experience of his father and brother – work would

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be physically draining but satisfying; see also Chapter 7).7 The importance of this patrilineal labour heritage to Slava has already been noted, and his work narrative exudes a particular, even exaggerated, sense of pride (Figure 3.2): I already have a specialism. . . . a profession kind of, and now I’ve been appointed as a repairman of the steam and gas turbine machinery, in the boiler and turbine section [laughs] . . . it’s all to do with steam, with gas . . . plus these turbines and the boiler that drives the turbines. We have turbine men and boilermen. I consider myself a turbine man – the boilermen in the boiler house are the other side of a wall, so that the dirt doesn’t get in, because the turbine is a delicate machine basically . . . The power station provides electricity for the city, we provide the city with its heating . . . (Slava, 2007) Like Zhenia, Slava talked extremely positively about the support and camaraderie he experienced at work. In 2007 he introduced us to a friend with whom he worked at the power station – Egor. Egor worked in the boiler house and, when together, he and Slava talked constantly about work – not

Figure 3.2 Working lives Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

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only about its burdens and hardships but also the various adventures they had there. The work is heavy, physical and dangerous, and this was important to how they identified as individuals and as friends. Despite being the youngest in the team, Slava felt that he was treated with respect and valued by his work colleagues; he even joked that he had become a ‘real star’ after he had told them that some ‘sociologists’ had come to the city to interview him. He took satisfaction also in the fact that people listened to him and that he carried a certain authority and felt that he was, at least informally, treated as a foreman already. Central to the camaraderie of Slava’s work team (brigada) was its drinking traditions, and, in particular, the ritual of the ‘table’ (stolik). Slava recounted that the table was a very long-standing tradition and that generations of workers knew where it was and that the whole team gathered there to joke and tell their stories. Gathering at the table, however, was an exclusively male practice: What’s the point of that? Women and girls at the table? . . . the team, the collective has gathered, a group of friends has got together to relax, drink themselves stupid, get blathered, get a break from everyone, from work, from all the self-torture of the week . . . Why do we need women, some woman at the table? So that she can go, ‘Oh, don’t smoke near me, please’, or ‘Why are you drinking so much?’ . . . You like to hang out sometimes just on your own, don’t you? [You probably think] ‘Why do we need these bloody men!’ Something always kicks off then, doesn’t it? So, we also like to just get together, no questions, just men, drinking themselves silly . . . (Slava, 2007) The table is not a metaphor but a real table which stands, in the summer, on grass and, in the winter, in the snow. However, the table can be metaphorically moved to someone’s flat – a male colleague living alone, for example – or to a favourite place in the open air during the summer time. The table signifies alcohol, jokes, swearing, labour solidarity and respect, and these practices are imbued with age-old bodily and spiritual practices that reproduce male working culture. The group generally met at the table every Friday to mark the end of the working week, but for Slava and Egor it rarely ended there, as the lads grasped the challenge of the three-day race to ‘relax’ before returning to work on Monday (see Chapter 4). For other members of the group, relatively routine waged work was combined with informal income generation often connected to their subcultural lives. In 2006, Lida, for example, combined her ongoing education (in accountancy) with working in the city’s social security department, part-time work in a psychoneurosis clinic and ‘doing some hairdressing and tattooing’. Roman’s employment at the time of research was equally un-‘subcultural’; he worked as a guard at a military base for army conscripts. This position

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allowed him to combine his waged work with informal trading, supplying the conscripts with things they wanted – primarily drugs – that were unavailable at the base. Many of them had been users . . . Cannabis and various pills and powders – any kind of stimulants – amphetamines, speed, heroin . . . even heroin, yeah. They’re not even hooked – none of them are dependent . . . they’re just taking their minds off service. It releases the body morally and physically. I can understand them. I served as a conscript myself. I had two years in the same skin. And it’s such a shock to go from civil life straight into a regime like that . . . So I get involved in this trade . . . when there are a lot of orders, I get it wholesale, a job lot and, say, take some of it myself . . . (Roman, 2007) The kick Roman got from his work, above all, however, was the opportunity the job provided to meet people from different walks of life and regions of Russia, all with their own stories about life ‘before’ military service. This included people with a wide range of subcultural interests (punks, EMOs) as well as from a diverse range of backgrounds and all with different survival strategies. He was particularly fascinated by those at the base who had criminal records, from whom, he said, he learned a lot about the prison environment, their authorities, language and principles. The job also brought him into contact with people from different ethnic backgrounds: . . . there was a bit of a fuss when it came out that I was negatively disposed to these various, you know, those . . . but I wasn’t against them [being there], against them being exploited for the good of the homeland. I didn’t have any problem with that because basically it’s right. They’re sent up here from the Caucasus and exploited and I’m basically happy about that – at least they’re being of some use. (Roman, 2007) The military environment, Roman said, did not bother him, and his ultimate ambition would be to join the Federal Security Agency (FSB). From family lives to subcultural lives? This brief overview, of course, does not capture all the family histories of respondents, and, indeed, not all respondents allowed us access to those histories. Even where they did, however, it is no simple task to understand whether there is a significant connection, let alone a dependent relationship, between their family backgrounds and experience and the formation of their own ideological views, perception of the world and life strategies. Equally difficult is explaining the connection between particular circumstances in

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which respondents grew up – absent fathers, domestic violence, the disempowerment experienced by working-class men in the post-Soviet period, parents’ material and educational deprivation – and particular subcultural choices. In some respondents’ narratives such links are not only in evidence but an object of self-reflection, as in the case of Valera’s account in 2006 of what participating in skinhead violence meant to him: ‘I felt useful. Because at home I was nobody. Maybe that influenced me. Nobody fucking needed me, nobody paid me any attention. But on the street, I had some authority.’ But does this mean we can talk about some kind of subcultural ‘risk group’, as academics subscribing to the ‘youth as problem’ paradigm suggest? For such authors (see, for example, Chuprov et al. 2001; Chuprov and Zubok 2009; Zapesotskii 1996; Belikov 2009a; Salagaev 1997; and Levikova 2002) the development by young people of certain social and cultural solidarities is an indicator of deviancy, asocial tendencies and a heightened risk of marginalisation. Research within this paradigm focuses exclusively on external attributes and formal social indicators of the group. Moreover, such an approach is consonant with moral panics about the moral degradation of young people and subcultural youth’s predisposition towards pathogenic behaviour, and thus encourages the formation of images of them as a threat to national security.8 The working lives and social status of respondents also give us no direct explanation for their adoption of a skinhead identity. As indicated above, there were elements in their narratives of pride in their working-class origins and experience and a real pleasure in the very process of physically hard and even traumatic work. Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 8, they talked extensively about their working bodies, including the punishments they endured (burns, cuts, breaks) and the fluids they emitted (sweat and blood). In this way the male working body became an object of particular pride and evidence of the right to relax ‘properly’ in one’s own space away from both women and the bosses. While it is tempting to identify here confirmation of the continued relevance of the CCCS reading of the meaning of skinhead as the response of working-class youth to the structural dislocation experienced by their parents’ generation, this is, in my opinion, an insufficient explanation. The approach adopted here suggests the missing link between structural positioning and subcultural choice is to be found in young people’s everyday experience – in family, work and peer environments – and the cultural strategies they develop to negotiate them (see also Willis 1977; Griffin 1985). The particular bonds and solidarities that emerge in the group are also shaped by local experience (in the geographical but also the social and cultural sense) of historical and social time, in how individuals imagine successful lives and the means they are prepared to use to achieve them (Nayak 2003; Pilkington 2004). In other words, respondents’ skinhead identities are profoundly locally inflected.

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Solidarities: friends forever? In this section of the chapter, attention turns to the relationships and rules governing the time respondents spent together and the role of friendship and trust in both maintaining and ultimately undermining the solidarity of the group. From their narratives, but also from our own observation of their interactions with each other and with us, it became clear that, by 2006–7 at least, the group was maintained not primarily by a common commitment to the promotion and reproduction of xenophobic (racist) sentiments but by friendship, liking, trust (or suspicion), despair, hatred and aggression of the kind that punctuates all youth friendship groups. It was these feelings, and the practices through which they were enacted, that gave meaning to their routine gatherings and governed their everyday cultural choices. At the time our research in 2006–7, the group had evolved out of a variety of different ‘subcultural’ origins (see Chapter 4), pre-existing friendships and interests in ‘skinhead’ that had been inspired as a result of external contacts (Figure 3.3). The group’s two recognised ‘leaders’, Slava and Andrei, had been classmates, and at one time close friends, who retained contact with one another after their educational paths had diverged. Andrei used the Internet and regular trips to Moscow to network with skinhead groups outside the

Figure 3.3 Friends forever? The group before the conflict Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

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city. Slava’s ‘subcultural’ origins had been in territorial gangs (see Chapters 2 and 4), and his interest in skinhead evolved primarily through his friendship with Andrei, although he also had had contact with RNE members in Moscow and, for a time, had distributed literature for them. Andrei, Slava and Nikolai (see Appendix 2) had been members of the original group of skinheads from the Retribution-18 brigade (see Chapter 1). Valera and Sergei had also been classmates and remained very close friends. Although both were active in all group gatherings, and Sergei trained rigorously in the basement gym, by 2006 neither had a strong sense of skinhead identity. Valera had been released from prison very recently, having served time for drug dealing. Roman had entered the group via his younger brother, Vasia, who identified closely with Andrei and had sustained a serious head injury during one group ‘action’. Zhenia, who was a couple of years younger than Andrei and Slava, was the leader of a subsection of the broader group and thus acted as a kind of ‘loyal opposition’, or alternative, for new recruits to the movement. He had been attracted to skinhead as a result of acquaintances he had made in Orel during a summer vacation. Lida, who had been a member for about as long as Zhenia, was closely associated with his part of the group. Lera led a ‘brigade’ of her own but, for reasons discussed below, was positioned on the edge of both groups. She had become involved with the skinhead movement in Moscow and consciously sought out a group to join after moving to Vorkuta. Other members of the group, and their relationship to these core respondents, are detailed in Appendix 2. Individuals, authority figures and regimes of power The so-called ABC of Slavic skinheads sets out the basic rules for ‘the behaviour of the proper Nazi-skinhead’ (Belikov 2009a: 231), and is said to regulate not only the social but also the interpersonal practices of active skinhead groups.9 The group at the centre of this study acknowledges these formal rules, which included that skinheads should refrain from friendship or contact with ‘foreigners’ (inorodtsy, chuzhaki), should express their hatred and contempt for them, and should refuse them any help, comfort or empathy. A skinhead, it was said, is required also to demonstrate aggression towards ‘foreigners’, especially on encountering any interaction between a ‘white’ girl and ‘non-Russians’; the failure to show such aggression is interpreted as laziness or cowardliness and leads to the loss of authority. The only alternative to aggressive action is dedication to the active development of one’s own organisation or the skin movement as a whole by writing leaflets, composing song lyrics, publishing and distributing literature, and networking with other skin organisations (ibid.: 324; see also Chapter 6). However, the ‘ABC’ contains virtually nothing about how the internal life of the group should be structured. Observation of, and discussion with, respondents at the centre of this study complicates any idea of the existence of a formal power regime within

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the group; it was governed, rather, by a complex informal regime incorporating a number of different understandings of power, relations and interactions. At its core was an internal ‘code of honour’, and transgression of any of its basic principles generated conflict within the group. While it is possible to maintain a strict hierarchy through highly personalised and centralised power, this power must be constantly renewed through evidence of its justification. This, however, was a particularly demanding requirement when, as in the case of the group described here, there was no significant age difference between the leaders and rank and file members. It became even more difficult with time, as the wider skin movement was weakened both by the increasing prosecution of its members and by a rising challenge at street level from the growing anti-fascist movement. Thus, by 2006–7, for this group, public displays of skinhead, mass fights and other direct actions had been confined largely to the past (see Chapters 6 and 7). As a result there were fewer natural opportunities to enforce strict hierarchy and assert authority, and, consequently, the significance of unarticulated rules and informal group relations grew. Maintaining the status of leader now required not only constant confirmation of ideological competence but recognition by the majority of the group. This informal authority rested on accumulated trust (proven, not just voiced) and the ability to mobilise support. At the same time, the leader had to be able to ensure the reproduction of a strong core to the group that was committed to its fundamental values. The second half of this chapter traces how splits between ideological and ‘informal’ leadership, and the contestation of what constituted the fundamental values of the group, led eventually to an irreconcilable conflict between its two leaders. The conflict and its aftermath A major conflict between Andrei and Slava became a key turning point in the group’s development.10 The apparent reason for the fight was an argument over how people using the basement gym, where the group hung out,11 should behave. Particularly contentious was whether the gym should be used not only for physical training but also for general ‘hanging out’ (parties, drinking sessions, smoking, sleep-overs, celebrating birthdays and other special events). Andrei sought to dictate rules of behaviour on the grounds that it was he who had earned the money (from working at a construction site during the holidays) to buy new training equipment. Moreover, he claimed to have secured it for the group originally (see Chapter 4), regulated access to it, kept it clean and helped new lads coming to train. Slava, while accepting these general rules, opposed what he deemed excessive formalism in their application and considered it unnecessary to enforce strict rules of behaviour. Moreover, he did not like the increasingly obvious ‘absolute’ authority and unquestioning subordination that Andrei sought to impose. On the evening that the fight took place some of the lads had been enjoying a routine drinking session, after which Slava had lain down on the

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gym mat. Andrei insisted he get up. Slava responded, ‘Who are you to order me about here?!’ A serious fight kicked off – leaving both protagonists bloodied – as is captured in this diary excerpt: From the room I heard only Andrei’s voice – he was suggesting they should vote on whether the basement should only be used for sport. Then I heard Sergei’s voice. He shouted, ‘Yes, it’s just for working out.’ Periodically I heard Slava shouting that Andrei was totally fucked up and thought he was God. From time to time people emerged from the other room to ask what was going on. Then Andrei peered out from the room and asked everyone to leave and not to hang around the door. I went out on to the street, from where I heard Andrei shouting that everyone should leave. The fight went on. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006) After the conflict, the group hanging out in the basement split. Initially both Andrei and Slava continued to use the gym but tried to avoid encountering each other there. Gradually, however, Slava and his crowd used the basement less and less frequently, and by our return to the city in October 2007 it was only Andrei and his ‘team’ that were using it. The basement also changed during this time; almost all items associated with its use as a place to hang out disappeared and it became a site for training only. Moreover, Andrei and Slava had not overcome their differences, confirming our suspicion that underpinning the argument over the gym lay a deeper schism over dominant values not only within this group of friends but in relation to skinhead identity and the movement more widely. The struggle for trust The argument between the two leaders was indicative, rather than the cause, of a crisis of solidarity within the membership; that crisis actually concerned the more fundamental question of what constituted the basis of power, status, authority, friendship and trust in the group. For Slava the basement had become primarily a place to hang out – a place where friendship and trust were expressed through everyday practices (relaxing, flirting, joking, having a drink). Close friendship was, for him, the guarantor of trust. Andrei, in contrast, insisted that the basis of trust among real skinheads could only be discipline, subordination to a leader, the observation of rules of secrecy, and the maintenance of an image that they were strong men, always ready to defend Russia. . . . Andrei and Danil started talking. They were remembering their ‘fighting’ days. They described the organised fights [strelki] in which they had participated . . . using phrases such as ‘when we were young, it was fun’, and ‘an unforgettable time’. Andrei then started to talk . . . : ‘Three

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Growing up in a harsh climate years ago . . . imagine such a crowd of lads . . . a huge crowd – about 100 people. I said that we should split into groups and comb the yards. As we walked, others joined us. . . . Anyway basically we started off as a crowd, there were 70 left. We came out into this place and to one side of us there was a block of flats and to the other a snow drift, and in front there was a mob armed with planks. I shouted to our lot “Stop!” It was a fantastic feeling – to have such a powerful force behind me!’ (As he recounted all this, Andrei was extremely excited, waved his arms and refused to allow anybody else to say a word.) ‘I look around, are there too few of us? And then I see that the back rows, the wasters,12 had started to peel away, and I’m thinking, now they’re going to surround us. I’m thinking there are less of us. . . . And from behind there’s a cry, “Let’s get on with it, enough fucking talking!!!” And the crowd rushes forward . . . I covered my face with my arm until the crowd had run past. Then I ran myself and the others ran away. By the way, some of them later came over to us . . . although they turned out to be rats.’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 9 October 2006)

However, as this street action became no more than a source of nostalgic reminiscence, Andrei found it increasingly difficult to mobilise it as evidence of his continued right to leadership. A further challenge to his authority emanated from the research process itself, since our interest in particular members of the group evoked contradictory emotions among the others – uncertainty about whether we could be trusted (to protect confidentially and anonymity) but also a certain jealousy over attention paid to any particular individual. Such attention was regarded as confirmation by us of the individual’s status as ‘expert’ on the group. Thus Andrei often asked, ‘What can they tell you? How much do they really understand?’ – itself indicative of the competing claims within the group over who determined its binding ‘idea’, and who could, and should, explain the ‘truth’ about the skinhead movement. ‘It is a bit dodgy’: trust and the limits of openness The verbal and physical demonstration of trust or distrust in one another was one of the most important dimensions of everyday life in the group, not least because trust was tightly bound up with group security. An important linguistic indicator of this was the frequent reference to what was acceptable and what was ‘dodgy’ or ‘risky’ (palevo) talk and behaviour,13 where palevo indicated actions or words that could be used by ‘others’ (‘outsiders’) as proof of criminal activity, putting at risk either the whole group or a particular member of it. Serious information (tales of skinhead actions, criminal or prison experiences, links to the police or other authorities) should be shared only with those you trusted. However, palevo was also used to refer to the contravention of the accepted, albeit tacit, rules of secrecy within the group.

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For Andrei, the rules governing who could be trusted and what could be revealed were rooted in rationality and logic, not emotions or feelings. Moreover, only the group leader, in other words he himself, could determine the appropriate limits of trust. If a group member started to recount something that overstepped the boundary of acceptable trust, it could (and did) evoke an extremely negative reaction on the part of the more disciplined members. This included communication with us as researchers, and an onus was put upon us, especially by Andrei, repeatedly to prove that we could be trusted and that talking to us was not palevo. Not surprisingly, overt and latent arguments emerged around the acceptable limits of information, feelings and artefacts shared with the researchers, as captured in this excerpt from a conversation with some of the group in the gym, during which Sergei suddenly questioned whether allowing the recording of everyday life there was wise: SERGEI: I’m not sure, it is a bit dodgy. INTERVIEWER: Why is it dodgy? SLAVA: I dunno, it’s dodgy, admit it, it is dodgy. INTERVIEWER: So how come you agreed to it Serezh? SERGEI: Look . . . VALERA: I’m always ready to answer questions. SERGEI: They’ve just forgotten everything and are just drinking .

.. (Sergei, Slava and Valera, 2006)

Particular consternation and condemnation was aroused by a remarkably candid video interview with Valera. According to Andrei, by giving this interview Valera had undermined all trust in him. When the researcher argued that Valera had only been so open because nobody else was interested in what was going on for him and nobody listened to him, Andrei responded that this was irrelevant, since the articulation of hurt or pain indicated only weakness: This person literally got out of prison a couple of weeks ago. And he so easily agrees to being filmed, to telling all this to the camera. And it’s not only that he says all this to the camera but that he didn’t even have to be asked to do so. Either the guy’s an idiot or I’ve missed something. (Andrei, 2006) Andrei completely rejected the idea that Valera could have genuinely trusted us or that any kind of instinctive trust could exist, since it did not have a rational basis. For Andrei only those whose trust had been tested in practice deserved to be treated as dependable, and, in his opinion, Valera’s experience in prison ‘should have taught him that you can trust nobody’.

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A regime of conspiracy The permanent state of distrust towards outsiders was partially a result of the genuinely heightened risk of arrest and prosecution on account of the legislative changes and an intensification of the campaign against ‘extremism’ discussed in Chapter 1. By the time of our fieldwork in 2006–7, many of the group were under investigation and a number had been prosecuted and were serving prison sentences (see Chapter 7). Thus, Zhenia (2006) said, ‘It’s already a subconscious thing not to trust anybody’. The distrust was not confined to outsiders, however, but manifested itself in a conspiratorial atmosphere within the group too. Andrei (2006), for example, claimed that there were informers within the group and, as proof of this, described how, when he had been called in for questioning by the police, they had been able to recite the exact words he had said on a particular day.14 Moreover, the regime of conspiracy was designed to protect the group not only from the police but also from criminal gangs, who forgave nobody who failed to keep their mouth shut. Andrei, as always, explained in a particularly aggressive manner what happened to those who blindly trusted others: ANDREI:

. . . they’d find me, it’s a small town, just for one wrong word, they can . . . at best, just kill you, they can do that. One bloke walked back on foot from the mine – he was frozen to the very marrow. He came back barefoot – they had taken him to the mine, stripped him and thrown him out. So people come back and they lose their feet through frostbite. That’s what loose talk can do. INTERVIEWER: We have our own ethical code. We don’t tell anybody anything. ANDREI: And who knows about that? INTERVIEWER: We tell them. ANDREI: And I’m the president of America . . . (Andrei, 2006) We always asked permission to record or film conversations and always stopped recording if interviewees requested we did so. Nonetheless, since the conspiratorial regime that governed the group demanded that all important material and documents were immediately destroyed if there was a risk that they might be discovered, our recordings constituted a danger: There’s no guarantee that tomorrow you won’t give it to somebody. There’s no guarantee that tomorrow nobody will take it off you. . . . On my hard disk . . . all the information that mustn’t fall into the hands of others, is all set up so that you only need press one button to delete it all, immediately . . . because at any moment they could turn up, could [take] everything, could grab me from that computer, put me against a wall and take my hard disk . . . (Andrei, 2006)

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In addition to the concerns that the stories they had recounted would end up either in the press or with the police, Andrei suspected us of being connected to the security services, justifying his constant wariness by the fact that he bore responsibility not only for his own safety but for that of the whole group. In response to the researcher’s argument that we also felt responsibility for respondents’ safety, he asked ironically, ‘What kind of responsibility do you bear? You wouldn’t be put away for 10, 12, 13, 15 or 25 years’. Underpinning Andrei’s lack of willingness at that time to accept our different understandings of trust and responsibility was a recognition that the social environments in which we moved were worlds apart: ‘Honestly, I envy you because nobody has ever really screwed you.15 Nobody has ever really cheated you . . . if you had ever been really screwed, you would understand perfectly what I’m talking about.’ The interview with Valera thus acted as a kind of detonator; it was actively discussed in the group and sharply divided those who continued to trust us from those who considered the presence of the researchers as ‘dodgy’. Andrei described it as a betrayal, and it made him even more determined to police rigidly the boundaries of acceptable trust and safety. By 2007 Andrei’s position had hardened still further. The conflict with Slava had, in his words, made him stop believing in friendship and led him to the conclusion that ‘you should trust nobody but yourself’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 16 September 2007). In this context, communication with researchers seemed nothing but a risk, and his interactions with us became governed by constant self-monitoring in order to ensure he did not betray either himself or others. Friendship Friendship is built upon ‘basic trust’, which, according to Giddens (1991: 38), acquires particular significance in the context of global uncertainty and the diversification and multiplication of choice, since it generates a sense of ontological security. Thus the social transformations of late modernity, with their accompanying changes in regimes of intimacy, do not displace the elementary need for non-reflexive warmth and spontaneity in relations between people (Elias 2001: 184–5) and, arguably, even heighten the need for ‘pure relations’ (if such exist). The concept of friendship, the feelings that underpin it, the norms that define and sustain it, and the codes of ‘honour’ and practices that confirm it, however, must also be seen in social and historical context. In the Soviet period, notwithstanding differentiation between social groups, a dominant discourse of ‘friendship’, underpinned by the ideology and ethics of collectivism, prevailed; the code of ‘real’ friendship presumed unspoken trust and the possibility of the open discussion of personal problems and imbued friendship with unofficial, moral value (Kon 2005: 324). However, outside of this ideological framework, friendships helped create another, sometimes parallel and sometimes perpendicular, social life. Kharkhordin (2009: 13), for example, demonstrates how informal networks were built on friendship and

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undermined the ‘system of collective surveillance and Soviet discipline’. The friendship network, he argues, remained the main arena of individualisation where knowledge about oneself was accumulated and personal identity formed. Material conditions or objects may also be central to how relations are constructed between people (Boltanski and Thevenot 1991), and, as Kharkhordin and Kovaleva (2009: 49) suggest, the rules governing friendship become most visible at moments when they begin to break down. This was evident in the case described here when different interpretations of the use of the basement gym and training equipment precipitated a conflict that revealed differences in the very meaning invested in the notion of friendship by different group members. In Andrei’s understanding of real friendship, what was important was not impulsive, emotional attachment but physical and moral support – above all, in the interests of the group’s common cause. Thus one of the principles of the group’s code was that a skinhead should always defend ‘their own’ no matter what the cost, and only those who had proved themselves in this regard were to be trusted and counted as a friend. Andrei (2006) illustrated this by talking about one group member who had stood and watched while other lads from the group were being beaten up. From this failure to do his ‘duty’, ‘to defend his own blood, to protect them with his own damned body’, he concluded that this individual not only was not to be trusted but had been working for the police. Andrei went on to draw a parallel between this incident and the fight between Slava and himself in the gym, arguing that virtually nobody had stood up for him, providing further evidence that they couldn’t be trusted. Valera and Sergei, however, demonstrated a very different understanding of friendship and trust (Figure 3.4). They had been friends since school, and Valera loved to recount how Sergei had been the only person to stand by him when he had been on the verge of being excluded from school. When he left Vorkuta, Valera said in 2007, both of them had cried – a fact less surprising than that Valera thought it acceptable to tell us about it. Valera’s understanding of friendship, in contrast to that of Andrei, was of a deep personal attachment to a single person rather than a shared idea. Thus his deep bond with Sergei coexisted alongside a concern that, in the group as a whole, he was wanted only when he had money: VALERA:

It’s just that everyone’s always telling me that I’m so bad, damn it. While my friends just love me. Why? . . . Maybe because of the money – I don’t understand that . . . INTERVIEWER: But you haven’t always had money, have you? VALERA: Sometimes I have the feeling that they only like me for the damned money. INTERVIEWER: Did you get the same feeling when you didn’t have money? VALERA: To be honest, I felt that something had been extinguished . . . Of course we continued to keep in touch . . . but it was different . . . But

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Figure 3.4 Best friends Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

when I had more money, then . . . I would buy stuff, lend people [money] . . . (Valera, 2007) This feeling is significant because money was an important testing ground for friendship. Although in many instances it was not considered important who paid for what and whom, and screwing other people for money was considered an acceptable practice, using or cheating people within the group was considered to undermine friendship. Gender, friendship and trust: the limits of solidarity One of the convictions shared by the members of group – both male and female – was that real friendship was possible only between men. Lida (2006), for example, said that from childhood she had always felt more like a boy than a girl – not because she considered herself particularly masculine but because she couldn’t bear sitting ‘in a group of women (babskaia kompaniia) when they start gossiping . . . discussing who’s dressed how, comparing people’s bums or whatever . . . ’. Lera too said she found relations with men

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‘simpler’, and she had set up her own ‘brigade’ consisting entirely of young male skinheads (Lera, 2006). However, the girls’ comfort in the group was not reciprocated by the lads, who treated the female members of the group – those who considered themselves ‘skingirls’ – not like other (male) skinheads but like other girls. Thus, while, according to Lera, there were five skingirls in Vorkuta (although not all were currently active), according to Andrei and Vasia there were ‘none’. The issue here is the ability and right of the girls to take part in the direct street action via which group members proved their loyalty and commitment. Andrei (2006) was typically categorical that ‘ . . . we don’t take them [on direct actions] because they are not capable of executing this role, because they will crack at the first opportunity’. Zhenia, in contrast, claimed he had no problem with the principle of girls being in the skin movement: I am positively inclined towards it [skingirls]. My former girlfriend shared my views. The only problem is the worry about her. Being a skinhead doesn’t come just like that. You’re not a skinhead by calling yourself a skinhead and sitting on the sofa. You have to prove yourself on the street. (Zhenia, 2006) Nevertheless, when his former girlfriend, Masha, together with a female friend, attempted to prove herself by setting out to find an ethnic minority woman to beat up, but had not had the nerve to carry through their intention, he had ridiculed them. As discussed in Chapter 7, Masha subsequently abandoned her attempts to prove herself, and skinhead girls were effectively excluded from the performative aspects of style. Perhaps even more telling is the fact that, despite having participated in the most serious act of violence of any reported to us – the murder of a policeman of ‘Caucasian’ origin (see Chapter 6) – Lera struggled to be taken seriously and her position in the group remained marginal. She had been used – through a romantic attachment – by one lad to gain access to her brigade. He had subsequently left her, and the skin movement too, and joined the anti-fascists. This had undermined Lera’s position as leader of the brigade, since she had vouched for him, and later attempts to gain a position of authority within the Vorkuta skins had been met with resistance. While resenting this opposition (see Chapter 7), Lera continues to place skinhead over gender solidarity. Explaining why there are no girls in her own skin brigade, she says: Well, firstly, there’s nowhere to recruit girls from now. And, secondly, I find it simpler with boys. A lot of girls see it as a way to show off. . . . to hang out with lads is great, of course. Not everybody believes, not everybody is so serious about it. For the lads it is more serious. (Lera, 2006)

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She goes on to joke that girls are more problematic and might, in the middle of a fight, worry that they had ‘broken a nail’ or ‘ripped their tights’. When challenged that it is somewhat contradictory, given her own participation, for her to see no place in the movement for girls, she justifies herself in terms of the logic of ‘proven trust’ discussed above: I know myself. I know I won’t have those problems . . . I’ve already seen so much that I’m not going to faint at the sight of blood, for example. If I get hassle, I’ll fight back. It’s one thing to be afraid yourself, but another to be afraid for someone else. In that sense it’s more difficult [with girls], but I know myself and the lads know me. They fear for me, undoubtedly . . . But they know that, if something kicks off, I’ll fight back and so nothing will happen to me. (Lera, 2006) A number of girls also hung out with the lads because they were going out with one of them. With regard to ‘girlfriends’, while sharing ideological views was a bonus, it was not essential. More important was a broader shared outlook and set of values, which Zhenia (2006) defined as ‘alternative’. As he said, ‘I am looking for a girl who loves me whether or not I have money’. Observing the lads with their girlfriends confirmed the importance to them of genuinely close, trusting relations. Although Andrei, for example, consciously presented an anti-romantic image of himself – explaining at length that it was stupid to give his girlfriend flowers, since their money was joint money anyway – in practice he behaved in a caring and touching way towards her.16 Valera, in sharp contrast, was prone to suffering, alternately from being desperately in love or having had a traumatic break-up. Both states seemed equally meaningful to him and were the subject of extensive reflection and discussion. That girlfriends should know their place and that that place was outside the rules governing the male group, however, was demonstrated during the conflict between Andrei and Slava. When the argument deteriorated into a physical fight, Slava’s girlfriend was criticised instantaneously by both lads. Andrei threatened that ‘she’d also end up on the floor’ if she continued to interfere, while Slava instructed others to ‘get her out of here’ (Olia, 2006). Finally, it is worth noting the particular position of Masha – Zhenia’s former girlfriend – in the group. She is perhaps the exception that proves the rule that girls could not be accepted as central members of the friendship group. Her unique position appears to have been facilitated by her acceptance, after her failed attempt to prove herself described above, of a position that showed full ideological commitment to the cause but fell short of active street participation. Describing her own view on taking part in ‘actions’, she claimed: . . . I have never got particularly involved in the actions because a girl is an extra burden for the lads. I can understand that completely – in case I

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Growing up in a harsh climate run away, in case I say something I shouldn’t . . . I would be a burden for the lads because they would worry about me . . . That’s why they try not to take me with them on actions. (Masha, 2006)

In return, she was accepted as a member of the friendship group, referred to by a nickname derived from the male form of her patronymic and definitively declared to be ‘not a woman’ (ne baba) (Andrei, cited in Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 16 October 2006) (Figure 3.5). The crisis of leadership: individual paths and other lives Group solidarity was rooted in the authority of the two group leaders – Andrei and Slava – and underpinned by their friendship and the rules of trust

Figure 3.5 ‘Not a woman’ Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

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(and distrust) that they shared and policed. Both were charismatic, had a hard masculine image (see Chapter 8) and were able to maintain internal group discipline and to command respect. The participation of both in the construction and maintenance of the group was crucial, as their different bases of authority were mutually reinforcing. By 2006, however, Andrei’s ideological authority appeared dominant and he sought recognition as the group’s sole leader (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 9 October 2006) – something that was recognised and confirmed by other members. Sergei, for example, considered Andrei to be the intellectual leader, while he and Slava put his ideas into action, and Valera, who called Andrei ‘the boss’, said that it was Andrei who effectively united the group (ibid., 13 October 2006). The increasing pretension to sole leadership, however, undermined the informal division of leadership labour and, in the course of our research in 2006, began to be perceived by some as arrogance: Sergei himself began to tell me about Andrei. He said, ‘Do you remember when you told Andrei to his face that you felt . . . ?’ [I replied] ‘You mean when I said that I felt inadequate when he had said that his philosophy didn’t allow him to talk to people like me – virtual blacks?’ [Sergei] ‘Yes!!! Well, we all feel like that around him. We always feel like that. I do, and Roman and even Slava. Once we even told Andrei. He plays the fucking God and we are nobodies! Even if we have a meet, and we go, the four of us together, it’s still Andrei who does the talking, and we stand behind, waiting while he sorts it all. Just like when we come to the basement and he tells us that he has done everything, that without us it would have been just the same, that he didn’t need us. But in fact, without us, he is nobody either, despite his strength . . . ’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 20 October 2006) Challenges to Andrei’s increasingly absolute authority came from a range of divergent sources in the group. It was present in Valera’s overstepping of the norms of acceptable trust when he chose to talk to us openly and emotionally. It was implicit also in Slava’s behaviour as he began to engage in an increasingly broad range of cultural practices that were outside what was formally acceptable within skinhead ideology. Moreover, as the above diary excerpt illustrates, these challenges may well have been facilitated by the fact that some members had witnessed how one of the researchers had stood up to Andrei when he had attempted to undermine her position in the group by calling her ‘virtually black’ (see Chapters 10 and 11). Andrei, concerned by the wider crisis in the skinhead movement,17 sought to impose a regime based on his personal power that, to his mind, was best able to meet the declared aims of the Russian skinhead movement. As he did so, he exposed an increasing gap between those aims and one of the basic values within the group – friendship. The resultant split saw some follow Andrei in continuing to prioritise the solidarities embedded in ‘the

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movement’, while others began, alongside Slava, to redefine those bonds by reconstructing a space of safety and trust rooted in genuine intimacy, openness and the embracing of other cultural practices.

Conclusion Eighteen months after the completion of our fieldwork, many members of the group, who had been so convinced that skinhead ideas provided the only true path for understanding oneself and the world, found themselves moving in very different directions (see Appendix 2). Thus, although we continue to talk to our respondents via the Internet, social networking sites, texts and telephone, and met up with those who had remained in the city during a return visit to Vorkuta in October 2009, the group at the centre of our research no longer exists. However, the significance of the issues discussed in this chapter does not depend on whether or not these individuals remain ‘skinheads’ or not, but rather is influenced by the contexts within which they adopt skinhead identities and the solidarities upon which these identities rest. The question is whether such solidarities will continue to attract new generations of young people in the city to this racist variant of skinhead. In relation to these wider questions, our research has suggested that the xenophobic attitudes respondents articulated through skinhead identity had been shaped by authoritative adults, especially parents who frequently spoke negatively about ‘non-Russians’. This ‘everyday xenophobia’ learned at home, however, was supplemented by shifts in dominant state discourse as respondents added to their armoury the latest targets of hatred that accompanied swings in diplomatic relations, depending on which country had been deemed most recently to have undermined Russia’s rightful authority or respect. However, it has been suggested also that interpersonal and subcultural interactions, friendship and ideology were woven together closely within the group. The research illustrates clearly, for example, that skinhead ideology competes within the group context with everyday manifestations of human ‘being’ (emotions, feelings, empathies) and bonds of trust and friendship through which they are expressed. This was evident in the process by which the common space – the basement gym – that had been shared, enjoyed and valued by members of the group became the site of irreparable contestation and conflict. This conflict, on the one hand, concerned the right to leadership and the (material and human) resources underpinning it. On the other hand, it reflected a more profound dispute over the fundamental values of the group, and the failure to resolve it led to the final divergence in cultural strategies. Thereafter, Slava, and those around him, openly pursued a path that sought new experiences but was full of risk, while Andrei opted for a more solitary but ideologically correct future trajectory. Having written the conflict into their own self-narratives as illustrating ‘betrayal’ on the part of others, both were able to pursue these divergent paths as the natural continuation of their own, true, life strategies.

4

‘Upgrading’ Cultural interests and strategies Al’bina Garifzianova

Reflecting the core concern of this book – understanding the meaning of respondents’ everyday practices, actions and interests – this chapter considers subcultural choice – in this case skinhead – within the context of broader collective and individual cultural practices and preferences. The ethnographic material drawn upon allows us to go beyond respondents’ own narrations of their subcultural identity and to see not only where this fits with ‘official’ skin ideology but also where cultural interests and practices within the group diverge from it. This is not to suggest the need, in the light of globalisation, to distinguish between ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ subcultures but rather to propose that subcultural choices be understood within broader cultural strategies whose development is shaped by territorial, class, gender and ethnic locations, available opportunities, access to informational resources and individual cultural interests. This approach also facilitates an understanding of respondents as fully rounded individuals1 whose personal cultural preferences change over time, consolidating or, alternatively, rupturing group solidarities. Tracing respondents’ individual and evolving cultural interests reveals ‘skinhead’, in the case of this particular group, not to constitute a binding ideological or stylistic commitment but to be part of a wider, ‘progressive’2 cultural strategy that allowed individuals the immediate satisfaction of standing out from the perceived ‘mainstream’, as well as the prospect of overcoming class and territorial constraints through other, imagined, lives. Over time the constellation of individual cultural interests, wider life strategies and skinhead identities evolved in increasingly divergent ways, resulting in some group members consigning skinhead to their ‘childhood’ while others, feeling betrayed by the apparently faint hearted, withdrew into the more self-contained and controlled space of the virtual skinhead community.

Cultural strategies and subcultural resources The skinhead movement is understood generally in Russia as being a product of the adoption of a global stylistic response to inherently national crises – the rise in unemployment and political transformation (Belikov 2009a;

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Likhachev 2002), post-Soviet reforms, state policy and the dismantling of the Soviet education system (Tarasov 2000). Publications to date on skinhead in Russia thus emphasise its ideological component, external stylistic attributes and aggression and the threat it poses to social stability (Belikov 2009b; Likhachev 2002; Tarasov 2000, 2004c, 2006; Shnirel’man 2007; Shnaider 2004). In contrast, the approach proposed here is one that considers both the global, or universal, factors driving the increasingly widespread appeal to subcultural resources among young people and the particular, local characteristics of subcultural solidarity. At the universal level, young people forge individual life strategies aimed not only at personal success but at standing out from the crowd (Omel’chenko 2004: 148, 155). Such life projects are shaped less by the family and other social institutions than by peers and the cultural landscape, especially the mass media (ibid.: 154), and are enacted through a range of individual, group and subcultural practices that may be motivated by the desire to escape either a particular social location or status or a political or spiritual protest, or simply by fashion. Subcultural choices, therefore, have to be understood as part of this wider life strategy and as constrained by structural location (ibid.: 104) but also as motivated by the desire to move beyond the limits that location imposes. At the local level, subcultural resources are drawn upon to provide a cultural space in which young people can distinguish their lives from the surrounding uniformity. In the case of the group discussed here, skinhead emerged as a focus for solidarity of a group of individuals with similar social backgrounds inhabiting a common leisure sphere and trying to pursue their personal interests (in sport, music, information access) in the context of the local peculiarities of Vorkuta, as well as an awareness at the end of the 1990s of the national growth in skinhead activity. It allowed them to acquire authority, elicit curiosity and evoke fear and shock, and also simply to experiment in the company of those with whom they studied, worked, hung out and drank beer. At this individual level, therefore, adopting skinhead generated a sense of having overcome one’s own social disenfranchisement at the everyday level while providing a way of explaining the social injustice that existed. Understanding subcultural practices within these wider life strategies and local contexts is essential for interpreting the meaning of practices that constitute skinhead at the local level. An illustrative example is the significance to the group of skinheads discussed here of the zal (literally ‘hall’, as in sports hall, but in this case better described as a basement gym), which acted from 2006 as the main site of group get-togethers. The movement of the skin group from their previous place for hanging out – a bus shelter on Komsomol Square when warm enough to be on the street, and any available flat when it wasn’t – might, for example, be read as evidence of an increasing commitment to their development as skin ‘warriors’ who ‘spend all their spare time increasing their strength and developing their muscle mass in gyms, sports

Cultural interests and strategies 77 clubs and informal, basement gyms’ (Belikov 2009a: 237). However, in practice this shift resulted from a combination of local environmental factors and individual interests. The climatic conditions of Vorkuta – with its ten-month winters – cannot be ignored here; this itself provided sufficient incentive to the group to replace their previous venue for hanging out with a more permanent, indoor location. The ability to enact that desire – the availability of the zal – however, was the result of a particular local policy to promote sport for all young people. As part of this policy, the local administration had organised dozens of youth sporting events in the city, including the annual staging of the Northern Olympic Games, in which young people from northern cities across Russia participated. It had also encouraged the creation of sports and training facilities throughout Vorkuta. As Andrei’s account below indicates, the group’s access to their gym (see Figure 4.1) had come about through a peculiarly local subversion of this policy: It happened kind of by chance. When all these sports halls were set up – in our block they opened a sports hall, in the next door block there was a sports hall, in the next but one block . . . in the block opposite . . . but when this sports hall was finished, it wasn’t handed over. And a lad we know got to know the owner, and he said, ‘If you want to train, we’ve got a sports hall’. And through this lad we also got in there . . . At the start they were all drinking, sniffing glue [there], but after Vasia and I and a couple of other people joined . . . we got rid of all the riff-raff who were doing stuff they shouldn’t be there and started talking to the owner himself, or rather not the owner but the person who was handling it at the time. But now we are virtually left to get on with it ourselves . . . Of course we have to pay a small contribution . . . (Andrei, 2006) Thus, it was through old ‘subcultural’ contacts (the retention of links with a former gang leader who controlled the basement) that the group had eventually managed to gain exclusive access to the zal, where they not only worked out and trained but drank beer, got their tattoos done, listened to music and chatted. The socio-spatial and socio-historical specifics of Vorkuta, and their role in shaping young people’s identities, were discussed extensively in Chapter 2. However, it is worth noting here, in addition, the significance of the relative information deprivation experienced by young people in the city. Although highly localised computer networks (within individual blocks of flats and districts of the city) were established, access to twenty-first-century electronic technologies was extremely limited. This explains the relatively late development of the skinhead scene in Vorkuta, which began to form primarily as a result of individuals becoming acquainted with skinhead ideas and styles during summer holidays in other cities, and subsequently constructing their own skinhead group by bringing in others from school, college or the local

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Figure 4.1 Training room in the zal Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

yard with whom they were already friends. Thus the ‘subculture’ of skins in Vorkuta was not a grouping of ideologically like-minded people who found each other via virtual skin networks or organised political groups, but a product of pre-existing social networks that had formed before respondents’ public declaration of themselves as skinheads or the demonstration of skinhead style. Thus the cultural world of Vorkuta skins, their everyday practices and interests, differs from the widely publicised image of the skinhead as a ‘hardened’ and ‘dogmatic’ fanatic (Belikov 2009a: 228). This is not only because of the ‘provincial’ or isolated nature of the development of the skinhead subculture in Vorkuta but because everyday cultural practices of young people declaring such identities are not wholly organised around skin ideology; rather, skin practices constitute one component of broader life strategies that exist before and, in some cases, after skinhead.

‘Upgrading’: cultural strategies and subcultural trajectories The group at the heart of this study, like any friendship group, was formed on the basis of a particular combination of individual tastes and preferences and shared interests and practices. At a particular moment in time these shared

Cultural interests and strategies 79 practices coalesced around skinhead, which was built into individuals’ own life strategies in different ways and remained open to change. As Il’in (2008: 347) notes, everyday life may consist of the repetition of a series of practices from one day to the next, but the cultural preferences underpinning those practices may be transformed by both internal and external influences. Such transformations, in individual cases, involved movement between subcultural solidarities. The most common subcultural trajectories in this group were from hip hop and punk to skinhead. Thus Roman explained that one formerly active member of the group had gained his nickname – ski-per – because he had been both a skin and a rapper (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 26 October 2006). Valera also said (2006) that he had followed his older brother in a common ‘fashion-led’ trajectory from rap to skinhead. Female members of the group, Lida and Masha, in contrast, came to skinhead via their interest in punk music. Lida had been introduced to rock music by family members at an early age: LIDA:

. . . my father knew someone whose son played at the rock club and they invited my father to a concert and he took me with him. I was probably about 11 or 12. INTERVIEWER: Here [in Vorkuta]? LIDA: Here. And at first when I went to that concert, I didn’t get it, people were playing stuff, head banging, but I really liked it. I thought – what’s all this about? . . . Then I went on holiday. My cousin was a neformal 3 and she told me about all these concerts in Tver’, what they did. I listened with my mouth open. I just liked it so much. And then I came back here and a girl I know asked me if I wanted to be introduced to a punk . . . And so I got to know them. It was that kind of group, everybody was friends . . . (Lida, 2006) Respondents understood musical tastes as always developing and changing – over time and with the acquisition of cultural capital. Masha and Lida thus wrote punk music into their personal trajectories as simply a bridge to their interest in the heavy rock music that was popular in the skin group (Masha, 2006). For core male members of the group, in contrast, movement into skinhead had been part of a trajectory out of earlier territorially – yard and street – based groups. These respondents had known each other from school or college, lived near to each other, and hung out in the same yards. Despite respondents’ rejection of commonalities with the everyday cultural practices associated with gopniki,4 these groupings were organised into hierarchically structured gangs maintained through the identification of ‘leaders’ and practices, vis-à-vis younger or weaker members, of ‘protection’ and extortion: INTERVIEWER: Can I ask then if you had people under you? ANDREI: We had a relatively developed structure. . . . it was a very developed

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Growing up in a harsh climate structure in terms of organisation . . . unfortunately, because of the people who only wanted to drink and have our protection . . . The organisation was really serious. When we gathered to celebrate something once, 250 people turned up . . . There was a strict division . . . There were sections, everybody was divided into sections and each section had a leader. I’m talking abstractly here of course – nobody actually called themselves that. There were like elders. So I had four people with me – under me, that is. So if there were any problems, I, only I, would be rung. And it was my job to inform these four, gather them together. Nobody was phoned except me – all contact went through me. And it was the same with all the others. . . . It was all very serious . . . (Andrei, 2006)

The everyday hierarchy and activity of gang life was reflected in respondents’ descriptions of their involvement in mass fights and the physical resolution of inter-gang disputes. It was also manifest in the informal economic relations that were a central component of these relations. Slava’s description of the routine practice of extortion from those ‘under him’ (see Chapter 2) illustrates how these ‘structures’ worked to make money but also to maintain group hierarchy and to teach the former victims of extortion how to become the future perpetrators. It was in these ‘former lives’ that respondents learned how to handle themselves in a peer environment and that core practices of independence, risktaking, seeking ‘action’ and authority were established, underpinning their later cultural formations. However, at the same time, adopting the subcultural code of ‘skinheads’ allowed respondents to stand out from the gopnik context from which they had come and adopt a ‘progressive’ cultural strategy. Thus, after the split and the replacement of the collective skinhead interests and practices that had maintained the group in the early 2000s by a range of individually determined priorities, Slava described his cultural strategy also in terms of progression; he was, he said, ‘upgrading’ (abgreid). INTERVIEWER:

Everything is an ‘upgrade’ with you. What do you mean by ‘upgrade’? SLAVA: Total [laughs]. INTERVIEWER: Improvement? SLAVA: Yeah. You should upgrade. INTERVIEWER: Along with you, you mean? SLAVA: Then you’d know what the word means . . . I’ve already upgraded you in various things anyway . . . (Slava, 2007) ‘Upgrading’ was a variant of ‘progressive’ cultural strategy oriented towards constantly moving forward, learning about new opportunities and acquiring new experiences that would bring fundamental life changes; in this sense it

Cultural interests and strategies 81 described the original subcultural choice in favour of skinhead as much as the movement away from it.

Cultural interests: music Musical preferences have been seen traditionally as central to subcultural solidarities since they provide a means for individuals to feel they belong to a group (Frith 1983: 215). Despite recent theoretical emphasis on the fluidity and diversity of musical tastes, moreover, Hesmondhalgh (2005: 26) maintains that music remains a site for the expression of collective identity. However, as discussed in Chapter 1, within the skin movement, music has also been a site of struggle over subcultural authenticity (Brown 2004) as traditional tastes in reggae and ska gave way to the heavily punk influenced Oi!. The subsequent overt politicisation of skinhead music was first driven by the Rock against Communism (RAC) movement but later became embedded in a number of musical subgenres, such as ‘hatecore’, born out of punk hardcore, and National Socialist black metal, with its employment of Nordic mythology and pagan themes. Published literature on the Russian skinhead movement to date explores the role of music on the scene little beyond stating that Russian Nazi-skins listen to Oi!, punk and RAC (Likhachev 2002; Belikov 2002; Tarasov 2004c) and that ‘music lyrics play a significant role in the dissemination of skinhead ideology’ (Likhachev 2002: 113). Moscow groups preferred by Russian Naziskins are said to be Shturm, Russkoe getto (known since 1997 as Kolovrat), Belie bul’dogi, Vandal and Devizion, as well as Totenkopf 5 from St Petersburg and a group of the same name from Iaroslavl (from 1996 know as TNF) and the Ussuriisk rock group Terror (Tarasov 2004c). The music of these groups, as well as of the more widely known Korroziia metalla, is characterised by texts of a nationalistic persuasion calling for struggle against migrants and ‘defence against blacks’.6 The research conducted for this book suggests that respondents did listen to so-called skinhead music (in particular Terror and Kolovrat). Indeed, in some cases, this music was central to their entrance to the movement: . . . You could say that basically it was because of the music that I ended up in the movement . . . How? Basically in 2001 I went on holiday to Orel and met a lad there . . . who was listening to the group Korol’ i shut . . . I began to listen to them. A year later I went back and met up with him again and asked what he was listening to now and he said Kolovrat. That’s an NS group. I was already interested in this . . . and literally after a couple of days I went and asked him to shave my head. (Zhenia, 2006) However, at the same time, individuals’ musical preferences were very diverse and often dictated not by skin ideology but by individual tastes. Andrei, for

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example, favoured Russian pagan, black and death metal groups such as Butterfly Temple, Rossomahaar, Amatory, Autumn and Atoll Nerat. Andrei had written the following in one of the chat forums: ‘I love music. Music stimulates me, releases loads of energy. I like sympho[nic], atmospheric and black [metal] best. There is a group called Estatic Fear.7 It’s not even a group but one person. That is something unimaginable. He has only two albums. There’s one composition that lasts 34 minutes – the sound of rain, a pure female vocal, deep male growling, organ, the noise of the wind . . . ’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 16 October 2006) Other respondents – Slava and Lida – preferred music from the more traditional Russian rock genre such as DDT, Nautilus Pompilius, Korol’ i shut and Chaif. Valera liked EMO groups such as Origami, while Roman liked less well-known amateur groups from provincial cities as well as a wide range of music he simply came across on the Internet. Local Vorkuta groups were also supported; their particular favourite was the city’s long-established punk group Mazut, and in 2007 a number of respondents frequently hung out at rehearsals of acquaintances who played in a band and went to listen to live music at the local ‘Biker club’ (Figure 4.2). The one common denominator across these diverse and constantly changing musical tastes was a shared preference for, and knowledge about, alternative (neformal’naia) music and a concern with being musically ‘progressive’, in the sense of having eclectic and informed tastes. Music was rarely a cultural end in itself; rather, it provided the context for other activities (Frith 1983: 212). Music was embedded in wider cultural lives, accompanying sporting activities or interests, being the focus of discussion and exchange with others or providing an important re-energising role. In 2006, Andrei, for example, said the music he listened to was the perfect background track for working out in the gym and was at least partially the reason he had become an active fan of ‘fighting without rules’ (boi bez pravil):8 ‘I just really like pagan – for me probably it is one of the reasons for my involvement in “fighting without rules”. You always have to be ready to rip out someone’s throat . . . ’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 16 October 2006). Indeed this respondent, who had access to the Internet, had become part of a whole communicative network that exchanged music news and fight recordings with people in the city and beyond it. For Roman, in contrast, music was part of his daily work routine; it provided a symbolic moment of freedom as he switched on his mp3 player on the bus on the way to work, and in this way managed to shut out the weekday blues and arrive at work cheerful and energised, in contrast to his sleepy and sluggish colleagues. This, he said, helped him retain a sense that he was still engaged in ‘resisting the system’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 23 September 2007). Masha (2006)

Cultural interests and strategies 83

Figure 4.2 At a gig at the ‘Biker club’ Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

also said that, when she was in a bad mood, music helped by energising her, but also by calming her down when necessary. It is worth noting that music was one of the arenas of group activity in which the female members played a full part. Lida had previously been a member of what she referred to as a punk group, and both she and Lera played acoustic guitar routinely when the group hung out (see Figure 4.3): INTERVIEWER: What do you like to listen to? LIDA: As I’ve got older I have started to listen

to different music. Before I really liked Nirvana, Ariia, Metallica, heavy stuff too, like Sepultura, Pantera, but now it’s more melodic stuff – I like Chaif, I like Nautilus. I listen to ballads like Krug and Petliura. More simple stuff like that. I can

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Growing up in a harsh climate listen to DDT still too. Stuff that’s not too heavy. Stuff like Cannibal Corpse, for example, I can’t listen to any more, it hurts my eardrums . . . (Lida, 2006)

Girls who hung out with the group because of their romantic relationships with male members also shared interests in rock music, including punk and forms of Gothic and dark metal music; Olia dreamed of singing in a Goth group. Group attendance at concerts was also an active cultural practice. Until 2005, according to respondents, there were regular concerts in Vorkuta – usually taking place in the House of Miners or in the House of Culture of one of the nearby mining settlements – by local and touring groups, including international ones. Attending these concerts allowed access to ‘a completely different atmosphere’ that ‘immediately changed your mood’ (Galia, 2006). Lida (2006) also described going to a festival attended by 50,000 people with her cousin in Tver’ as being ‘impossible to compare with anything else’. Concerts were also a site for the demonstration of subcultural identity, both visually and through active participation in the slam and aggressive behaviour towards members of other subcultures:

Figure 4.3 Singing ‘The Skinheads are coming’ at respondent’s flat Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

Cultural interests and strategies 85 INTERVIEWER:

So you mean the punks know that Slava, say, is a skinhead, that you’re a skinhead. They know that, do they? SERGEI: They can tell by our dress style. VALERA: By the way we dress . . . You can distinguish us at concerts – we dance differently. The punks stand in the corner, head-banging or something like that. Everything’s shaken up in their brains. That’s their style . . . But we slam. There’s a photo somewhere of Andrei and me slamming at a concert. It was fun – that was my first concert. (Sergei and Valera, 2006) Andrei’s description of the slam, moreover, demonstrates the connection between music, physical strength and male bodily communication and trust central to group solidarity (see Chapter 8): [Andrei said] slam is a burst of energy. He said he didn’t understand these ‘gopnik discos’, he was contemptuous of them . . . this [the slam] meant shoulder charging, pushing. If one of your people fell, you had to pick them up. You always came back with lots of bruises from the pushing and shoving. And this was all accompanied by the beating up of punks and metal fans . . . I asked if girls took part in the slam. The question elicited some confusion. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 6 October 2006) For this group, therefore, music played a dual role of acting as a marker of individuality and also of collectivity, as it indicated shared views, principles and interests, including but not limited to those connected with skin culture, on the basis of which friends were chosen and trust forged.

Cultural interests: sport and physical training Sport and daily routines of training are inscribed in both ‘progressive’ and ‘normal’ youth cultural strategies (Pilkington et al. 2002: 152–6) and were central to the cultural strategies of respondents in this study, not least after the acquisition of the basement gym which provided a natural focus for their time spent together. However, in the case of the respondents discussed here, sport was more than something that brought young people together (Gromov 2007: 79) and structured their leisure time. Both skin ideology and the norms of leadership and hierarchy inherited from their former street or gang lives lent additional significance to the development of physical strength and bodily endurance as markers of ‘correct’ masculinity (see Chapter 8), authority and authentic skinhead identity. Each individual member of the group had their own approach to physical development, ranging from a strict regime of daily training (Andrei) to relying almost entirely on the physical nature of their work to keep themselves in shape (Slava). As discussed in Chapter 8, these two extremes repre-

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sented the different roles the body played in wider cultural strategies. If Andrei strived to re-create the ideal body of the genuine warrior (see Figure 4.4), for Slava the body was more a site of experimentation, sensation and risk. However, even for Andrei, training did not only serve the purpose of ensuring he could ‘stand up for himself’, it was central to his wider cultural strategy; without it, he imagined, he might well drift into boredom and drugs. Moreover, Andrei’s interest in sport went beyond his own physical development. In particular his interest in the individual combat sport ‘fighting without rules’, or ‘pankration’, played an important role in his life. The connection between ‘fighting without rules’ and the skin movement in Russia is traced by Kozhevnikova (2008) to 2007, when ‘neo-Nazi groups began to openly advertise their connections to Russian participants in “Fighting without rules” which had become particularly popular in Russia after April 2007 when President Putin attended one of these competitions’. While it is undoubtedly true that this kind of combat sport is popular among skinhead groups, in the case of the Vorkuta skinheads, pankration was an individual rather than a collective interest and Andrei’s personal interest in it significantly pre-dated 2007. For Andrei ‘fighting without rules’ was both a site for communication and cultural exchange with other fans of the sport and a stimulus for further physical training, fuelling a dream of participating

Figure 4.4 Individual training regime Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

Cultural interests and strategies 87 personally in the future. Indeed, in 2008 Andrei competed in a competition in Moscow and took second place in his weight class. Although the commitment to physical training was strongly rooted in paradigms of masculinity within the group, girls were not excluded from sporting practices. Indeed, Andrei complained that girls did not engage enough in sport, bemoaning the fact that ‘none of my ten girlfriends did sport!’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 6 October 2006). Girls in the group, however, did participate in practices of watching DVDs of ‘fighting without rules’ and joined in discussion of particular fights and revealed knowledge of individual sportsmen. The girls also displayed an interest in physical training and boxing: The girls started boxing while I was there. Andrei began by lifting weights, then he picked up a weight and started doing exercises with it, then he skipped, then began to box. Afterwards Masha started to ask him to show her particular techniques. Masha, Sveta and I surrounded Andrei. He started to explain to Masha how to defend blows. He demonstrated how to kick with the left leg, how to fight in clean and dirty boxing . . . (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 9 October 2006) The role of sport in the group underwent significant change over the period of research. When we first encountered them in 2002–3, and they were engaged in regular street ‘actions’, developing physical strength and improving their fighting techniques was important to all members of the group. By 2006–7, however, significant changes had taken place in the outlook of individual members, the solidarity within the group and the places they hung out. This was reflected also in their attitude to sport; physical training ceased to act as a practice of solidarity. For Andrei, and those who remained with him, the commitment to the former principles and practices, including the ‘correct’ use of the basement for training, proved more important than long-standing friendships with those who had ‘moved on’. For the latter, especially Slava, the rigid borders of skinhead identity began to be experienced as limiting the kind of communication he desired, and sport and hanging out in the gym had given way to other leisure-time priorities, primarily alcohol, drugs and clubs.

Cultural strategies: communicative practices The communicative practices (obshchenie) of the group focused on a series of common interests and practices, some of which – music, sport – were discussed above, while others – such as skin ideology, ritual violence and practices of the body – are discussed in later chapters of the book. This final section of the chapter, therefore, considers not the whole range of such practices, but those communicative practices that had, by 2006, largely replaced

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subcultural collective practices (‘actions’, fights, attending rock concerts) and which, by 2007, were the focus of get-togethers for those who, after the conflict, continued to hang out with Slava rather than Andrei. It is also important to note here two important dimensions to these practices. Firstly, the group under study was based on communicative links that pre-dated skinhead-based solidarity and were underpinned by relations of friendship, trust and loyalty discussed in the previous chapter. Secondly, the communication in the group was profoundly gendered. The core membership consisted of young men, and those young women who were part of it occupied a secondary position. Although, as discussed elsewhere in the book (Chapters 3 and 8), the male members of the group in many ways failed to perform the hard masculinities they declared, especially in their relationships with girlfriends, nonetheless even those girls who referred to themselves as skingirls were allowed only a circumscribed and secondary role. In 2006, despite the by now infrequent engagement in active skinhead activity, the main members of the group continued to gather in the evenings in the zal, which had become a place not only of training but of general leisure, including chatting, drinking, joking and smoking weed. . . . For Galia the group of skins . . . was divided into those who talked to them and those who rarely said hello. The latter included those with whom she and her friend now hung out actively (Slava, Andrei). For about a year she and Olia had been coming to the basement ‘to talk’ [obshchatsia]. Usually they talked about music, boys and football. She claimed that, at least in front of her, the lads never talked about the skin movement, and she believed the lads came to the gym not only to train but to talk and to drink beer . . . (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 17 October 2006) This communication took place in a particular room within the zal furnished with some old sofas placed around a table and a tape player (see Figure 4.5). The communication – often lively discussion and arguments – was fuelled by large quantities of cheap beer. The exception to this rule was Sergei, who drank only vodka or, when he had no money for vodka, juice. These drinking practices were accompanied also by the constant patter of jokes (prikoly) and play fights: Slava and Sergei invited me to the gym. When I arrived they were just leaving, and they told me to come with them to get vodka. They were messing about, shouting, embracing as we went. They threw me in the snow and laughed, then picked me up in their arms and carried me, pretending I was drunk, shouting along the whole street, ‘Look how drunk she is!’ It was very funny. Slava was wearing Sergei’s jacket and Sergei was in a girl’s coat and flowery hat. It was hilarious. When we arrived at the shop, Slava went to buy the vodka. Sergei gave him some

Cultural interests and strategies 89 money and I also contributed 50 roubles. Slava put the change into the slot machines and promptly lost it. Sergei asked him if he had bought water. We bought ‘Slavic’ mineral water at the kiosk. We arrived back at the gym. There were two girls there – Lera and Lida, also Olia, Roman, Zhenia, some lad (who didn’t introduce himself), a feminine girl . . . in a short, delicate black shirt and nylon tights (despite how cold it was outside) . . . She looked completely unreal against the background of the gym. Roman, when I arrived, was already doped up (from smoking weed). His throat was dry and he was looking for something to drink . . . Lera sat drinking beer. There was also vodka on the table and salted cucumbers in a jar . . . Zhenia brought over some water in a cut open plastic bottle and sprinkled some limestone (plaster) in it and began to demonstrate some prison joke. He said, ‘What you do is put your finger in there. If chalk sticks to your finger, then you’re not one of the lads [patsan], but if you’re smart enough you can show that you are a lad, a bloke. What you do is make out that you’re thinking and put your finger in your ear, then the chalk won’t stick to it’. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 21 October 2006) By 2007, the gym had become a completely different place. After the argument, Andrei had strategically ensured that Slava was excluded from the zal

Figure 4.5 Hanging out in the zal Source: Photo by respondent, 2006

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and then set about getting it back ‘in order’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 16 September 2007). This meant returning it to its original function as a place to train. As a result, in 2007 when we visited, only three or four people were using it regularly, not including Slava, who declared, ‘Now it’s shit there, it’s all been let go’ (ibid.).9 But, in any case, the gym had lost its significance for Slava. Key friends with whom he had hung out there, such as Sergei, had left the city, and he himself had developed other sites of active communication (obshchenie) and felt that he had left Andrei ‘behind’, at least in relation to his wider life experience (ibid., 18 September 2007). Indeed, after the conflict in the group in 2006, Andrei had become more self-sufficient; he himself admitted that he had virtually stopped even drinking beer because he no longer had contact with the friends with whom he had done so. Instead he had started to direct all his energy towards Internet communication and his interest in ‘Fighting without rules’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 18 September 2007). Although, in contrast to other group members, Andrei had always been relatively engaged in online communicative space, after the conflict he actively sought new communication via the Internet. He began to spend more time on social networking sites such as vkontakte.ru10 and Vole Tudo.ru, exchanged photographs, music and information about books with people who shared his cultural interests, and started his own blog. In this process he distanced himself increasingly from his former friends while, in his words, maintaining his loyalty to skin principles. In sharp contrast, Slava filled his life with new kinds of ‘real communication’ and declared that ‘the skin idea was my childhood’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 18 September 2007). For him, the conflict in the group marked a new starting point, a stepping stone towards a new stage in his life strategy. He interpreted his skin solidarity as having been culturally restricting, having stopped him developing and having limited his opportunities to experience the world around him. The development of new communicative practices outside the skin group, in contrast, allowed him to get more out of work, relationships, trips away from Vorkuta and new forms of leisure and entertainment. . . . During the interview Slava said that he was now independent and talked to everyone, that he had changed, that he was free, that before he had effectively been confined to one group of friends. Now, it seems, he finds people to hang out with through the people he smokes [cannabis] with. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 23 September 2007) Slava’s desire to broaden his communicative horizons was inseparable from the pleasure he sought in new experiences. His new communication was thus closely interwoven with drug use. If before the conflict in 2006 respondents

Cultural interests and strategies 91 largely claimed to be intolerant of drug use – although at the same time many smoked weed in the zal as long as Andrei was not around – then by 2007 drugs had become a part of their everyday leisure practices. Drug use filled life with a kind of purpose; the very process of getting hold of ‘weed’ (travka) or vint11 (Figures 4.6 and 4.7) was risky and invoked many of the emotions – risk, spontaneity and unpredictability – previously associated with participation in skinhead actions. Their use also helped body and mind divest themselves of the grind of physically hard work and created a new communicative circle. Slava often repeated that he had tried virtually all drugs . . . except cocaine, something called ‘Salvia’12 and Dutch cones,13 which he was looking forward to trying. All his experiments were, in his words, related to a desire to acquire his own experience – ‘you have to try everything, not only for yourself, for the experience, but in order to understand others’. Experimenting with everything in life, including drugs, was thus one of the ways to understand the behaviour of other people. He also often repeated the phrase, ‘I have learned that you can’t trust anyone except yourself, your own experience’. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 18 September 2007)

Figure 4.6 Smoking weed Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

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Figure 4.7 Syringes with vint Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

The ‘weekend’ (vykhodnie) was central to these new communicative practices of the group. This is how Slava describes how the weekend starts: . . . you wake up, bright, go to work, the work is hard – fshsh. The table [stolik],14 a drinking session. Done. In this blathered state you call in home, drop, rest a bit, or maybe you don’t even rest, maybe somebody’s already called . . . you always have money on a Friday, from Friday for these three long days, or rather really quick days. You have a look, think, probably I’ll go, go have a dance somewhere like the Xs,15 and for that I’ll take something to make me move, . . . some pills that speed you up or . . . some vint, perventin basically. So you do all that and get a bit of weed in advance as well, get a joint somewhere. That’s just a fun day, that’s how to relax. . . . You dance at the Xs, go outside to the entrance way to smoke your joint, you dance really coolly, it seems really slow to you but in fact you’re really fast . . . you play billiards, then you leave the Xs with a bottle of beer or maybe vodka in your pocket. Vodka maybe to get rid of the effect of the drugs, and then at the end you’re totally trashed, you go to bed, wake up – again a drinking session. The drinking’s started now. And that’s how it goes on until Monday. (Slava, 2007)

Cultural interests and strategies 93 Of course not all members of the group had this kind of weekend, and Slava’s tendency to embellish his stories – not least to help paint an exciting picture for us as researchers – should be taken into account. However, notwithstanding this, this three-day race to ‘relax’ was observed and – at least partially – participated in by researchers during fieldwork: Yesterday we went to the club. First Vova and Slava picked me up. They had ‘stuff to do’, and as we were driving Slava said that he’d been ‘solving other people’s problems’ with Lesha for the last three days and so had money . . . He said he had made more than 3,000 [roubles]. Someone had asked him to sort some business out, and he had just stood there (done nothing, not intimidated, not fought) and collected the debts. We went to the dealer, having first rung around the lads who had bought hashish before. But the dealer wasn’t there. We began to wait in the car by the entrance . . . Having waited pointlessly for 45 minutes, they decided that the lads would buy some16 and that they’d get some for themselves . . . Roman also rang a hundred times – he couldn’t get hold of any hashish through his contacts. They also worked out the problem of how to get rid of one lad that Slava and Roman didn’t like. . . . The lads put in a thousand [roubles] each, Roman 700. The rest went in the club, where he paid for Iulia; Slava paid for himself and Vova, Egor [paid] for two also. They bought energy drinks, virtually a whole box, so as not to have to buy them in the club – they’d go and get them from the car . . . Roman disappeared somewhere with Vova on some business. According to Roman, he had to catch up with some person who wasn’t expecting to see him and get some money out of him. Roman arrived. Vova had got hold of some hashish through his contacts. According to Roman they had been ‘f . . . d’, that is they had been given less than a quarter. And it wasn’t good quality – chemicals. They smoked hurriedly. Egor was hurrying them. It was time to go to the club – it was already 2 a.m. They quickly rolled and Slava and Roman smoked; Egor had the rest. They cleared up what was left. Vova drove us to the club in two trips – first the others and then Slava and me. Vova parked the car in the yard next to the club. Slava began to prepare hashish for him so that he could have a smoke. Roman rang and asked where we were and whether we would be there soon. He and Ili’a found us and came to the car. We bought cocktails and agreed that we’d come in twos for them periodically. We went into the club. Around 5 I decided to go home. I called a taxi. Slava asked me not to go, he said that it was just getting going. I left and went to bed. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 18 September 2007) It is clear from these extracts that drugs not only constituted another form of consumption but were central to the new mode of communication and relations being formed among this part of the group, as well as a means to

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generating new and memorable experiences. The juxtaposition of hard physical work and the extreme leisure described in Slava’s account of the weekend created a sense of constant anticipation, of being on the edge of possibility.17 The communicative practices that had sustained the group changed fundamentally after the conflict that split the members in 2006. After this time the gatherings (posidelki), football watching, joking and drinking that had accompanied sessions in the zal ceased. Their place was taken by new interests and priorities. For some this was reflected in more time devoted to work, family or informal economic practices, while for others it was replaced by virtual communication with like-minded people or, conversely, with new crowds (tusovki), clubs and the ‘normalisation’ of drug use and other practices that did not correspond to skin ideology.

Conclusion The group at the heart of this study were, at least for a time, bound together by a subcultural choice – skinhead – that had allowed them to acquire new friends and experiences and to feel they had overcome some of the social constraints they experienced growing up in Vorkuta. The collective practices associated with that choice filled the grey everyday life of the lads with unforgettable events and strong emotions, and the cultural and social capital acquired in the course of their participation in the skin movement allowed them to stand out against the youth mainstream and win authority. However, these subcultural practices were only one expression of a wider, and often contradictory, range of cultural preferences and interests that remained, and continued to evolve, throughout their skinhead years. In this sense they constituted components of broader cultural strategies employed by young people that incorporated previous lives – including quite different subcultural choices and lasting bonds and practices from earlier yard or street gangs – and constituted what respondents themselves perceived as their own individual life projects. Contradictions between their subcultural choices and wider cultural strategies began to emerge as individuals developed new priorities in the communicative sphere that were perceived to be constrained by the limitations imposed by skinhead and the solidarity it required. Andrei, in typically stark fashion, summed up the process by which the group split thus: Nothing disintegrated . . . what happened was a natural process of evolution, after which the weak retreated and the strong became stronger . . . there’s a song called ‘Born to be a skinhead’ – that’s about me. The skinhead movement gave me a political direction for my thoughts. I don’t give a damn whether I’m called a skinhead, a fascist, for me it means nothing. My philosophy is based not on music, uniform or any other external attributes, above all it is my belief that an infinite line of my predecessors fought, survived, died and suffered burdens . . . in order to continue the race [rod],18 to give me a brighter future than their

Cultural interests and strategies 95 present . . . Now these values are being disguised in all kinds of different ways. (Excerpt from a letter to Al’bina Garifzianova, February 2008) By the time we left Vorkuta in 2007, our respondents had developed new interests, life plans and goals that no longer demanded any open demonstration of commitment to skinhead principles. Some of the group had adopted fully ‘socially acceptable’ roles – had married, built careers, started families. Others had entered a new stage of life characterised by extensive drug and alcohol use and active communication with new kinds of people. A third group retained their loyalty to skin ideology ‘in their soul’ and enacted that commitment primarily via the virtual skin community. However, they carried with them the bonds forged in past shared practices and interests which were, it will be argued in subsequent chapters, the substance of their skinhead solidarity.

Part 2

The meaning(s) of skinhead

5

‘Skinhead is a movement of action’ Ideology and political engagement Hilary Pilkington

This chapter temporarily disembeds respondents from their everyday locations and places them within broader ideoscapes (Appadurai 1996: 36). Consequently it, somewhat artificially, pieces together traces of ideology within the group and makes connections between the views expressed and voices from without – that is, discourses of both transnational right-wing extremism and contemporary Russian politics. It suggests that the group of skinheads at the centre of this book can be described as committed to racist and/or neo-fascist views, but that the worldview they construct consists of a number of underlying philosophical principles and shared ideas while falling short of constituting a unified or coherent ideology.1 The dominant strand running through these shared ideas is a defensive white supremacism that draws openly on discourses of the global White Power movement. However, political narratives within the group also contain strong tropes of neoNazism (including extensive symbolic borrowing or reworking) and are rooted in a central palingenetic myth that lies at the core of fascism (Griffin 1991: 26). In an attempt not to lose sight completely of individual lives in the process of distilling and locating these ideological footprints, however, care is taken to reflect also on the degree of internal coherence, diversity of views and relative importance of ideology to individual respondents within the group. In addition, although the exploration of the embodied nature of political engagement is largely postponed until Chapter 6, the local and experiential – as opposed to transnational and textual – sources of ideological inspiration and motivation are, at least, noted here.

Ultra-nationalism and right-wing extremism in national and transnational context Since the emergence of Vladimir Zhirinovskii on the post-Soviet political scene there has been extensive discussion of the potential and actual threat posed by an ‘ultra-nationalist’, ‘extreme’ or ‘extreme right-wing’ political force in Russia. This literature has been concerned often with mapping the molten landscape of post-Soviet fringe politics and acting as an ‘early warning system’ against the rise of a range of anti-democratic forces

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(Verkhovskii 2005; Likhachev 2002; Kozhevnikova 2007). Authors have sought also to conceptualise the ideologies and political strategies of these groups within broader framework(s) of post-Second World War ‘fascism(s)’ using definitions based on elucidating a set of core components constituting a ‘fascist’ movement rather than the degree of ‘fit’ with classic Italian fascism or Nazism. Such definitions draw heavily on Roger Griffin’s distillation of fascism into an ‘ideal type’ of political ideology – defined as ‘a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism’ (Griffin 1991: 32) – rooted in a core myth of the rebirth of a decadent national, racial, imperial or religious community and promising ‘to replace gerontocracy, mediocrity and national weakness with youth, heroism and national greatness’ (ibid.: 39). Applying this definition, authors have largely accepted that there is something to be concerned about in contemporary Russia (see, for example, Shenfield 2001: 17; Umland 2005: 35) even if there remains some scepticism about the degree to which fascist organisations can be said to have created a ‘native’ fascism – and indeed the degree to which one can trace a ‘fascist tradition’ in Russia that could be mobilised for this purpose (Shenfield 2001: 47). Thus Shenfield concludes that there is a distinct branch of extreme Russian nationalism which is ‘actually or incipiently fascist’ (ibid.: 50), and Umland (2005: 39) confirms that ‘the emerging post-Soviet political scene, including parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties as well as a growing “uncivil society”, does pose the question of . . . whether or not “fascism” might be a useful concept here’. Most recently, academic writing has concerned itself with the implications of the occupation of a large swathe of ‘patriotic’ movement territory by the Putin (and successor) regime. This, it is suggested, represents a double-edged sword; it has cut away significant support from beneath key ultra-nationalist movements such as Russian National Unity (RNE),2 the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), but it has led simultaneously to the co-option of some extreme ideologists (for example, Aleksandr Dugin, formerly of the NBP) into presidential circles and to the increasing legitimation of exclusivist rhetoric within them (Sokolov 2006: 163; Varga 2008: 563; Laruelle 2009). The question of where Russian skinheads fit into this ideological and organisational landscape remains unanswered. Kürti (1998: 195) has suggested that they have no clearly demarcated space since, in countries like Russia, where extreme nationalist parties are legitimised and the state is openly hostile to minorities, ‘all youthful hatred is channelled into these “legitimate” parliamentary and state-level political organizations’. Evidence both of the growing number of skinheads (see Chapter 1) and of their links to more formalised political organisations suggests Kürti’s conclusions were premature. However, the nature of the relationship between skinheads and other extreme right-wing or ultra-nationalist organisations, on the one hand,and their ideological resources, on the other, remains unclear. Tarasov (1999) envisages the skinhead subculture as the ‘reserve’ and ‘social base’ of fascist and radical right-wing parties, although active links between them are

Ideology and political engagement 101 tenuous, he suggests, since skinheads, unable to tolerate discipline and routine work, rarely survive long in formal parties. Varga (2008: 568–70), in contrast, argues that the apparent political ‘division of labour’ between skinheads (meting out violence) and formal political organisations (shaping political agendas) obscures a series of ways in which the two parts of the far-right scene are engaged, among them direct involvement in violence by formal organisations (specifically, RNE, the Slavic Union (SS) and the Freedom Party (PS)); support for skinheads (including following arrest); the provision of ideological literature; and the ‘brokering’ of links between different groups to form broad umbrella-type alliances – a function associated especially with the Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI). Evidence from the empirical research conducted for this book – at least partially because of the small size of the movement in a city such as Vorkuta – fails to provide verification of the more nuanced engagement between skinhead groups and other more formalised political organisations of the far right outlined by Varga (2008). Rather it tends to confirm Verkhovsky’s (2009: 92–3) suggestion that the majority of skinhead gangs remain independent. Indeed, tracing the links and ideological engagements between the group studied and more formalised political organisations suggests that, far from being a ‘reserve’ for extremist parties, skinheads distance themselves from more formal organisations; where links do exist, they are characterised by mutual distrust and exploitation. This, it is argued, however, does not make such groups politically insignificant; following Griffin, it is suggested, webs of small, decentralised and unorganised groupings are politically significant whether or not they expand or become formalised. These ‘groupuscules’, Griffin argues, are: . . . intrinsically small political (frequently meta-political, but never primarily party-political) entities formed to pursue palingenetic (i.e. revolutionary) ideological, organizational or activist ends with an ultimate goal of overcoming the decadence of the existing liberal democratic system. Though they are fully formed and autonomous, they have numerically negligible active memberships and minimal if any public visibility or support. (Griffin 2003: 30) The significance of the ‘groupuscule’ is, of course, that it can act as a vehicle for the articulation of a fascist worldview in structural conditions that are not characterised by national crisis or conducive to mass mobilisation (see Griffin 1991). Thus groupuscules have become the dominant manifestation of revolutionary nationalism in the ‘post-fascist’ age and describe extreme right-wing movements emerging from music- and style-based groups – such as Ian Stuart Donaldson’s Blood and Honour group – as well as more traditional political formations (Griffin 2003: 32). Their significance is rooted not in their size, number or political influence but in their ability, at the indi-

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vidual level, to transform ‘ill-defined resentments and hatreds into a personal sense of higher mission to “do something about it”’ through readily accessible visions of national regeneration (ibid.: 47).

What’s in a name? Piecing together skinhead ‘ideology’ By 2006–7, when the main ethnographic research for this book took place, only a minority of group members (Andrei, Lera, Lida, Zhenia, Denis, Sasha) could be said to have a strong sense of the ideological mission of skinhead. This was partially because some of the most active individuals were, by that time, serving prison sentences for race-related crimes (Gans, Giria). However, it was also because other core members (Slava, Roman, Valera, Sergei) had ‘upgraded’ their cultural strategies (see Chapter 4), while new or peripheral members of the group (Egor, Artem) were ideological sympathisers but did not identify as ‘skinheads’. Consequently, there was no single, coherent ideological position within the group, and the narrative reconstructed here inevitably draws disproportionately on the more ideologically oriented and verbally articulate members. It should be read, therefore, not as a common political manifesto but as an exploration of the key motifs found in respondents’ narratives and their relation to external discourses (fascism, racism, nationalism, anti-Semitism). Fascism and neo-Nazism The most visible footprint on the ideological views of the group in Vorkuta is fascism or, perhaps more accurately, neo-Nazism. Although by 2006 members of the group had largely left behind an earlier stylistic fascination with Nazi paraphernalia – expressed, for example, in the use of Nazi symbols such as swastikas and Heil Hitler salutes (see Figures 7.2, 7.4 and 7.6) – they did not object to their views being labelled ‘fascist’, ‘national socialist’ or even ‘Nazi’. Hitler commanded respect because, despite, as Lera (2006) put it, ‘being a bit sick in the head’, he was someone who was ‘in favour of the purification of [his country]’. When challenged on how they squared this admiration with the invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler and the position of Slavs in the Nazi scheme of racial superiority, respondents tended towards denial: Despite widely held views to the contrary, Hitler never ascribed the Slavs to some third-class status. It says in Mein Kampf . . . , and Friedrich Nietzsche, from whom Hitler borrowed many ideas, wrote, and I am quoting directly here, ‘The Slavs appeared to me to be a more gifted race than the Germans. I even think that the Germans progressed to the level they have because of the addition of Slavic blood.’ That was said by someone from whom Hitler drew some of his ideas. Hitler wrote the same in Mein Kampf, that, in effect, we lost the Slavs, that is, the

Ideology and political engagement 103 Russians – I don’t remember [which word he used], Russians he said, I think – after they allowed the Jewish communists to seize power . . . (Andrei, 2006) Such denial was accompanied occasionally by claims that the Slavs were in fact a branch of the Aryan race3 and, as Aleksandr Dugin argues, Siberia was ‘the original cradle of the Aryans’ (Laruelle 2008: 130).4 Alternatively, respondents might downplay the significance of Nazism, seeing the Third Reich as simply a local variant of a more global ideology: . . . moreover, even fascism, it certainly didn’t originate in Germany, [but came] from Mussolini, from Italy. Personally, I think of the Germans as a kind of link – it fell to them to ferment it [fascism] and pass it on to others. And then we took it up and reshaped it ourselves . . . (Lera, 2006) Anti-Semitism A central plank of ideology within the group, as Andrei’s justification of the admiration for Hitler indicates, was anti-Semitic discourse. This was particularly true in relation to discussion of the Soviet past. Evaluations of the Soviet period were characterised by a striking absence of any generalised anti-communism but the frequent association of negative elements of the Soviet regime with the ‘Jewish’ or ethnic origin of its leaders. This lack of identification of ‘communists’ in general, or the anti-fascist movement in particular, as ‘enemies’ is unusual (see, for example, Fangen 1998: 208; Omel’chenko and Andreeva 2008). It is probably explained by a number of factors relating to the peculiarities of Vorkuta: the impoverished nature of the subcultural scene and thus the absence of any visible anti-fascist movement; the cultural legacy of the city as a frontier mining settlement venerated in Soviet ideology; and the massive deindustrialisation taking place in the city that inclined young people to be more nostalgic than their peers elsewhere about the Soviet regime (Omel’chenko and Pilkington 2009). Thus, only one respondent specifically envisaged the ‘communists’ as the enemy: Why do I hate the communists? Because my grandparents suffered at their hands. My grandmother was German and was deported here [to Vorkuta]. And my Grandad [was repressed] on political grounds. They met each other here. (Sasha, cited in Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006) However, this should not be interpreted as evidence that anti-Semitism was just a metaphor for anti-Bolshevism. Indeed, at a philosophical level, Bolshevism had a palingenetic quality – being a profoundly modernist project for the transformation of society (Griffin 2007: 169–70) – that sat

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comfortably with the broader worldview of the group. Perhaps more pertinently, anti-Semitism was, in and of itself, a central ideological plank of the group and was considered to be highly relevant to the contemporary ‘struggle’. The Jews, Zhenia (2006) declared, are ‘our main enemy’. While it is unlikely that any section of the youth cultural scene is completely free of antiSemitism,5 the virulence, at least at the verbal level, of anti-Semitism within the group clearly places its members within the ‘Nazi’ skinhead rather than football hooligan part of the wider movement (Kozlov 2006: 96). It was in expressing their anti-Semitism that the process by which resentment is transformed into ‘mission’ for group members was most clearly exposed. Respondents envisaged a Jewish ‘conspiracy’ at both the national and the local political level. Thus Lida (2006) complained that Putin had ‘surrounded himself with Jews’ while, at the local level, Russians like her were unable to change anything because of the Jewish-led municipal administration.6 In a classic rhetorical shift, Zhenia conflated the perceived Jewish background of individuals with the systemic oppression by government that the group made it their mission to resist: ZHENIA:

When I say ‘the system’, then I mean the Jewish . . . we call it the ‘ZOG’ – the Zionist Occupation Government.7 That’s the system we have. Zionism is flourishing here . . . and I try to oppose them [the Jews] as much as I can. INTERVIEWER: What forms of opposition can you mount? ZHENIA: Simple kinds. If I go out on full parade [in skinhead gear], you might say it shows my lack of respect for the system . . . (Zhenia, 2006) Even Sasha’s anti-communist grievance cited above was prefaced by the attribution of blame for the ‘state of society’ to the ‘Yid government’: I have my own personal reasons for hating state bureaucrats, the government. You see I had an awful childhood. I lived surrounded by drug addicts – I live out by the Chinese Wall,8 where all the dregs live. When I was six years old my father left us. My mum, my sister and I were left on our own. It became really tough to survive here, not to mention the collapse of the USSR, perestroika – sometimes we didn’t have enough money even for food. And who is to blame for the fact that my childhood was like that? Those like Shpektor, Jews, people in official positions – the Yid government. Even Putin is under the thumb of the Jews. (Sasha, cited in Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006) Nationalism, socialism and national socialism Although neo-Nazi ideology provided a simple mechanism for identifying who was ‘to blame’ for the current state of affairs, the vision of the ‘new

Ideology and political engagement 105 order’ that the movement would bring about was more fractured. Respondents who named it at all called it ‘national socialism’ (Zhenia, 2006; Slava, 2007) or ‘fascism’ (Valera, 2006). However, the emphasis they placed upon the ‘national’ or the ‘social’ elements varied significantly. Lida and Lera, on the one hand, talked of the importance of ensuring a racially and ethnically ‘cleansed’ society. For Lida (2006) this meant ‘reducing the number of black people in our country to as few as possible’, while Lera mobilised the global, racist skinhead slogan known as ‘the 14 words’9 to create a vision of a ‘bright future’ exclusively for ‘white children’: Our idea consists of a certain disposition of the soul – you could express the idea like that. You care about Russia, it’s a love for Russia. But it’s a certain hatred as well, all mixed together, and a striving, a struggle not for yourself, but for the future of Russia. There is this code – 14–88 – where the 14 stands for the 14 words which, translated into Russian, mean we must ensure a bright future for white children, for our children. Our own lives are impoverished by the aggression of foreign invaders and we have to make sure that our children don’t experience the same . . . that everything here is pure, that there is no drug addiction . . . no alcoholics, no masochists . . . That is what we’re striving for, so that Russia has, we have, a bright future. And I think that’s right. (Lera, 2006) Zhenia, in contrast, prioritised the ‘social’10 over the ‘national’, drawing clearly on the populist trope within palingenetic ultra-nationalism (Griffin 1991: 36): I would like to live under authoritarian national socialism, where everything is for the people. Not so, when you get into power, you rake it all in for yourself, but so you really work for your people. Everything is for the people. Take Nazi Germany. Whatever is said about it, just look at how the standard of living was raised after the war, after the First World War, at what a sharp jump there was . . . I’m not saying that rights have to be infringed – this is my personal view – that the rights of the Tatars or the Bashkirs or anyone else have to be infringed, but that things should be done for the people . . . I don’t mean single out the [ethnic] Russians [russkie] so everything goes to the Russians and the rest are slaves. I don’t think that would be right either. (Zhenia, 2006) Given the strong anti-Semitism and racism expressed elsewhere by this respondent, it must be assumed that the ideological differences evident here relate primarily to different understandings of ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’. Lida and Lera, it appears, adopt an ethnically exclusive understanding of the nation, while Zhenia’s vision of Russia is more akin to that of Eurasian

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empire, in which the discursive shift from ‘race’ to ‘culture’ makes possible the assertion of difference without the mobilisation of racist rhetoric. Tensions between these positions are, of course, characteristic of large sections of the extreme nationalist political spectrum (see Shenfield 2001: 16, 255). However, as Laruelle (2008: 212) points out, while theories of neoEurasianism talk about the symbiosis of cultures and religions within the Eurasian space, in practice many support a national ‘purity’, openly espousing endogamy (Gumilev), classifying peoples by spiritual races (Dugin) and rejecting transcivilisational borrowings (Panarin). This, she goes on (ibid.: 213), situates (neo)-Eurasianist ideology within a broader New Right neoracism which rejects the hierarchical ordering of races, as in classical racism, but views different races – understood in a cultural rather than biological sense – as incommensurable, and thus rejects cultural mixing and borrowing. Racism and white supremacism The racist rhetoric within this particular group of young people drew most directly from the White Power movement. Particularly prominent were claims of ‘ethnic injustice’ akin to the minoritisation of whiteness in global White Power rhetoric (Back 2002: 131). The particular complaint of respondents was that ethnic discrimination or violence against Russians went unnoticed while the media and law enforcement agencies avidly pursued incidents in which ethnic minorities were attacked. Zhenia (2006), for example, complained that, while skinhead pogroms were reported widely in the national press, nothing was said or done about what he called ‘the genocide against Russians’ in a number of former Soviet republics. Russians, it was argued, were denied freedom of expression: ‘If you say you’re a Georgian, that’s fine’, claimed Andrei (2006), ‘[but] in Russia if you say you are a Russian [russkii] then you’re [considered] an extremist.’ Indeed, despite respondents’ narratives being peppered with ethnic stereotypes and everyday xenophobic statements (see Chapter 6), Andrei insisted that ‘nobody is protesting against non-Russians as such, only . . . against people coming here and imposing their traditions, their religion, their rules’.11 The political implication of this line of argument is the call for a separate, ethnically exclusive Russian republic (Andrei, 2006; Zhenia, 2006), akin to demands made by the White Aryan Resistance movement in the United States for the granting of a territory for ‘racially conscious white people’ who want to separate rather than integrate (Moore 1993: 108) – a position rarely found even among the ethno-nationalist wing of the Russian nationalist spectrum, let alone its statist or imperial wing, since it clearly implies the sacrifice of territory in the interests of racial ‘purity’ (Laruelle 2009: 43). Indeed, although counter-intuitive given the ethnic and cultural constitution of the contemporary Russian Federation, respondents frequently mobilised constructs of race and racial hierarchy in support of their views. Thus Andrei (2006) declared himself to be a ‘social Darwinist’ and to be convinced that

Ideology and political engagement 107 this theory explained white racial superiority. Zhenia (2006) distinguished between nationalities according to skin colour, positing, for example, Germans, English, Italians and Spanish as different nationalities but as, nonetheless, constituting ‘us whites’, while Andrei (2006) agreed that for one white European to marry another white European was perfectly acceptable but that ‘racially mixed’ unions endangered the nation, since the product of such unions would be ‘half-bloods’. Andrei’s anti-miscegenation position does bear some similarities to Gumilev’s distinctive biologically deterministic interpretation of Eurasian thought (Shnirel’man 2009: 129), but the overtly race- and skin colour-focused argumentation used by respondents suggests, again, that this rhetoric is taken primarily from Western European and North American sources. Ideological difference (or indifference?) There remained, however, considerable differences between how individuals interpreted ‘skinhead’ in terms of its underlying racist or nationalist positioning. Andrei (2006) clearly distinguished racism from nationalism and positioned ‘authentic’ skinheads as racists. ‘Nationalist’ slogans, he explained, are used as a way of simplifying the issues so that they are easier for the ‘masses’ to grasp: All skinhead leaders who know what they’re talking about, in my opinion, are all racists. They’re not nationalists. Why are slogans like ‘Russia for the Russians’, ‘Moscow for the Muscovites’, promoted? Because your average everyday person isn’t capable [of understanding] racial superiority . . . What speaks to him are things he encounters every day. So, simply, ‘get the immigrants out of here’. That’s why slogans that the majority will understand are promoted. They are just for the dumb majority . . . The majority of skinheads, skinheads who know their stuff, are all racists. (Andrei, 2006) At the same time, however, Valera continued to equate nationalists and skinheads, while Lida recognised the distinction between racism and nationalism but consciously defined herself as a ‘nationalist’ rather than a racist. This, she said, was because ‘even an African [negr] is, basically, human, [but] he should work for his own [people], for Africa, or wherever he comes from’. Discussing a similar lack of concern about presenting a consistent and coherent set of political views among the racist subculture in Norway, Fangen (1998: 208) suggests that the ability to argue ideological positions is unimportant among activists, allowing conflicting viewpoints to be concealed behind shared basic assumptions. In the Vorkuta group, it is certainly true that there were some ‘basic assumptions’ that, it was understood, required no discussion. However, the absence of ideological debate is probably better

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explained by the fact that the group generally had more urgent and interesting ‘everyday’ topics of conversation. In fact, in stark contrast to Fangen’s suggestion, there was considerable evidence that being of independent mind and articulate in the expression of one’s political views was something that was valued in the movement. Andrei, in particular, positioned himself as the ideological leader of the group and described himself as one of the ‘thinking elite’ (2006) who had never been ‘a typical skinhead’ (2007). A strong motif in his narrative of selfdistinction was his independence of thought and action; he emphasised that he had joined the movement on his own initiative and was prepared to condemn other well-established skinheads in the city for the murder of a homeless man, which he considered to have been wrong (2006). Lera (2006), who described herself as a ‘brigade leader’ in the movement, also emphasised the importance of having, and defending, one’s own views. To illustrate her credentials for independent thought she recounted a recent example of an ideological dispute she had had with Zhenia (to whom she reported in the chain of command) during which she had listened to his arguments but had ‘remained true’ to her original views. Thus, it is argued here, it is not so much ideological rhetoric that is absent from the group but ideological unity and discipline. The reason for this, it is suggested below, stems from the dominant meanings attached to ‘skinhead’ by respondents.

Skinheads and the ‘groupuscular right’: ‘reserve army’, ‘storm troopers’ or mutual exploitation? The absence among its members of any united ideological position or programme is indicative of the fact that the group did not seek to position itself in any particular way within the wider political scene. Nonetheless, connections between internal and external ideological discourses are evident and can be traced in the political and ideological sources and resources used by respondents and their links with, and attitudes to, other actors on the Russian ultra-nationalist scene. Ideological sources: from Mein Kampf to Butterfly Temple There was significant diversity within the group regarding how much the members engaged with ideological information and literature. Classic texts – such as Mein Kampf – circulated within the group and were occasionally referred to, usually to substantiate a particular idea. Nietzsche was cited by Andrei, and both he and Roman had read Mussolini. There was also some interest in cultural products of the Nazi period, such as films and art, which were learned about usually via Internet forums (Lera, 2006). Most information from the contemporary Russian ultra-nationalist scene, however, was channelled through one or two members of the group. Andrei was the chief conduit and accessed news about, and literature

Ideology and political engagement 109 from, the wider movement through personal contacts and via Internet sites and forums. He expressed particular respect for the Internet zine Russkaia volia and boasted that he had himself been cited in it. In 2006 he particularly valued the fact that it was genuinely ‘intellectual’, was run by people only a few years older than himself and ‘collaborated with several parties rather than just one’. In fact by this time Russkaia volia had became associated officially with the National-Socialist Association (Natsional-sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo) (NSO), and, following two separate court rulings in summer 2008 that ruled three issues of the journal to be ‘extremist’, no further editions were published and its website was closed down.12 Another NSO publication – Korpus – was circulating – in glossy magazine format – in the group when we returned to Vorkuta in 2007 and included information on how to create your own NSO cell and the importance of physical fitness, photographs of training in ‘Fighting without rules’13 and an interview with a skingirl, and displayed Hitler salutes and an article on Hitler’s car (Hilary Pilkington’s diary, 14 October 2007). Like Russkaia volia, this publication was also closed, in 2007, for violation of anti-extremism legislation. The appeal of Russkaia volia to Andrei would have been enhanced by Dmitrii Nesterov’s affiliation with it. Nesterov’s novel Skins: Rus’ awakes (2004) had been widely read within the group, and Andrei (2006) said he owned a copy signed by the author – with whom, he added, he had talked personally. Another source cited frequently by respondents was Istarkhov’s The Russian Gods Strike (Udar russkikh bogov) (2006). The book purports to be factual, although it has a self-defined ideological mission to expose Christianity and communism, alongside Judaism, as being among ‘the three Jewish religions’ and to promote paganism, which, Istarkhov claims, is the ancient and true religion of the Russian and Aryan peoples. To a certain extent, respondents use the book as directed by the author – that is, as ‘an Aryan informational weapon against the Yidocracy’ (Istarkhov 2006: 2). At one point, indeed, Slava quoted word for word almost an entire passage in which the satanic origin of Jewish symbols (for example, the six-pointed star) was ‘explained’ (see ibid.: 141). However, respondents suggested that the significance of the book for them was not so much the ‘truth’ of its content, but that it provided a starting point for challenging perceived wisdom. Thus, for Andrei (2007), its attraction lay in the fact that it ‘exposes the absurdities of Christianity, which everybody knows, but, for some reason, nobody examines or is able to respond to’, while for Roman (2006) it provided a source of information on the subject of paganism, which he perceived to be the object of deliberate media silence. In this sense the significance of the book was primarily in its empowering effect; as Slava put it (2006), it gives you the confidence not to believe everything you are told, but to believe yourself. Even Masha – who recognised that Istarkhov was inclined to ‘blame everything on the Jews’ – suggested that it had the powerful effect of opening the reader’s eyes to a new way of looking at the world:

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The meaning(s) of skinhead But in fact I think that there are some facts in there which he is right about, things we simply don’t notice – things we are used to closing our eyes to, that we simply don’t see. We might be talking about something, and then, when we think about it, it really is like that. And you don’t understand it always the first time . . . (Masha, 2006)

Thus, despite encouraging readers to develop a critical approach to what they read and hear, the end result is to confirm respondents’ suspicions about the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ engulfing the world. Fangen finds a similar engagement with literature among National Socialist skinheads in Norway, who argued that it was important to read such literature because, ‘The more of this one reads, the more one is able to see through “the falseness of the system,” and one thus becomes skilled in reading between the lines of the news’ (Fangen 1998: 209). Music is also an important vehicle for ideological messages. Some music is consciously political, for example, songs such as ‘The skinheads are coming’ (‘Britogolovie idut’),14 which Lida and others performed on one occasion at her flat (see Figure 4.3). In 2006 Andrei also mentioned ‘numerous’ songs in support of the Serbs; one of the group’s favourite bands – Kolovrat – for example, had a song called ‘The Kosovo front’ in which it was proclaimed that ‘Serbia is for the Serbs’. Other music is not directly ideological but is said to evoke the right feeling and sentiment to accompany movement practices. Andrei explained that the music to which he listened generated the kind of aggression he needed to work out properly in the gym (see Chapter 4) but also evoked important connections with the past: . . . Butterfly Temple tries to awaken, you know, evoke in every individual some [pauses] some, you know, something of his heroic past. At that time there were knights, not knights exactly but bogatyrs [heroes in Russian folklore] . . . and they try to awaken the part of this old culture that lives in everyone . . . (Andrei, 2007) Via the Internet, respondents also acquaint themselves with classic music and texts from skinhead and neo-Nazi movements abroad. A key figure for them is Ian Stuart Donaldson (see Chapter 1), to whom Andrei (2006) attributed the founding ‘of virtually the entire skinhead movement’, and Slava sported a ‘Blood and Honour’ slogan as part of a tattoo depicting a kolovrat 15 (see Figure 7.7). This tattoo itself provides a vivid illustration of the global and local elements in the group’s ideological resources. Andrei (2006) also expressed his ‘respect’ for the American skinhead movement, which – he had learned from talking to a leader of one of the American movements – had become a massive commercial enterprise. Indeed, as Tarasov (1999) points out, delegations of Nazi-skins from both the USA and Europe have visited

Ideology and political engagement 111 Russia on numerous occasions and brought with them racist and Nazi audio and video materials and other Nazi paraphernalia, while reliable channels for supplying Russia with Nazi symbolica and literature have been established via the Baltic states. It is undoubtedly true that the Internet has rapidly accelerated the ‘global traffic in skinhead culture’ (Back 2002: 110)16 and helped forge and sustain a ‘translocal whiteness’ characterised by an ethos of racial separation (ibid.: 130). The fact that the young people in this study – despite their territorial isolation – move, and feel at home, within this cyber culture is a vivid illustration of its reach and ability to negotiate national and local boundaries. At least in the case of Andrei there was evidence that the Internet and other channels were used to maintain contacts with other skinhead organisations in Moscow and St Petersburg, and, in the case of Andrei and Lera, personal contacts with skinhead groups in Moscow were actively maintained. Nonetheless, cooperation with other groups was not a priority and not even a reality for most members. This is not peculiar to the ‘peripheral’ nature of Vorkuta skins; as Likhachev (2002: 118) notes, ‘despite numerous attempts, there remains no unified (‘umbrella’) organisation of skinheads even at the inter-regional level’. At the same time, however, the power of disembodied, virtual communities should not be overestimated. There was little evidence in the group studied here of the use of the Internet, in the way described by Back et al. (1998: 86), for the creation of a kind of fantasy ‘racial utopia’ through which ‘racial desires – however impractical – can be represented’ or, as suggested by Roger Griffin (2003: 45), as a space in which virtual communities rehearse their special mission while avoiding ‘any sort of “reality check”’. In sharp contrast, respondents in this study drew extensively also from local discursive environments, which kept them firmly rooted in Russian ‘realities’. For example, expressions of banal racism and xenophobia connecting ‘nonRussians’ to crime, drug dealing or arrogant behaviour were frequently drawn from everyday media sources such as the TV news and ‘crimewatch’ programmes and from personal experience (see Chapter 3). Respondents also cited their own and others’ experience as the source of their ideological ‘awakening’. In 2002, Slava, for example, explained his ethnic intolerance as first emerging when he had got into conflict with a group of three young people from Azerbaijan with whom he had shared a house while at a holiday camp in Bulgaria. The following example, recounted by Lera, is also illustrative of the powerful way in which individuals can be shaped most directly by other human beings: . . . one boy [a friend] was killed . . . Some non-Russian killed him. I was really devastated by it . . . [then] this lad appeared . . . he was such an amazing person! . . . He was already a skinhead. He was serious about it and he began to ask me what I thought, how I viewed [certain things]. I told him about everything and he said to me, ‘You have a little spark in

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The meaning(s) of skinhead you which can be kindled into an eternal flame’! I remember that really clearly. Then he began to explain everything, to teach me, and everything fell into place for me – what my dad had told me and what he explained. And that was it. I started treating this seriously. Then I started to hang out with the lads. We started to carry out the first actions [aktsii]. (Lera, 2006)

Thus while global cyber traffic is extremely important in making available ideational resources to young people interested in racist and fascist ideas, the initial interest in them often comes from more direct and tangible experiences. Formal political organisations: reserve army or mutual exploitation? Access to web-based communities promises a virtually infinite set of possibilities of connecting with people across the globe who are, or appear to be, ‘just like you’. This has serious implications for political participation locally since it significantly raises expectations. Consequently, when it came to identifying ‘like-minded’ people in Vorkuta with whom to collaborate politically, respondents experienced the world as suddenly very restricted; as Zhenia put it in 2006, there was simply nobody in the city who was well-versed enough in nationalist politics to be able to say anything that would interest him. Respondents’ narratives were thus largely devoid of reference either to mainstream parties or to the myriad ‘national-patriotic’ or ultra-nationalist ‘groupuscules’ peppering the political landscape; indeed this proliferation of parties was referred to by Andrei (2006) as ‘absurd’. The Slavic Union was mentioned once but in a wholly negative context (Lera, 2006). The RNE was considered to have been ‘a serious nationalist organisation’ with a wide circulation publication (Russkii poriadok), but was now a spent force (Andrei, 2006). The party had, according to Lida (2006), been important in the revival of the skinhead movement in Vorkuta; the volume of leaflets it distributed meant everybody read them and its ‘military activities’ had been attractive to 14- to 16-year-olds. Indeed, an RNE symbol was observed on a visit to Denis’s flat which, the respondent said, he had drawn ‘when he was a kid’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006), and, in the interview he had given in 2002, Slava had made clear his political views by stating that he was ‘for the Russian National Unity’. However, the RNE was suspected of having been ‘created from above’ (Andrei, 2006), while the notorious puppet youth movement Nashi17 was not mentioned by a single respondent. In contrast, some sympathy for the LDPR was noted; although Zhirinovskii was often seen as a ‘clown’, Lera said in 2006, he had had some good ideas for which he had failed to receive any wider support. Affirmation was given also to the DPNI, which Andrei declared (2006) to be ‘a very serious organisation’ – an organisation Verkhovsky (2009: 97) describes as ‘based on Naziskinhead groups’. Lera also expressed interest in participating in the infa-

Ideology and political engagement 113 mous ‘Russian March’ organised annually since 2005 by shifting coalitions of nationalist and far-right groupings on the newly constituted ‘National Unity Day’ (4 November):18 LERA:

The Russian March will be taking place soon . . . that’s the day when in Moscow, in major cities, those skinhead meetings take place. INTERVIEWER: And when is it? LERA: Oh . . . [sighs]. I think it’s on the fourth [of November] or maybe the 26th of October. I’ve forgotten – don’t remember . . . But there’s this march. It means a lot to people actually. A lot of people are going to Syktyvkar specially [to take part in it], some to Moscow but it turned out that the Slavic Union were told to stay away . . . INTERVIEWER: From the march you mean? LERA: Yeah. But I think they turned up anyway. A lot of people are saying – don’t come, don’t bring shame on the movement. (Lera, 2006) Indeed the march has been a source of repeated dispute within the broader movement (Allensworth 2009). According to Verkhovsky (2009: 93), in 2006 the Slavic Union had been involved in the organising committee of the Russian March (together with the DPNI and the National Great Power Party of Russia (NDPR)), although other skinhead groups such as the NSO and Format-18 had not and took a low profile in the event in order not to attract police attention. Lera’s confusion over the date, which groups were supporting the march, and whether or not it was a good thing to get involved or not indicates, above all, the difficulty of following the intricacies of these internal political struggles from the periphery. The only political party with which respondents had become involved in practice was Rodina. Andrei had become the ‘chair of youth affairs’ of the local branch, and many of the group had voted for the party in the 2003 parliamentary elections: . . . during the last parliamentary elections a number of people directly connected to the NS movement were members of the Rodina party. And they were on the party lists. And so all the skinheads voted for that party – the websites even carried the message ‘Vote for Rodina’, ‘They are our people’ . . . But then just a few days before the parliamentary elections the government insisted that these people were either removed or the party would not be allowed to compete in the elections . . . So the party had to exclude these people from their lists. (Zhenia, 2006) However, this engagement with Rodina had its own story. Andrei explained his reasons for taking up the position as being solely utilitarian in nature. He had wanted to gain contacts with people close to the administration in order

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to foster support for his attempts to establish a youth sports club, something on a grander and more official scale than the informal use of the basement gym that they already had. Rodina had appeared to suit his needs best since it allowed access to people who had control of the resources required, but at the same time the party wasn’t so established – as for example United Russia was – that it would be indifferent to what he had to offer in return (Andrei, 2006). Sergei (2006) confirmed that, following Andrei’s lead, about half a dozen of the group had joined the party in the hope that Andrei’s plan would be realised. The willingness to engage with ‘authorities’ when it could be to one’s individual advantage or bring resources for the group stands somewhat in tension with the demonstrative ‘anti-system’ attitudes noted above. This is perhaps most vividly illustrated in the fact that hanging on the wall at the entrance to the basement gym where the group hung out, and slipped loose inside Slava’s own personal photo album, was a photograph of some of the group members with the former mayor of the city, Igor’ Shpektor.19 While this was not unusual – Shpektor had made it a hallmark and matter of personal pride that he personally knew every young person in the city – the display of this token of conformity to the local regime (indicted by Lida above as ‘Jewish-led’) appears irreconcilable with the ‘resistance’ which the group supposedly showed the regime. As noted in Chapter 3, however, in fact there was much that was highly conformist about this group of young people; finishing their education, earning money, finding a partner with whom to start a family were all personal priorities for them too, and, where the achievement of these goals depended on accessing resources provided by the authorities, then respondents had little difficulty in putting principles aside. Despite the widely reported aspirations of political parties and ‘groupuscules’ on the far right to recruit skinheads to the movement as a ‘reserve army’ or ranks of ‘storm troopers’ (Likhachev 2002: 118), the narratives of this group of respondents suggest that they are meeting with little success. The majority felt no organic connection with any organised political grouping, and the few who had engaged with such parties or movements had done so very much with their own agenda in mind. Indeed this is confirmed by Likhachev (ibid.), who suggests that, although skinhead activists are prepared to receive help from various nationalist parties to assist in their publications and in securing access to premises or sports facilities, the leaders of such parties gain precious little political capital for their efforts. Particularly striking is the absence of extensive engagement with the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) which, in terms of its social demographic (largely youth based), ‘anti-system’ and counter-cultural stance and ideological indeterminateness (Toporova 1999: 124; Shenfield 2001: 190; Mathyl 2002: 65), would appear to be closest to the group. The only such reference was by Andrei, who expressed his agreement with the criticism expressed in Limonov’s book Other Russia (Drugaia Rossiia) (2004) about the way in which the Russian state ‘squeezes people into cages, rooms, and determines

Ideology and political engagement 115 how they should live’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 13 October 2006). Umland (2009: 6) argues that the appeal of ultra-nationalist organisations has been stymied by ‘image dilemmas’ which appear as contradictions between their proclaimed ideology and actual history, profile or leadership. In the case of the NBP, Umland (2009) suggests, the problem was the counter-cultural aspects of Limonov’s artistic biography and political behaviour, while in that of the RNE it was the use of Nazi symbols. Since the Vorkuta group themselves used Nazi symbols and adopted a subcultural or anti-systemic stance, more pertinent here is Sokolov’s (2006: 143) argument that close collaboration between the NBP, RNE and skinhead groups was impossible not because of ideological differences but because their political styles (and thus forms of collective action) were incompatible; the carefully orchestrated theatricality or symbolic nature of NBP actions (ibid.: 144; Toporova 1999: 122) would be alien to the group of skinheads under study here, while the paramilitary discipline of the RNE would also be intolerable, given the anti-authoritarian outlook of many within the group (see below). Of course shifts in the direction of NBP ideology away from extreme nationalism and xenophobia and towards a more Western anti-capitalist new left (Sokolov 2006: 163) would also be antipathetic to the skinheads discussed here – although it is unlikely this shift was noted, since the party did not appear to be on their radar at all. A more likely explanation for the group’s lack of engagement with the NBP – or the ‘Other Russia’ coalition, in whose formation Limonov was closely involved – is the notoriety and style of Eduard Limonov himself. Limonov’s association – through his autographically based novels – with homosexuality, for example, would have been deemed unacceptable, while his playful and provocative manner of expounding his views would have been alien, if not alienating.20 Most importantly, these groups were not seriously countenanced purely and simply because, in the overall hierarchy of meanings attached to skinhead, ideological issues and formal political participation – even in extra-parliamentary ‘groupuscules’ – were just not that significant.

The meaning of ideology: religion, revolution, action? Unlike a religious ideology, which affirms the primacy of the metaphysical over the secular, a political ideology derives its legitimation not from a tradition of revelation, whether oral or written, but from a cosmology which conceives the maintenance or transformation of society as dependant on human agency operating in unidimensional historical time. In other words, it does not allow for the possibility that suprahuman powers can permanently or periodically give way to one governed by different laws in accordance with a preordained divine or metaphysical scheme of things. (Griffin 1991: 29)

Evidence from this study confirms Griffin’s understanding of contemporary fascism as ideology rather than religion. There is, for example, no evidence

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within the group of allegiance to a version of extreme Russian nationalism associated with ‘backward-looking Orthodox monarchism’ (Shenfield 2001: 50). On the contrary, the mystical elements of religion were openly rejected and the established Church presented as part of ‘the system’ of social control to be resisted: ROMAN: Christianity – I hate Christianity. INTERVIEWER: Why? ROMAN: I reject Christianity. Totally. What

good is it? Nobody can tell me. Not one argument. What is good about Christianity? How is it [good]? As a form of government? No. . . . How can Christianity be expressed, what is it? The servant of God? First you are a servant. And only then you are God’s. Who is this God? There is no God. Where is he? What is he? He doesn’t exist. What does God mean at all? (Roman, 2006)

The church, moreover, was viewed by respondents, alongside other governmental institutions, as run by the same old self-interested ‘mafia’ interested only in power; priests, according to Egor (2007), were no more than ‘duplicitous swine’. The portrayal of the present as corrupt, bankrupt and morally decadent is central to the palingenetic myth of fascism (Griffin 1991: 35) and the rejection of modernity in its current manifestation is certainly a core part of the worldview of the Vorkuta group. The political system itself was envisaged as engaged in passing laws ‘for the government’ rather than for the people (Slava, 2006), while the ruling classes were seen as being completely divorced from ‘the people’ and unable to ‘live in the skin of an ordinary person’ (Roman, 2007). Even the president – at a time when support for Putin generally in the country was high – was viewed as a mere ‘pawn’ of ‘the richest people in Russia [who are] Jews’ (Masha, 2006). Shenfield suggests that the mobilisation of notions such as that of ‘Zionist Occupation Government’ is indicative of the pre-modern orientation of fascism which attributes the negative aspects of modernisation to ‘the deliberate destructive work of conspiratorial racial and religious sects’ (Shenfield 2001: 11). Indeed, Shenfield goes further in arguing that Griffin underestimates the ‘deep attachment to the essential values of premodern eras’ among followers of contemporary fascist movements’ (ibid.: 9). There is some prima facie evidence of the invocation of elements of the pre-modern within the group studied here; this is evident most directly in the fascination of some members of the group with Slavic paganism. Egor (2007) declared paganism to be the authentic religion of the Russian people before Christianity had been imposed upon both country and people. Andrei (2006) also argued that paganism was ‘the native belief of Slavs’, and in 2007 Slava undertook a de-Christianisation ceremony marking entrance to a pagan community (Pilkington and Popov 2009). However, where paganism

Ideology and political engagement 117 occurred spontaneously in discussion, it was cited less in the context of the expression of ‘faith’, or appeal to a higher force than that accessible through materialist philosophies, than as another (alongside, for example, fascist, Nazi, nationalist) form of ‘stigmatized knowledge’ (Barkun 1998: 61) to which respondents were denied access. This is exemplified by Roman (2006), who believed information about paganism was deliberately silenced: ‘ . . . but paganism, nobody understands it. Nobody knows it. The state hides paganism. It doesn’t want to talk about it. Not at all. The media all deny it.’ Another illustration of the desire to re-read official versions of Russia’s history is Sergei’s instantaneous reinterpretation of Russian iconography; when, on entering Denis’s flat, the researcher commented on the wallhanging depicting St George, Sergei claimed it wasn’t St George at all but the pagan God Perun tempering his enemy Veles.21 The mobilisation of paganism by respondents, therefore, appeared less as the invocation of a faith system around which to organise their lives or appeal to a pre-modern era than as an element of a wider worldview or philosophy which was both modern and rationally rooted. Paganism was thus perfectly compatible with a baseline position of atheism – a position adopted by the majority of the group including Slava (2007), who believed that God was a fabrication or, in his words, ‘a deception’. Moreover, respondents talked about their positions vis-à-vis religion as tightly bound to a wider materialist philosophy. Thus in 2007 Andrei stated, ‘I can judge for myself whether God exists or not. He doesn’t . . . because what exists, is what exists on earth’, while Egor declared that science should always be accorded primacy over faith and ideology, since both ideology and religion ‘enslaved’ people while science was ‘exact’. Thus, underpinning the shared assumptions that took the place of a unified ideology within the group was a critique of contemporary modernity that surmised change would be brought about not by divine intervention but by people themselves. Indeed, the very attraction of paganism was in the spaces it opened up for personal development and experience – releasing ‘powerful energies . . . ’ (Slava, 2007) or providing a ‘bellicose ideology’ that allowed the re-envisaging of masculinity in the form of man as ‘warrior, a defender of his country’ (Andrei, 2006). And, even if they chose to mobilise mythic, pagan images to this end, the purpose of ideology was not to restore any nostalgic vision of a pre-modern era, but to bring about a new order through revolutionary force to sweep away the old. Thus Andrei (2007) expressed his intention to join the army (special forces) to equip himself with the skills he would need to ‘make a contribution to’ a future revolution in Russia, while Lida (2006) claimed that recent demonstrations in Moscow suggested that an uprising capable of overthrowing the government was plausible within a couple of years. That respondents themselves would participate in this revolution went without saying. This was because, above all, skinhead was characterised by them as a ‘movement of action’. This meant that ideology was meaningful to

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the group only when firmly tied to action,22 and that skinheads should be distinguished from ‘kitchen racists’ who were all talk: . . . skinheads are a movement of action. They don’t just talk . . . There is something referred to as everyday racism, kitchen racism, when people [sit] in the kitchen and go, ‘Oh God, isn’t it dreadful’, and then just carry on drinking. That’s known as kitchen, everyday racism. And, yes, [such a kitchen racist] . . . is a decent bloke, he’s aware, but so what? Skinheads are a movement of action. They don’t only think and talk – they act. They do everything they can to achieve their aim, to make sure our country, our people, are respected in the way they deserve to be . . . Skinheads are a movement of action. I don’t just sit around discussing with you – I take concrete steps . . . (Andrei, 2006) While the fact that ‘action’ lay at the heart of skinhead was undisputed, what constituted the most effective form of action at the current point in time was being questioned within both the group and the wider movement. By 2006, original group members had moved on from the ‘street action’ phase of their skinhead identity, and those for whom this had been the main attraction were developing new solidarities while others were looking to think about the movement in a ‘more serious, global’ way (Lera, 2006). The latter members positioned themselves as in tune with broader strategic developments within the Russian skinhead movement. Andrei (2006), for example, declared that ‘fighting the non-Russians’ was a ‘primitive’ and ‘narrow’ understanding of what it was to be a skinhead and claimed that, at a national level, the movement had consciously opted to move away from mass actions such as the Moscow pogroms at the Yasenevo and Tsaritsyno markets in 2001 (see Chapter 1) because, although they had been effective in grabbing media attention, they had been ‘too costly’ in terms of the people lost to the movement. Thus, for these respondents the political significance of skinhead was as a ‘movement of action’, where ‘action’ is understood as active protest against the current ‘state of society’ dominated by a ‘mass culture’ that had produced ‘self-interested’ young people (Andrei, 2006) and prevented them communicating, thinking and forming their own opinions (Roman, 2006).

Conclusion In this chapter, an attempt has been made to view the skinhead group at the centre of this study, temporarily, ‘from the outside in’ – to examine where their ideas fit in the wider social and political context (Weinberg 1998: 3). From this vantage point the group has no unified or coherent ideology but articulates a worldview based on a number of shared ideas and underlying philosophical principles. The dominant strand is arguably best defined as

Ideology and political engagement 119 white supremacism laced with strong tropes of a revolutionary, palingenetic vision. However, to understand this, as Likhachev (2002: 115) suggests, as an eclectic neo-Nazi racism in the style of ‘White Power’ copied from the West while a home-grown Russian nationalism remains secondary’ does not fully capture the interaction between the national and the transnational elements of the skinhead outlook. More helpful here, it is suggested, is Nayak’s formulation of skinhead thinking as expressing a sense of ownership over the nation that signifies a ‘silent racialization of the nation state as white’. (Nayak 2005: 150) It is important to recognise also the transformative and revolutionary as opposed to conservative or reactionary underpinnings of the group’s worldview. The direct reference to Nietzsche by Andrei is indicative here; the vision respondents have of the world in which they want to live does not hanker back to an earlier, pre-modern age but is closer to what Roger Griffin (2008: 12) calls ‘programmatic modernism’, which presents itself as a mode of resistance to the ‘decadence’ of modernity as currently experienced and promises its transcendence. In this sense, in terms of its local roots, the group discussed here is closer to first and second waves of Eurasianist thought – based on an organicist philosophy that understands different species (or cultures) as characterised by their essence and as invested with meaning by a unity that transcends them – and found today in the writings of Alexander Dugin, than to the more mainstream versions of contemporary neo-Eurasianism, which, while avoiding the more nostalgic Slavophilic variants of nationalism, offer little revolutionary or transcendent promise (Laruelle 2008: 209–11). In terms of the connection between such small skinhead groups and the wider political spectrum, it is argued that the inclusion of the skinhead movement within the study of ultra-nationalist politics in Russia can be illuminating, but only if traditional understandings of fascist political organisations as internally authoritarian and externally focused on mass appeal (Shenfield 2001: 17) are replaced by the notion of a fluid political scene inhabited by ‘groupuscules’ characterised by a ‘rhizomic’ (cellular, leaderless) structure (Griffin 2003: 34; Back 2002: 109). Moreover, skinhead engagements with such groupuscules should be thought of as inconsistent and eclectic rather than as being governed by a model of ‘leaders’ and ‘masses’ in which skinheads feature as the ‘social reserve’ or the ‘shock troops’ of the neo-fascist movement. This is not, as Likhachev (2001) suggests, because skinheads are inherently reluctant ‘to subject themselves to party discipline’. Rather, it is argued here, they are acutely aware of their ‘value’ to more formal political organisations; their attitude to them is thus better understood as a reflexive engagement articulated through a narrative of their own ‘utilitarian’ approach to such organisations.

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Finally, it has been argued, in tracing these connections it is important not to lose sight of what distinguishes such groups from more organised political entities. In this particular case a core value underpinning the group was a strong sense of ‘anti-authoritarianism’. Moreover, respondents valued skinhead as a way of expressing social protest and, in particular, of displacing the ‘self-interested’ politics of the formal political sphere and replacing it with a politics that, in their view, prioritised social over individual needs. Thus, even if, in formal, definitional terms, such small skinhead groups might be considered part of the ‘groupuscular’ right23 in contemporary Russia, their activities are so heavily weighted towards acts of an anti-systemic nature or aggression against ideological enemies, rather than ideological dissemination and networking, that their form of political engagement is best described in an ideologically non-specific way as ‘a movement of action’. The form and content of this ‘action’ is discussed in the following chapter.

6

‘Any skinhead likes to fight’ Ritual, racist and symbolic violence Hilary Pilkington

Skinheads are prone to violence – indeed, it is a part of their worldview, it is what makes them skinheads. (Likhachev 2002: 120)

Whether, ideologically, their views are best understood as ‘nationalist’, ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’, the young people discussed in this book thought of themselves first and foremost as ‘skinheads’ who were, in their words, distinguishable from everyday racists by their willingness to ‘act’ upon their beliefs. In this chapter the substance of, and moral philosophy underpinning, the ‘action’ that embodies skinhead identity is discussed. Ritual violence, it is suggested, is an important mode of articulating that identity but it does not take centre stage. Its place is taken by racist or, in respondents’ terms, ‘ideologically motivated’ violence. The chapter considers also a range of direct and indirect ‘actions’ that fall short of the use of physical violence but which are employed by respondents to reproduce relations of racial and ethnic domination and subordination; these are discussed as manifestations of symbolic violence.1 They include verbal articulations of everyday racism but also practices of intimidation and the dissemination of literature and images that promote racial or ethnic hatred.

‘Actions’: ritual and symbolic violence Ritual violence is a central element of both original and ‘second-wave’ skinhead movements. John Clarke (1993a: 101) argued that football-related violence as well as ‘Paki-bashing’ and ‘queer-bashing’ by skinheads were means of expressing a ‘particular, collective, masculine self conception, involving an identification of masculinity with physical toughness, and an unwillingness to back down in the face of “trouble”’. Ritual fighting, he argues, also contributed to the forging of collective solidarity and mutual support at a time in which the British working class felt increasingly threatened. David Moore, on the basis of his ethnographic study of skinheads in Perth, Australia, in the mid-1980s confirms that it is violence and style that

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are perceived to be the defining elements of the English skinhead behaviour that they seek to re-create.2 Thus, Moore (1994: 66) suggests, ‘A skinhead cannot claim to be a “skin” if he does not fight’. Moore’s research draws attention to the ritual nature of skinhead violence and its function in forging group solidarity. Violence, he argues (ibid.: 67–8), is driven by: the desire to demonstrate loyalty to skinhead culture or one’s own particular group; the aim to enhance one’s reputation by showing toughness; and the pleasure principle – that is, it is part of a ‘good night out’. Fighting practices There is evidence of ritual fighting within the cultural practices of skinheads in Vorkuta. Zhenia (2006), for example, acknowledged that ‘any skinhead loves to fight’, while Valera describes the pleasure and feelings of self-worth that fighting brings: I came back [from prison] just a month ago and there haven’t been any actions in that month. But before, I was always there . . . if there was an action going on then I was always – my eyes would light up with joy . . . on the street. I had some authority. I could show people [who I was] . . . later the young skinheads fucking idolised me – ‘If Valera says so, then that’s right.’ I would tell them to follow me, and 35 lads would set off in two rows, all behind me, wherever I led them. (Valera, 2006) However, fighting between skinheads and other subcultural scene actors was reported relatively rarely, and ‘hunting rappers’, for example, was a practice described as a mere ‘game’ in contrast to ‘the serious business’ of ethnic violence (Valera, 2006). Subcultural ritual fights were thus primarily between punks and skins after concerts (Slava, Masha and Lera, 2006). However, as is evident from the following extract, the slam dance itself was a site for both the performance and the defence of skinhead affiliation: VALERA:

. . . Usually, when they [punks] come to one of our slams, they leave with teeth missing . . . They’re head-banging. And one of them goes up to Slava and he [Slava] smacks his head against the pillar basically. INTERVIEWER: Yes, he told me. VALERA: And he just carried on, having fun. And he [the punk] was going, ‘Wow, a skinhead touched me . . . ’ And he went off boasting to all the others. He came back and again got a taste of flesh . . . (Sergei and Valera, 2006) Skin on skin fighting also took place, as is evident from the following excerpt from an interview with Valera and Sergei (illustrated in Figure 6.1), and was often described as a pastime3 designed to keep themselves amused and fit:

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Figure 6.1 Staged fight Source: Photo by Ol’ga Dobroshtan, 2003

INTERVIEWER:

And where else did the skins have fun, apart from during slams, at concerts and during street fights, how else did you relax? How did you amuse yourselves? VALERA: We fought [mochilis’] at the Olympic4 – ten against ten – really fought. INTERVIEWER: Who, I mean how do you mean, ten against ten? . . . Skins [fought] among themselves? VALERA: Yeah, yeah. We lined up in two columns. SERGEI: We were divided into gangs. VALERA: We were the novices [karliki] and against us were Andrei, Vasia, all those lot . . . Bang, bang. Teeth went flying. It was fun. INTERVIEWER: And when was the last time you amused yourselves like that? VALERA: Ages ago now. SERGEI: No, well we do it sometimes in the zal [basement gym] – one against one basically. We’ve nothing else to do. (Valera and Sergei, 2006) The kind of sparring conducted in the gym that Sergei mentions is discussed in Chapter 3, and consisted of more controlled and goal-oriented practices undertaken alongside other body-building training.

124

The meaning(s) of skinhead Danil arrived. He said hello to me and took off his coat. Andrei suggested they box . . . At first Danil refused. Andrei insisted. He gave Danil some gloves. They went into another part of the basement and started to box. Sergei arrived with the beer (a 2 litre bottle of Tolstiak), vodka, an apple and some sunflower seeds. Sergei started to photograph Andrei and Danil . . . Valera also came to watch. Andrei hit him hard. Danil tried to defend himself . . . Finally Danil took a blow to a rib that he had broken some time before and stopped fighting, saying ‘the pain will go’. Andrei went to get changed. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 13 October 2006)

As this diary extracts reveals, however, fighting among friends nonetheless remained a site for the exertion of power and the confirmation of group hierarchies. Racist violence: chistki In sharp contrast to the skinheads in Moore’s (1993) study, respondents in Vorkuta understood ‘actions’ (aktsiia) first and foremost as the embodiment and enactment of their political beliefs. These ‘actions’ were sometimes referred to as chistki or zachistki (‘purge’ or ‘cleaning out’), and, at the period in which they were most active, the group would go out almost daily in groups of four to five people to hunt for and beat up victims (defined most frequently as khachiki5or ‘non-Russians’; see below) (Valera and Sergei, 2006). For ethical reasons our research practice avoided eliciting specific information about the criminal activities in which respondents were involved; one consequence of this is that it is difficult to verify events recounted.6 A number of serious attacks were reported separately by more than one respondent, however, and were corroborated by material evidence (such as the physical absence of individuals serving prison sentences). As noted in Chapter 5, for example, two core members of the group – Gans and Giria – were in prison for the entire period of our 2006–7 fieldwork, having been sentenced to six and eight years respectively for the murder of a homeless man7 (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006), while a third group member had been imprisoned for two years under Article 282 of the Criminal Code for ‘incitement to racial hatred’ between our visits in 2006 and 2007. Another incident, reported during an interview in 2006, was said to have taken place a year previously, and the respondent requested the tape recorder be switched off before he recounted it, since the crime remained under police investigation.8 The attack had been on a Kirghiz man who, as a result of his injuries, had been hospitalised in an intensive care unit for a month. The police had arrested one of a group of five skinheads involved the very same day who, as required by the group’s code of honour, had taken the blame individually (byt’ paravozom).9 A year after the event the respondent himself had been

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arrested by the police on suspicion of incitement of ethnic conflict and questioned for two days. He had subsequently been released but remained under investigation and was not allowed to leave the city. Nonetheless his only regret, he said, was that they had inflicted ‘only’ serious injury on the victim – the intention had been to kill him. The most serious act of violence reported directly to us, however, was Lera’s account of her involvement at the age of 14 in the brutal murder of a man of ‘Caucasian’ origin in Moscow. She recounted the events as follows: LERA:

. . . [He] was a policeman. He was a non-Russian [nerusskii] and he had arrested one of our lads for nothing at all – I think because of some argument, I don’t remember now. I remember that they caught him in the evening and shoved him into some house – a really old wooden house about to be demolished. INTERVIEWER: Were there a lot of you? LERA: About seven of us, and I was the only girl. They beat him up badly and strung him up. He was hanging there, half-dead. Then suddenly they poured diesel or petrol – I don’t remember now which – over him and gave me the matches. And they said, ‘Either you set him alight and earn your white laces,10 or you can go and save him.’ And something snapped in me and I said, ‘Okay, so what? I’m not going to let my friends down.’ And whoosh. And that was it. We left. (Lera, 2006) Lera’s story could not be corroborated by anybody else in the group – since it had taken place in Moscow – and it is unclear why she chose to tell us about it when it clearly put her at some risk by overstepping the boundaries of what was palevo11 (see Chapter 3). When asked directly about why she had chosen to do so, she explained it by a need to share her reflections on the longer term implications of participation in racist violence: Maybe it will be useful for someone else to know – many think that they can kill someone and it will be okay. In fact it’s not like that at all. It’s a difficult experience. A lot of people say or think it’s really easy, they survived, it’s okay, they can do it again. In fact they are probably just keeping quiet about the fact that really it’s psychologically tough. (Lera, 2006) The incidents described here cannot be defined as ‘ritual violence’ as understood by either Clarke or Moore. They are hate crimes – or, in the respondents’ interpretation, ‘ideological’ acts – and as such are governed by a different set of aims, rules and structures. This is recognised by Zhenia and Lida as they explain the differences between football and ‘ideologically’ related violence:

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ZHENIA:

. . . Let’s take football, fan fighting, yeah? You fight, and that’s it practically, usually on agreed terms . . . without knives or sticks usually. And you fight, let your adrenalin go, you hit someone a few times, someone hits you in the face and you go home satisfied . . . LIDA: That [football-related violence] is simply to show whose, basically whether your team won on the pitch, or lost, it’s like a third ‘half’. I mean, you can show through the fight that your team is nonetheless the strongest and best . . . Basically it’s just about waving your fists around and showing that whoever is strongest is right. But if you take skinhead ideology, it’s not about whoever’s stronger being right. The point there is not to prove, but to show people. If a skinhead gets going with his fists then it is either with some thugs [gopniki]12 to defend his ideology or it’s with those blacks [chernie] who need to be shown that there’s no place for them here. I mean, if people don’t understand when it is explained to them clearly, then you try to show them that they are nobody here and there is no place for them here. If they don’t understand that, then you have to resort to physical force. So the point is not to show that I’m stronger and therefore I’m right but to destroy the person who doesn’t understand that he needs to get out of here. It’s the same with cockroaches in a house. Why collect cockroaches and take them to another flat if you can just crush them with your slipper . . . ? (Zhenia and Lida, 2006) This does not mean that ethnically related skinhead violence is not governed by any ethical norms at all. Respondents, on the contrary, emphasised that the fact that these attacks were ‘purely motivated by ideology’ (Slava, 2006) distinguished them from dishonourable everyday criminality. Thus, in 2006 Valera noted proudly, skins ‘never went through anyone’s pockets . . . we wouldn’t dream of it. We just beat them up and left’. Moreover, according to Lida (2006), such acts were a matter of ‘honour’, a defence of one’s country’s honour ‘not only in words . . . but with blood’. This stands in somewhat sharp contrast to the findings of David Moore (1994: 80), which led him to conclude that ‘Skinheads do not have a concept of honour. Instead they have their categorical skinhead identity which may be undermined if a skinhead fails to respond to a perceived threat.’ Within the group described here, neither skinhead identity nor what constituted ‘honour’ was categorical; on the contrary there was internal debate about what were and were not acceptable forms of violence. Masha (2006), for example, did not approve of violence meted out against ethnic minorities unless it was ‘one against one’, while Andrei criticised the skinheads who had been imprisoned for killing a homeless man and then setting fire to his body, saying that, in his opinion, ‘this was clearly not worthy of respect’ and they deserved not only to have gone to jail but to have been ‘shot on the spot’ (Andrei, 2006).13 The rules of ritual and ‘ideological’ fighting converge, however, in judging

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it perfectly honourable for skinheads to ‘run’ when outnumbered. This, David Moore (1994: 66) writes, is indicative of the understanding that a hard skinhead is ‘someone who wins his fights, and, it follows, that an unwinnable fight should be avoided. This was confirmed in Zhenia’s description in 2006 of a situation when a group of five skinheads was walking through the city late at night and they began to be followed by a group of around forty gopniki; in this situation, he said, it wasn’t worth attempting to challenge them, so they just ran. In another incident described by Lera (2006), the skins backed off a challenge to a group fight with a territorial gang (of Russian origin) which had resulted from an individual dispute, since the skins would have been outnumbered 50 to one. In the circumstances, she said, it made more sense to lie low and wait for things to die down, not least because ‘it was our lad who was at fault’. The morality and philosophy of violence Understanding the morality and philosophy underpinning respondents’ attitudes to violence requires a brief return to debates touched upon in Chapter 5 about the modern versus the pre-modern in neo-fascist ideologies. On the one hand, respondents’ use and justification of physical violence indicate an appeal to a pre-modern order in which physical strength or force constitutes the root of power:14 ‘I believe in strength . . . In physical strength . . . I am convinced that right is on the side of whoever has the sub-machine gun in his hand. Right is on the side of whoever has real strength, power . . . ’ (Andrei, 2007). Perhaps most significantly, however, in Andrei’s worldview there is no absolute moral sanction against killing another human being – a position shared by other respondents, usually expressed in a rejection of the Christian commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and the moral principle of ‘turning the other cheek’ (Roman, 2006). This is expressed also by Il’ia: That’s what the church does. It simply – I can’t think how to put it properly . . . it has kind of turned the whole faith to which a person gives themselves into a legal code, and kind of written its own criminal code – thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. So a person thinks that, in terms of morality, the church offers everything they need . . . Take the Ten Commandments – thou shalt not kill, not deceive, for example. How can I not deceive if my life depends on it? Thou shalt not steal. How can I not steal if my children are dying? Those things, or ‘thou shalt not kill’. But what if [otherwise] I will be killed, why can’t I respond? Turn the other cheek? (Il’ia, 2006) As noted in Chapter 5, the rejection of the principles of Christianity is often accompanied by the embracing of paganism and, in particular, the celebration of violence. The enjoyment of pagan rock music – with its mythic

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warrior elements and blood/death lust – is indeed central to racist subcultural scenes across Europe, as ancient warrior ideologies are invoked to rewrite history as ‘a never-ending struggle between “the good” and “the evil” races’ destined to end in a ‘final battle’ or ‘judgement day’ (Lööw 1998: 130). The exaltation of a bellicose spirit and preparedness for heroic feats is also evident among ideologues of the Russian radical right such as Aleksandr Dugin (Laruelle 2008: 134–5). Elements of this ‘myth of the warrior’ among respondents in this study were evident in Slava’s claim in 2007 that participation in neo-pagan rituals ‘releases powerful energies . . . ’ and Andrei’s argument that the readiness to use violence was a core, and necessary, element of contemporary masculinity: By conviction I would say that I am an atheist. I like neo-paganism purely because of its bellicose ideology. I mean, in paganism a man is always a warrior, a defender of his country. And he is strong, clever, wise, and so on. I take that on board for myself. I like it. (Andrei, 2006) The centrality of organised violence to fascist ideologies is well established (Griffin 1991: 44). What remains open to question is whether the appeal to violence is philosophically linked to the evocation of a pre-modern era unfettered by the humanistic – victim-centred – discourses of violence characterising the modern era (Dugin, cited in Shenfield 2001: 195) or is a core element of an intrinsically violent and destructive modernism (Burstein, cited in Griffin 2008: 9). Notwithstanding the appeal of pagan imagery, respondents in this study justified violence not within conservative or traditional discourses of faith, myth and ritual but as rooted in a strong commitment to ‘rational, logical thought’ (Andrei, 2006). In a short extract15 from a long explanation of his reasoning behind this position, Andrei explained: ANDREI:

. . . for me, for example, murder is not some terrible, absolute sin or something [pauses] – murder is natural and [pauses] even if there is a single person in the world prepared to kill, then you also have to be prepared to kill too [pauses] . . . INTERVIEWER: Do you really believe in what you just said? ANDREI: [pauses] There’s a saying – if you live with the wolves, you run with the wolves. There you go, it’s the same thing. (Andrei, 2007) Lera (2006) also emphasises that she ‘tries to relate to everything rationally’ and considers this to be important in countering others’ assumptions that skinheads are mindless thugs. In the following diary extract, the logic of Andrei’s position in relation to more specific acts of racist violence is captured succinctly:

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Nonetheless he [Andrei] respects terrorists who use all kinds of means in pursuit of the cause. When asked if he would [be prepared to] use the deaths of children, if he would blow [anywhere] up, he said he would. And what was stopping him? The fact that, if he managed to commit such an act, then it could only ever be once. And what was the point of that? If he could do it several times, though . . . For him, in his words, it makes no difference how you achieve your goal. Take khachiki, for example – there are good and bad among them. But it’s impossible to determine who is good and who is bad, so you have to eliminate all of them. (Andrei, cited in Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 13 October 2006) Thus, as argued in Chapter 5, respondents in this study appeal to violence not as a means of expunging the modern and returning to a more ‘natural’ premodern state, but as an aesthetically and philosophically justifiable part of late modern society (see Figure 6.2). In this sense, consciously or unconsciously, they appear to share Eduard Limonov’s defence and celebration of violence in and of itself rather than Aleksandr Dugin’s more philosophical argument for the relegitimisation of violence unnaturally rejected by the humanistic civilisation of modern times

Figure 6.2 The aesthetics of violence Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

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(Shenfield 2001: 195, 206).16 This is not to suggest that violence was an end in and of itself – such a conclusion is specifically rejected (see Chapter 12) – but to submit that it is understood as part of a wider transcendent philosophy that looks to the future rather than the past.

Symbolic violence: everyday racism, intimidation and agitprop Ideological ‘actions’ were not always directly violent. In particular – and for reasons discussed in Chapters 3 and 7 – female members of the group often advocated modes of ‘direct action’ that made a strong ideological point but fell short of the use of physical violence. Lera, for example, argued that skinhead actions were not always about beating up or killing people, but might be designed to ‘protect’ or to intimidate rather than hurt: A skinhead does not only beat up non-Russians or create havoc. When some drunkard insults a woman, for example, he might stand up [for her], I mean when someone insults someone . . . Not just smashing things up, killing all the time. But intelligently, not killing but intimidating. (Lera, 2006) One example of intimidation was described in 2006 by Lida, who had undertaken (together with her boyfriend and his little sister) a series of ‘revenge actions’ against an Azeri man and his son who had moved in with her boyfriend’s mother. These actions were domestically sited and designed primarily to distress and humiliate the victims – sprinkling pepper into the mouth of the child while he slept, making it appear he had wet the bed, putting chilli pepper into a bottle of water used for washing after toilet use – but their impact was described by Lida in the same terms as used for skinhead street violence – that is, as creating ‘revolution’ and ‘carnage’. Lera (2006) recounted how she had dealt with new Korean neighbours whom she suspected of taking things from other people’s mail boxes; she had gathered a group of skins together outside the family’s flat to frighten them by shouting ‘Glory to Russia’ every time they put their heads round the door. This might be seen as an extension of the symbolic violence effected through the stylistic performance of skinhead that Zhenia noted in Chapter 5 and the use of swastika or kolovrat (sun wheel)17 and Nazi salute (see Figure 6.3).18 For, even if the salute or cry is employed demonstratively and to evoke an immediate reaction rather than invisibly secure domination, its use is designed to recall a system in which racial hierarchies were legitimated. Everyday racism A more routine example of symbolic violence is the employment of banal or everyday racism as a mechanism for making ethnic hierarchies and exclusions appear natural. Although respondents consciously distinguished themselves

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Figure 6.3 Hanging out at the Aut club Source: Photo by Ol’ga Dobroshtan, 2003

from ‘kitchen racists’ who failed to back up their everyday racisms with ‘action’ (Andrei, 2006), nonetheless they employed similar linguistic practices as well as some other typical manifestations of everyday xenophobia.19 The extent and nature of everyday xenophobia and its penetration of public discourse in post-Soviet Russia is well documented (Gudkov 2004; Voronkov et al. 2002; Verkhovskii 2007; Leonova 2009). Based on the evidence of regular nationwide public opinion polls conducted by VTsIOM on ethnic relations between 1988 and 2003, Gudkov (2004: 179) charts the growth of xenophobia in the population from a baseline in 1989, when, he suggests, about 20 per cent of the Soviet population manifested xenophobic attitudes and 6 to 12 per cent (depending upon the region) might be said to be aggressively xenophobic.20 By 1990, the proportion of the population expressing ethnic antipathies had risen to 35 to 40 per cent and ethnic negativism had become centred on negative attitudes to people from the Caucasus region and gypsies (ibid.: 181–3).21 Mutual ethnic and national hostility in Russia continued to rise until 1996, then fell a little in 1997 before a renewed rise after the 1998 financial crisis (ibid.: 182–3). At the current time, Verkhovsky (2009: 96) concludes, ‘more than 50 per cent of Russians consistently share ethno-xenophobic sentiments’. Moreover, he suggests, political groupings – most noticeably Rodina and the DPNI – have successfully combined elements of social populism with the exploitation of ethnic xenophobia to mobilise widespread anti-migrant sentiments (ibid.: 95).

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Gudkov’s analysis of public opinion data indicates two important tendencies when thinking about the xenophobia expressed by respondents in this study. Firstly, on the whole, he argues, ‘people expressing ethnophobias differ little from the statistically “average” individual and thus it is impossible to distinguish a category or group of people who are free of ethnic phobias’ (Gudkov 2004: 182). Leonova’s study of the same public opinion data over the period 1994–200622 also concludes that xenophobic attitudes are not explained by overall political orientation; when socio-demographic factors are controlled for, there is a steady increase of intolerance towards other ethnicities across groups of all political orientations and among highly as well as less well-educated segments of the population (Leonova 2009: 146). Her analysis suggests that xenophobic attitudes peaked in 2002 – when 40 per cent of all respondents had hostile attitudes towards other ethnicities – before declining to 32 per cent by 2006.23 Gudkov (2004: 185–9) and Leonova (2009: 151–2) also concur that there is a heightened level of ethnic intolerance among the youngest generation included in the survey (16 to 25 years of age) and that young people’s xenophobia tends to be of the more radical variant. Leonova (ibid.: 151) demonstrates that, in 2006, the proportion of open xenophobes among this group was 14 per cent higher than the sample average. Moreover, the gap is increasing; in 1996 this group had only 5 percentage points more open xenophobes than the sample average (ibid.). Our own survey of young people (based on a quota sample (n = 500) of 16- to 19-year-olds attending schools, colleges and universities) in Vorkuta in October 200724 also showed high rates of everyday xenophobia: 44.7 per cent said they would prefer to buy goods at the market from someone who did not have the appearance of being from the Caucasus and 45.6 per cent said they would object to their neighbours letting their flat to a family from the Caucasus, while 70 per cent agreed with the statement that some ethnic groups evoked sympathy and others irritation (Omel’chenko and Pilkington 2009). What explains this rise in xenophobia is more difficult to pinpoint. Considering the role of what is often referred to as the ‘loss of great power status’, Gudkov (2004: 200–01) argues that the evidence from VTsIOM polls suggests that the rise in xenophobic attitudes and tendencies towards ethnic isolationism is a result not of a crisis of identity caused by the collapse of the USSR but of the strategies adopted to manage the crisis, specifically the self-affirmation of Russians (russkie) via the reanimation of traditional national values and symbols, or their replacement by new ones, and a mythologisation of the past. In relation to more classical sociological explanations of the rise of fascism, Leonova (2009: 153) argues that the data ‘refute the hypothesis that the most educated segments of the population show greater support for ideas and principles of modernity’ and that, on the contrary, the most socially and economically active segments of the population are more likely to express intolerant attitudes towards other nationalities. Thus, she concludes, contrary to the assumptions about the prevalence

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of nationalistic attitudes among socially disadvantaged and economically depressed segments of the population, in actual fact earnings, taken separately, have virtually no impact on the level of xenophobic attitudes and, in all income groups, xenophobic sentiments fluctuate with changes in overall social tensions. Thus, the analysis of xenophobic sentiment expressed by the respondents in this study, and presented below, must be set in the general context of strong evidence that ‘circumspection and hostility toward others have become an underlying element of everyday life and have no direct relation to any real interethnic relations and competition’ (Leonova 2009: 153). It should also be read in the light of the desire of the authors not to repeat numerous examples of such statements, since they are superfluous to the argument developed and, potentially, risk further legitimating an oppressive linguistic discourse. The analysis presented instead provides a basic overview of the scope and character of everyday racist language (providing a single example in each case) used by respondents and highlights a few key tropes that help illuminate arguments made elsewhere in the book. In the process of coding transcribed interviews and diaries, 16 subcodes were generated under the category ‘ethnic others’ to capture statements by respondents in which individuals or groups of people were referred to in terms of their ethnic belonging or association (see Table 6.1).25 These subcodes were developed on the basis of the terminology used by respondents themselves (although where there is a direct, standard translation of the term in English, the English equivalent was used). Consequently the names of codes vary considerably; some are ethnically, racially or religiously specific categories (e.g. Armenians, Komi, Muslims or Jews); others are umbrella categories employed by respondents (e.g. ‘migrants’, ‘illegals’ (nelegaly) or ‘non-Russians’). They also vary in terms of their tone and pejorative force – terms such as khachiki and chernie (literally, ‘blacks’), for example, carry a heavy pejorative load, while others – such as nerusskie (‘non-Russians’) – appear to be adopted from more or less standard discourse and carry little emotion. An additional subcode of ‘other ethnic others’ was created for terms used less frequently. In this code were included a range of more or less descriptive, rather than pejorative, terms for ‘indigenous’ but not ethnically Russian peoples of the Russian Federation such as Mordvins, Udmurts, Chuvash and Tatars. In this subcode a couple of the less frequently used pejorative terms were also found – temnokozhie (literally, ‘dark-skinned people’) and churki,26 as well as negative references to tsygane (gypsies) and ‘Brazilians’.27 There were also distinct differences between individuals in terms of their use of racist language: crude slang terms such as khachik were used frequently by Valera, Sergei and Slava but were largely absent from conversations and interviews with Andrei, who employed more directly racist terminology, such as chernie (blacks) and belie (whites), as part of his rejection of nationalist ideology and emphasis of racism as the authentic ideology of skinhead (see Chapter 5).

7/11

10/13

11

13

13

azery

chernie

Jews

9/13

1/5

5

Armenians

Proportion of citations by skinhead respondents

Number of sources in which cited

Subcode

‘I think the Jews irritate everyone, all other nations and peoples, and everyone. Even the fact that they consider themselves a chosen people. They think only about themselves and feel themselves superior to everyone else because of that. And because they’re wily, treacherous and they control everyone. Nobody likes that. And doing business with them is like, it’s like, even if … you’re good friends with someone, they’ll still cheat you and turn everything to their advantage’ (Lida, 2006).

Respondents also frequently used the pejorative term ‘Yid/Yiddish’ (zhid/zhidovskii):

‘I don’t like blacks, really don’t like them, because, how all this hatred began? When I was 11 years old a black tried to rape me …’ (Masha, 2006).

Applied to non-Russians from former Soviet republics, but can also be applied to those of African origin. In this excerpt Masha grounds her hatred in a childhood experience:

‘I’m not a racist but the fact is I don’t like these, non-Russian nationalities, like azery, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Armenians, those and all the others. I don’t like these people, I have contempt for them because these people, more often than not, worm their way into our pure population …’ (Artem, 2006).

Pejorative and ethnically loaded term for people from Azerbaijan:

‘He’s okay at the moment. When I go with my family, I pay him and he’s fine. But if there’s ever a situation when he’s with his family, and there are a lot of them and I am on my own and have money, there’s always the possibility that he’ll take it [the money] off me’ (Egor, 2007).

Talking about an Armenian family with whom he stays when he travels to the Black Sea, Egor says:

Notes/examples

Table 6.1 ‘Ethnic others’ in the narratives of respondents

Kitaitsy

8

7/8

10/14

1/2

2

khokhly

Kavkaz(tsy) 14

8/10

10

khachiki

‘Those from Asia. The Chinese, all these Mongols. But the Japanese, well I quite respect Japan as a country … it evokes a very positive evaluation … but all the same Japan is good while it is Japan … It is good when they are in Japan. But when they come to your country, then it’s bad’ (Masha, 2006).

Literally, ‘Chinese’ , but a number of pejorative terms were also used to describe people of East Asian origin – for example, guk (‘gooks’), Azy (Asians) and uzkoglazie (‘slant-eyeds’). In the following excerpt, Masha distinguishes between which, and when, peoples from East Asia are accepted:

‘If a girl chooses a man driving a car, with money, a Caucasian – then we know what kind of girl she is. It’s another product of a mass culture concerned with money and cars and not with the person’ (Andrei, 2006).

Literally ‘Caucasus’ or ‘Caucasians’ – category used to refer to a range of peoples from the Caucasus region, including Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians as well as a number of North Caucasian peoples.

‘…it’s right by khokhlandiia [Ukraine, literally khokhol-land], it’s all right next to Ukraine … My grandad is actually a khokhol’ (Slava, 2007).

Slang term for Ukrainians used by respondents with a kind of affectionate scorn. In this extract Slava is talking about his own partially Ukrainian roots:

‘I consider myself, in my soul, to be a skin. I am always ready, I mean … I don’t like, let’s talk straight, I don’t like blacks (chernie), khachiki at the fucking market. One time, I went up [to the market], with my brother, we bought a fucking jacket, we talked to him. I liked him. I like individual people, but the fucking blacks (chernota) …’ (Valera, 2006).

Pejorative term used primarily to refer to people from the Caucasus, although sometimes to those from Central Asia. In the following excerpt, the demonstrative but deeply contradictory nature of racist talk is illustrated:

3/3

8/14

3/3

2

14

3

Muslims

negry

nelegaly

3/6

6

Komi

Proportion of citations by skinhead respondents

Number of sources in which cited

Subcode

Table 6.1 Continued

‘Just take Moscow as a simple case. We have a lot of very good builders, here, Russians … Really good ones. I mean these people will do anything you want, but for the government it’s more beneficial to take illegal immigrants whom they can pay a lot less and will work anyway. And ours are left without a crust. While the jobs are taken by the illegal immigrants, ours simply starve’ (Lida, 2006).

Literally, ‘illegals’, referring to undocumented migrants:

‘These same negroes come here, anybody, all of them. They come, study, learn something, but let them go and work for the good of their homeland and not at my expense’ (Lida, 2006).

Literally, ‘negroes’. Applied usually to those of African or African-American origin:

‘Muslims? Muslims are sound. They have a united faith, a good faith. They don’t have faggots like we have’ (Slava, 2006).

Although all the references in this subcode suggest the ‘othering’ of Muslims, the tone of statements about Islam reveal respect for it as a faith, while, in the case of the following extract, simultaneously revealing other, non-ethnic, objects of hatred:

‘We have Komi people as well. That’s our nationality, reindeer herders. But I don’t understand them either, and don’t recognise them as people – well, as civilized people … How are you supposed to relate to somebody who lies down in a snowdrift at the bus stop hugging a piece of meat?’ (Artem, 2006).

Indigenous people to the Komi Republic in which Vorkuta is located.

Notes/examples

5

3 (3)

Turks

the West (America)

1/3 (2/3)

1/5

7/8

‘If you think about it, what the hell do we need this West for? Not a fucking thing. Its intellect is all imported. Where did America import its intellect from? From Europe, from Russia. And who’s driving Europe? To some, to a large, extent America is steering it’ (Egor, 2007).

‘The West’ captured all generic references to ‘Western countries’, while a subcategory of this group was dedicated to ‘America’, as some negative comments about ‘Americans’ were consciously distinguished from Western European nations:

‘Turks – I can’t stand them. I had an acquaintance who was a Turk. I was ready to throw a chair at him, I disliked him so much … They have an unpleasant characteristic ... of looking down at you, making conversation uncomfortable’ (Lera, 2006).

Generic term used usually to describe a range of ethnic groups of Turkic origin rather than citizens of contemporary Turkey:

‘Nobody is protesting against non-Russians. They are protesting against the imposition of their rules’ (Andrei, 2006).

Literally, ‘non-Russians’. In this excerpt Andrei explains that it is not the people themselves to whom skinheads object but the imposition of ‘alien’ cultural norms:

Note: * The Nvivo database contained two case studies other than that at the centre of this book, thus the proportion of citations by skinhead respondents is noted as an indication of how peculiar the usage of any term is to them. The total number of citations relates not to individual usages of language but to the number of transcribed sources (interviews, conversations, diaries) in which the term is used; there are often multiple fragments using racist language coded in each source.

8

nerusskie

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Agitprop: the pedagogy of symbolic violence Pedagogic action is central to the exercise of symbolic violence (Jenkins 2002: 105), and among the skinheads this action was exercised both within the group (self-education) and outside it (ideological dissemination). Within the group, an authentic skinhead was understood to be someone who could not only fight for the cause physically but was also informed and able to articulate reasoned answers to questions and challenges posed of his or her views. This meant that some of the ‘actions’ constituting skinhead practice were educational in nature. Andrei and Lera in particular emphasised facilitating information and knowledge exchange within the group. Andrei (2006), for example, had procured much of the literature circulating in the city ‘from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf to French publications about Russian Bolshevism’, all of which, he said, was passed on to others as soon as he had read it himself. Lera (2006) repeatedly emphasised the significance of ‘educational’ work in her ‘brigade’ and described how she had got all the group to read Nesterov’s Skins: Rus’ awakes (2004) and then discussed it with them. She encouraged all members of the group to suggest materials they thought would be of interest to others, to read up on history and to find out as much as they could about other ethnic groups, religions and languages.28 The group also engaged in propagandising their ideological views. In 2006 Andrei distributed issues of journals sent to him free of charge because of his external connections and contributed to forums and journals (see Chapter 5). Lera (2006) said the group had used graffiti to get over its message, although she was careful to emphasise that they had prudently chosen places such as rubbish skips to spray and would never deface the walls of schools or nursery schools. The group had engaged also in printing, distributing and posting propaganda leaflets, templates for which had been downloaded from the web (Slava and Lera, 2006).29 Analysing the range of materials – from computer ‘wallpapers’ to propaganda leaflets – some patterns emerge that illuminate the discussions in Chapter 5 about the relative weight of different footprints in the group’s ideological armoury.30 In particular, it appeared, materials group members gathered for themselves and those that are used for propaganda purposes employ different images. Among the still images and ‘wallpaper’-style files – for personal use – Nazi (including Hitler and SS) symbols predominated (33 of 72 images) followed by White Power images or slogans (13 images), while only 11 images might be categorised as Russian or Slav and seven were ‘subcultural’ skinhead images (see Figures 6.4 and 6.5). Some images combined these motifs, such as Figure 6.6, employing both global ‘White Power’ as well as Russian symbols of national power and pride. In contrast, the ‘stickers’ and ‘leaflets’ downloaded for direct dissemination used images and texts that promoted Russian nationalism and were strongly anti-Caucasian, anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic. Seven of the eight stickers combined calls for Russians (russkie) or ‘Slavs’ (slavianin/ka) to defend their land and free themselves from the chains of slavery, with a call to

Figure 6.4 Nazi symbols Source: Image provided by respondent, 2006

Figure 6.5 White power symbols Source: Image provided by respondent, 2006

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The meaning(s) of skinhead

Figure 6.6 Global white power and Russian national symbols Source: Image provided by respondent, 2006

‘rid’ Russia of ‘Caucasians’. There are strong gender motifs in four of the stickers in addition to one which carries a warning of the ‘genocide’ that will result from current demographic trends (see Figure 6.7). The leaflets downloaded for dissemination also carried a significant amount of text, and three of the four were aimed exclusively at whipping up hatred towards people from the Caucasus region. The first is written as a ‘poem’ in ‘Caucasian Russian’, as if by a migrant from the Caucasus, explaining that he has come from ‘the mountains’ to feed himself on Russian land and to love as many Russian girls as he wants, and that he will ‘cut’ anyone who gets in his way. The text ends with an anti-Islamic motif, threatening that the ‘half moon and crescent will fly over the Kremlin’. The second leaflet employs deeply insulting language (chernie, chernozhopie 31 ) and plays on the basest of everyday racist images and prejudices. The image shown is of a purportedly ‘Caucasian’ man with a hair-covered body who, it is suggested, has had sexual relations with his mother and a flock of sheep from the neighbouring village. The text calls on people to boycott any produce sold by Caucasians and claims that Caucasian businessmen fund Islamic terrorists who kill Russians. The third leaflet blames Caucasians for corruption and

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Figure 6.7 Stickers used for propaganda purposes Source: Image provided by respondent, 2006

crime in Russia and attacks ‘humanism’ as a ‘Yiddish deception’. The fourth leaflet called upon Russians to ‘wake up’ before they were extinguished as an ethnic group and to live up to the past glories of the Russian nation rather than passively allowing their land and wealth to be taken by others. In addition to the contributions made by Andrei to forums and journals, a group of girls within the group had engaged in the production of their own ideological message for dissemination. This was described by Lida as an ‘experiment’ at making their own video, in which they outlined the position of skingirls.32 The text of the message targeted ‘immigrants’ in general rather than any specific ethnic group, accusing incomers of ‘taking girls’, ‘taking jobs’, selling drugs to Russian children and not allowing simple Russian families to feed themselves. The girls also call on Russians to defend ‘Russia’ and ‘Russians’ and the ‘future of white children’ so that Russia is something to be proud of. They set out their own mission as skingirls as being focused on their own behaviour – not drinking, not using drugs and making sure that the children they will bear in the future will be not only white but also healthy.

Conclusion This chapter has explored the role of violence in the ‘movement of action’ with which respondents identified skinhead. It recognises the significance of ritual violence in the cultural practices and power relations of the group. However, while important to the forging of solidarity within the group, Vorkuta’s limited subcultural scene provided few other skinhead groups or ‘subcultural others’ with whom to fight, and violence was thus associated primarily with the enactment of their stated political beliefs. This violence – targeted against racially and ethnically defined ‘others’ – was no longer within the daily cultural practice of the group by the time of the main periods

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of fieldwork (2006–7) upon which this book is based; it continued, however, to play an important role in respondents’ understandings of skinhead identity and authenticity. Moreover, at least for those respondents with a clearly articulated ideological position, racist violence is underpinned by a ‘rational’ philosophy in which violence, including murder, is legitimated. As respondents moved away from street violence, a range of ‘actions’ falling short of physical violence but including intimidation, ‘agitprop’, the dissemination of racist literature and a range of modes of deploying symbolic violence gained importance in the cultural repertoire of the group. Indeed, for female members, who were largely excluded from street violence, such activities had always been significant. These practices built, and played on, everyday xenophobic and racist sentiments in contemporary Russian society, and, it is has been argued here, the analysis of xenophobic sentiment expressed by the respondents in this study presented must be read within, not outside of, such discourse. Finally, the findings presented in this chapter suggest that, for all group members, violence was part of what they understood as taking ‘an active position’ in life, but its role differed significantly in each personal journey through skinhead. For some, violence is a side product of the social protest that skinhead signifies, a protest by which they seek to replace the ‘self-interested’ politics of the formal political sphere by a politics that prioritises social over individual needs and a desire to ‘give’ more than one takes. For others, it is inscribed within their everyday lives and is played out through their bodies as victims and aggressors. It is part of how they test just what they can take but also a means by which they build friendships and bonds that may protect them from ‘demons’ outside or within. For none of them, however, is violence an end in itself, nor, as Likhachev (2002: 120) claims, is it ‘what makes them skinheads’.

7

No longer ‘on parade’ Style and the performance of skinhead Hilary Pilkington

By the time the first skinheads became visible in Russia’s urban landscape in the early 1990s, ‘skinhead’ was already a globally recognised and embedded cultural code. This has led commentators to envisage skinhead in Russia as a practice in which ‘in their dress skins imitate their western fellow-thinkers’ (Tarasov 2004a: 12), albeit adopting a predominantly ‘military’ version of the style (Likhachev 2002: 112) adapted for ‘street fighting’ (Tarasov 2004a: 12).1 Given the discussion in the previous chapter of the importance of both ritual and racist violence to being a ‘real’ skinhead, this interpretation of the style practices of Russian skinheads as ‘strictly functional’ (ibid.) and wholly subordinate to their ideological mission appears plausible. Moreover, the evidence already presented of the group’s engagement with, and appropriation of, some symbolic and ideological elements of the global skinhead and White Power movements means that it is impossible to argue that Russian skinhead style has evolved in anything but close dialogue with other versions of it. The evidence from this study suggests, however, that the style practices of the group constitute more than a surface ‘imitation’. Indeed, on the contrary, the very familiarity of skinhead style – and the fears and fantasies tied up with its associations with tough, working-class and racist masculinities – means that any contemporary adoption of skinhead style is profoundly reflexive. Consequently, exploring the stylistic practices of skinhead respondents is important for understanding the relationship between form and content within the movement and thus the meaning of skinhead to them. This chapter thus explores alternative theoretical explanations of style practices – beyond imitation and functionality – within the contemporary skinhead movement and, on the basis of the Russian case, argues for a more fluid and dynamic understanding of these practices than that found in existing theory. The findings presented suggest, firstly, that there is no fixed meaning to skinhead style; its meaning changes over the subcultural career of any individual or group and may vary extensively between groups in different local and national contexts. Secondly, it distinguishes between visual and ‘performative’ style (Moore 1994: 17) and explains the gradual decline in importance of visual style in the skinhead group discussed, not as a reflection of changes

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The meaning(s) of skinhead

in its internal values but as a product of its ongoing engagement with the outside world. In this particular case, the movement away from the public display of skinhead is closely bound up with individual and group perceptions of the necessity and/or cost of performing skinhead through visual style. Finally, the chapter charts the evolution of performative style practices in the group, from classic forms of ritual violence to more intimate, bodily and private manifestations (tattooing, piercing). These shifts, it suggests, are not evidence of lack of skinhead authenticity or that individuals simply ‘grow out of’ skinhead. Rather, it is argued, they point to the need for theoretical revision of our understanding of the relationship between visual style and subcultural identity. Forty years after its first manifestation, it is no longer sustainable to envisage skinhead style as an unreflexive, visual expression of a collective response to structural (primarily class) location (see Chapter 1). Attention to ‘performative’ style may be helpful in this endeavour if it is employed as more than a descriptor for group practices that confirm or consolidate pre-existing skinhead identities. Skinhead identity, it is argued here, is, rather, constituted in repeated performances of it, that shift in expression and meaning over both time and space. What remains constant are the bonds engendered through the performance of skinhead that sustain a vital sense of solidarity at the expense of gendered, classed and ethnicised ‘others’.

Skinhead, style and ‘identity’: class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality In the classic understanding of skinhead style elaborated by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham (CCCS), skins’ heavy industrial boots, work clothes (jeans and braces) and shaven heads were seen to reflect a tough masculinism, chauvinism (anti-gay and anti-black), puritanism and working-class communalism (Cohen 1972: 24–5). In this reading, style has a homologic relationship to group values: The selection of the objects through which the style is generated is then a matter of the homologies between the group’s self-consciousness and the possible meanings of the available objects . . . It is the objective potential of the cultural form . . . and its fit with the subjective orientation of the group which facilitates the appropriation of the former by the latter, leading (sometimes) to a sort of stylistic fusion between object and group. (Clarke 1993b: 179) In Dick Hebdige’s reading of skinhead, this ‘fit’ took on a more bodily and instinctive expression: Just watch the way a skinhead moves. The posture is organised as carefully as the length of the red tags or the Sta-prest or the hair. There is a lot of lapel twitching. The head twists out as if the skin is wearing an old fashioned collar that’s too tight for comfort. The cigarette, tip turned in

Style and the performance of skinhead 145 towards the palm, is brought down from the mouth in an exaggerated arc and held behind the back. It’s a gesture reminiscent of barrack rooms and Borstals, of furtive smoking on parade . . . Skinheads . . . are nervous and twitchy. They’re always jumping out of the frame . . . They’re always on their toes, ready to respond to the slightest provocation, ready to defend the little they possess (a football end, a pub, a street, a reputation). The dance of Skin is, then, even for the girls, a mime of awkward masculinity – geometry of menace. For skinheads are playing with the only power at their disposal – the power of having nothing (much) to lose. The style, in other words, fits. (Hebdige 1982: 28–9) Implicit here is the CCCS’s understanding that the material conditions for the emergence of skinhead lay in a relative worsening of the situation of the working class through the second half of the 1960s that was experienced especially acutely by the lower working class and the young. In the case of young working-class people, this socio-economic repositioning was coupled with a sense of exclusion from a youth subculture dominated in the public arena by music and styles derived from the ‘underground’. This, according to Clarke (1973: 13–14), produced a return to an intensified ‘Us–Them’ consciousness among lower working-class youth. Their solution to these problems – the re-creation of working-class communalism through skinhead style – he argued, however, remained imaginary; since skinhead style could not revive the community in a real sense, they had to use an image of what community was as the basis of their style (Clarke 1993b: 189–90). In this initial reading of skinhead, therefore, ethnic posturing is recognised as integral to skinhead subculture but not interpreted as the manifestation of a racist political position. Rather, according to Hebdige (1982: 32), both Rasta and skin ‘can be seen as bids for some kind of dignity . . . grace under pressure’ (ibid.). This did not excuse or allow one to ignore racist violence (‘Paki-bashing’) as an element of the repertoire of practices of skinheads (see, for example, Clarke 1973: 6–7), but suggested that to read it as colour-related racism was inadequate; differences identified between ‘us’ and Asian communities were accompanied by similarities recognised between white workingclass and West Indian community ways of life and by the centrality of Jamaican ska and rocksteady to skinhead authenticity (ibid.; Hebdige 1982: 29). Moreover, as Pearson’s (1976) concurrent research established, ‘Pakibashing’ both pre-dated the skinhead movement and was a wider expression of severe social and economic dislocation accompanied by cultural traditions of the suspicion of migrant workers rather than inherently linked to skinhead style. Thus, as Hebdige (1982: 33) concludes, ‘This doesn’t mean that this kind of racism isn’t dangerous. But it does suggest that racism is too deeply embedded in the whole experience of growing up working class to be the sole responsibility of the skins . . . ’. While at the descriptive level the notion of ‘youth subculture’ developed

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by the CCCS has become globally resonant, its core theoretical components have not travelled so well. This is generally explained with reference to the overemphasis of the structural – specifically the class-determinism of the CCCS’s theoretical approach. Jack Moore, tracing the origins of the skinhead movement in the USA, for example, is categorical about the nonorganic roots of skinhead in a class-based resistance. Despite other cultural sharing across the Atlantic, Moore (1993: 30) states, ‘the skinheads in the sixties would remain English. There was no cultural place in America for a youthful class expression of discontent and open, ugly antagonism to the middle class’. It wasn’t until the emergence of punk in the late 1970s, therefore, that the cultural terrain formed for the emergence of skinhead in America (ibid.: 40). The reading of skinhead style as a ‘magical’ resolution of historical class dislocations is also rejected as inappropriate for understanding the meaning of skinhead style in David Moore’s (1994) ethnographic study of skinheads in Perth, Australia, in the mid-1980s. What Moore offers in its place essentially adopts but adapts the CCCS interpretation of subcultural style. In his reading of skinhead it is an ethnic rather than a class community that is re-evoked as skins stylistically re-create their British heritage. A further, and logically consequent, modification in Moore’s work is a shift away from an emphasis on any potential ‘resistance’ to the dominant culture articulated through subcultural style and towards understanding style in terms of its function in maintaining the group and its boundaries. More significantly, however, Moore introduces a distinction between ‘visual’ and ‘performative’ style.2 Visual style’, he says, relates to ‘the visual component of the overall style, for example, hairstyles, clothing, and tattoos’, while ‘performative style’ means ‘the kinds of activities in which skinheads engage, for example, fighting, and the ways in which they organize to carry out these activities’ (Moore 1994: 17). Nonetheless, for Moore it is the visual that remains most significant in skinhead: The visual component of style is the centre of a skinhead’s cultural world . . . Visual style provides the grammar of everyday interaction for the members of these groups. In place of formalized structure, skinheads use visual style to organize their relationships, to recognize friend and foe, to categorize social types, and to signal their belonging. Visual style is more than a set of clothes to be discarded at will, rather an attitude to life given expression in apparel and behaviour. The wearing of skinhead visual style is the sign for the announcement of a categorical opposition to the mainstream world. (Moore 1994: 36) It is important to note here that Moore does not draw explicitly on the work of Judith Butler in his use of the term ‘performance’ or ‘performative’. Thus ‘performative style’, in his understanding, refers only to the mechanism by

Style and the performance of skinhead 147 which skinheads ‘authenticate’ or ‘back up’ their visual style with action. The consequence of this is that identity – in this case the combination of ethnic and gender identity that constitutes ‘skinhead’ in the context of the Perth scene – is understood by Moore to pre-exist action rather than being constituted through it. This distinction is important because the recent revival of theoretical interest in skinhead style – in particular in the subversive potential of gay skinhead – has been closely associated with the application of Judith Butler’s work on gender and sexuality. This subversion is envisaged as rooted in the potential of gay skinhead style to parody heterosexuality in a similar way to that in which, as Butler (1999: 187–8) has suggested, drag or cross-dressing denaturalises heterosexuality through parodying the notion of an ‘original gender identity’. Thus Healy (1996: 207) argues ‘the appropriation of a skinhead identity [by gay men] maps authentic masculinity on to the feminized body of the gay man and destabilizes both terms’. The suggestion here is that ‘excessive performance of masculinity [and femininity] within homosexual frames exposes not only the fabricated nature of heterosexuality but also its claim to authenticity’ (Bell et al. 1994: 33). However, the subversive nature of gay appropriations of skinhead style remains disputed not least, as Lloyd (2005: 140) notes, because, while the drag performance overtly questions the naturalness of gender through exaggeration and hyberbole, in the case of gay skinhead we are asked to understand the nature of subversion as resting in the gay skinhead’s ability to pass as straight – that is, as Lloyd puts it, in ‘not rendering visible the fabricated nature of his identity’. There is, therefore, a distinct possibility that not only does gay skinhead style fail to disrupt heterosexual norms but the very ‘believability of the “straight” performance’ re-idealises rather than de-naturalises the dominant norms of masculinity (ibid.). Anoop Nayak’s study of young suburban racists on the outskirts of Birmingham in the 1990s also draws directly on Butler to suggest that central to contemporary skinhead is the construction of identity – in this case whiteness – through its repetitive and parodic display. Nayak starts out from Hebdige’s understanding of skinhead as a ‘retreat into white ethnicity’ but suggests that what Hebdige refers to as ‘flag waving’ (1982: 32) is more than a ‘romantic gesture’ (ibid.: 35). Rather, he argues: the project of whiteness is a masquerade that simultaneously exposes the labour required to sustain this fabrication. This incompleteness, and sense of ‘lack’, calls for the exhibition of a white, working-class masculinity through repetitive, strategic deployments of racism. (Nayak 1999: 94) Nayak’s attention to the work that is required to ‘naturalise’ difference even where differences appear to be biologically written onto the body3 is a helpful application to the understanding of contemporary skinhead style of Butler’s

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recognition of the work involved in the manufacture of ‘what we take to be an internal essence of gender’ (Butler 1999: xv). Moreover, his own research reveals starkly the context of deep ambivalence or ambiguity in which that ‘naturalisation’ process occurs – not least as the young men with whom he works struggle to suppress ‘the sexual desire for black icons . . . and the covert admiration for the “hard” street styles of macho black males’ (Nayak 1999: 95). A similar point is made by Dawson (1999: 132) when he argues that missing from Hebdige’s original analysis of the way in which skinheads in the late 1960s drew on ‘rude boy’ culture was any recognition of the skins’ fascination with rude boy sexuality. Such fears and fascinations with black sexuality, he suggests, heightened ‘the instability of the skinhead project of remasculinization, which involved a masquerade of male identity founded on a pastiche of marginalized forms of masculinity’ (ibid.). While Nayak’s emphasis on ‘whiteness’ might appear problematic in the very different ethnic context of Russia, in fact, as discussed in Chapter 5, defensive white supremacism is central to the shared ideas articulated by the group of skinheads described in this volume. Moreover, it is not its object – ‘whiteness’ – but the notion of the ‘project’ itself that is important. It is, it is argued here, precisely in the significance to respondents of exclusive and essentialised white, working-class masculinities, and the efforts expended in their performance, that the precariousness of these identities is revealed.

The shifting meanings of skinhead style In 2002–3, when the group was first encountered, visual style was an important element of the social performance of the skinhead identity its members professed. Figure 7.1 captures how they were keen to show off their Grinders boots. The essence of the group’s style at this stage was boots and braces (see Figure 7.2). As Valera (reminiscing about earlier times) explains, jeans or combat trousers were also turned up to ensure the boots – and the intentions they carried – were visible. VALERA:

Of course, we were always committed to high boots, turn-ups, always a shaven head, combat trousers. You could always tell who we were. And we wore our hats tilted to the side. INTERVIEWER: What are ‘turn-ups’? VALERA: Turn-ups are so your boots are visible. (Valera, 2006) The predominantly ‘military’ style of Russian skinheads (Likhachev 2002: 112) reflects wider trends among ‘second-generation skins’ towards emphasising the threatening – combat – aspects of the look over sharp stylishness (Brown 2004: 159). However, a clear absence from the visual stylistic repertoire of Vorkuta skins was any distinction between the ‘boots and braces’

Figure 7.1 ‘On parade’: members of the group display their boots Source: Photo by Ol’ga Dobroshtan, 2003

Figure 7.2 Boots and braces Source: Photo by respondent, 2003

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ascribed to ‘day wear’ and the smarter ‘mod’-like dress adopted for evenings found to be important both to the original skinheads in the UK (see, for example, Knight 1982: 11) and within the Perth skinhead scene of the 1980s (Moore 1994: 50). The ostensible reason for this absence was the lack of the kind of venues (dance halls, clubs) in Vorkuta necessitating a smarter version of the style. However, a relative ambivalence was evident also in the relaxed attitude to even the most basic norms of skinhead style. Valera (2006), for example, said that shaving your head was never ‘obligatory’, and even at the height of his own participation in skin ‘actions’ he generally stuck to his preferred ‘short back and sides’.4 Moreover, in sharp contrast to David Moore’s (1994: 45–6) description of the importance of the search for ‘authenticity’ through the purchasing of UK-made clothes among Perth skins, respondents in Vorkuta paid relatively little attention to ‘brand’. The only serious discussion of brands concerned boots, which were the single most important visual attribute among Vorkuta skins. Grinders were favoured generally by respondents, largely because of their accessibility, and, in valuing them, ‘Englishness’ was evoked, but primarily as a marker of good quality rather than authenticity (Andrei, 2006). In 2006 Zhenia was the exception to the general rule about relative lack of brand concern.5 He wore Lonsdale and Pit Bull sweatshirts (see Figure 7.3) and owned three pairs of boots, which he described in terms of their eyelet

Figure 7.3 Designer skinheads? Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

Style and the performance of skinhead 151 numbers and brand names (Grinders, Get-a-grip and Tread Air). He was also knowledgeable about a number of brands associated with skin style – Lacoste, Fred Perry, Doc Martens – but complained that they were impossible to get hold of in Vorkuta and so local skins bought fake ones imported from Moscow markets. In any case, he said, at around £100 for a pair of Doc Martens, the cost of buying authentic gear was prohibitive. Visual versus ‘performative’ style Adopting David Moore’s (1994: 17) distinction between ‘visual’ and ‘performative’ style, it is evident that, even when the visual aspect of style was at the height of importance for the respondents in this study, their engagement with style remained essentially ‘performative’. Thus, although Figures 7.1 and 7.2 ostensibly show respondents displaying their gear, style is only a thin veneer through which skinhead values are visible and ‘actions’ implied. In Figure 7.1, for example, each pair of boots has differently coloured laces – white, blue and red; lined up together in this way, they depict the Russian flag. Figure 7.2, a photograph which, in contrast to Figure 7.1, was not ‘staged’ for the researcher but given to her from the personal collection of one of the respondents, a Nazi pose is struck and the braces are fastened up; this, it was said, indicated skinheads were ready to fight. While, at one level, therefore, these photos appear to illustrate precisely what was meant by a ‘homologous’ relationship between style and group values, they capture also a degree of self-conscious performance of skin that is absent from the discussion of skinhead in the work of CCCS researchers. In similar vein, in Figure 7.4, members of the group use their bodies to make a swastika sign. The discussions of style captured in verbal narratives, however, almost always occur when respondents are describing how it was ‘back then’. SLAVA:

. . . if, before, we were like ‘on parade’ [pri parade], then now we don’t get kitted out [bez parada], but we do virtually the same. That’s how I’d put it. INTERVIEWER: What do you mean by ‘on parade’? You mean dressed like that? SLAVA: Yes . . . STAS: Yes, like, at least once a week we went out with our whole brigade. We went out all kitted out [pri parade], trousers turned up. We all rolled up, we had our own cars. That was it. We shouted, roared – the city was in shock . . . (Slava and Stas, 2006) But no longer ‘booting up’ did not indicate any shift in commitment to the skinhead cause. In a process similar to that described by Andy Bennett (2006: 225) writing about older punks who envisage themselves as ‘literally absorbing the “qualities” of true “punkness”, to the extent that these exude

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Figure 7.4 Body politics Source: Photo by Ol’ga Dobroshtan, 2003

from the person rather than the clothing and other items adorning the surface of the body’, skinhead became a quality held ‘within’ rather than displayed without. This is how Lera expressed this: Now it’s not essential to dress in a way that shows clearly that you’re a skinhead. Skinhead, you see again, it’s what you feel here [points to heart]. If you want to dress like that – fine, it’s appreciated. If you don’t want to? It’s no big deal . . . In any case there are holidays and things when you just want to dress up. You dress up – and ‘Wow’! Brilliant! But, if you don’t want to, then . . . (Lera, 2006) Over a period of around three years therefore, this group of respondents had moved from a routine but conscious external display of skinhead with performative intent to envisaging their identity as somewhere deep inside, hidden away from view, but intact and no less committed.6

Visual style goes backstage: rationales and fears Following David Moore’s (1994: 36) argument that skinhead style functions to maintain internal group organisation and coherence, the movement of visual style backstage is readily explicable. As members become securer in the group (being able, with time, to call on numerous examples of past ‘action’ to

Style and the performance of skinhead 153 justify their claim to skinhead identity), their need to perform that identity through visual style is reduced. However, as John Clarke (1993b: 182) notes, in an often overlooked aspect of the CCCS reading of style, style practices are as much a product of an ongoing engagement with the outside world as an expression of internal values. It is to the role of that external environment – or, rather, the interaction between the group and wider society – in shaping the significance of style within the group that the discussion now turns. Rationales: work, study and relationships Respondents themselves frequently explained the declining significance of surface expressions of skinhead style through ‘common-sense’ reference to the fact that ‘the more you grow up, the clearer you think and the more cautious you become’ (Slava, 2006). They were also busy. By 2006, all respondents – now mainly in their early twenties – experienced genuine difficulty in remaining committed to the movement while simultaneously trying to ‘establish themselves’ in terms of education, family and work. As education and work trajectories became increasingly important (for financial if not spiritual reasons), college and work were not considered appropriate places to demonstrate skin allegiance: If you want to, you dress up, it’s nice, you like it, everyone recognises you – it’s great. If you don’t want to, you don’t dress up. But your friends still know that, no matter what, this is what you are all about. That’s fine. It depends whether you want to or not . . . [But] I wouldn’t go to work like that. There are some norms, after all, if I’m working with other people . . . Now I go to work in ordinary, everyday clothes. (Lera, 2006) Indeed, Lera went on to recount an incident when she had felt extremely uncomfortable when, having taken her cardigan off at work because she was hot, her tattoo had aroused unwanted interest from her colleagues (see Figure 7.5). As respondents sought to avoid unnecessary attention, performing skin had become almost solely confined to leisure space and time: . . . when I put on boots, the ones with the steel toe caps, I, well I like that style. It’s just that now I don’t dress like that very often . . . I try not to advertise this theme too much – the attitude to us in this country is not that great . . . I can talk to the lads [at college], but if it got to the management, that is the teachers, it could cause me problems. (Zhenia, 2006) This change in their outward manifestation of skinhead was articulated by respondents as a natural development rather than a compromise in their

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Figure 7.5 Hanging out at a respondent’s flat Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

beliefs. Indeed, many group members were already practised in the nonperformance of skinhead in their romantic relationships. The separation of romantic relationships from arenas for the performance of skinhead was perfectly compatible with the group’s understanding of skin values, since they believed that making successful relationships that would result in stable families was vital for the ‘reproduction of the gene pool’. Steady girlfriends (and time spent with them) outside the group were accepted and valued, therefore, regardless of whether partners explicitly shared skinhead views about race and ethnicity. Moreover, even in the case of Slava, whose girlfriend’s ‘alternative’ (neformal) outlook meant she often hung out with the group, skin performances were excluded. Since she did not share his hatreds, their relationship worked on the tacit agreement that he did not recount his skinhead actions in front of her, or, as she put it herself, that he ‘hides it a bit from me’ (Olia, 2006). Fears: the changing external environment Implicit in some of the reasoning above is an increasing uncertainty among respondents about how the public display of skinhead style is received. This reflects two important changes in the external environment: increasingly

Style and the performance of skinhead 155 negative and widespread media representation of skinheads and consequent shifts in public perceptions of them; and changes in the legislative environment and the response to them of law enforcement agencies. The media were widely criticised by respondents for misrepresenting skinheads as ‘drunken alcoholics who beat up people’ (Andrei, 2006). This portrayal had a direct impact on their willingness to display their affiliation visually. When asked directly about this in 2006, Slava said it was ‘safer’ not to declare oneself a skinhead, while Lera said she was open about her affiliation only with her friends and would ‘hold her tongue’ at work or if challenged by the police. In the following interview excerpt, Zhenia explained that he had learned to be careful about presenting himself in public as a skinhead. He describes the response he received when he returned from a trip to Orel, where he had first become involved in the movement: When I came back, I walked around town, in all the gear – ‘on parade’, let’s say. And I noticed that everyone was giving me these looks. I didn’t know what was going on, so I called in on a friend and he goes, ‘So you’ve decided to become a skinhead have you?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, ‘Clever thinking – when the whole city here is against skinheads. You might get away with it in the day time, but at night you can guarantee that you’ll get one in the head somewhere.’ So I went home and put it [skinhead gear] all in the cupboard. That was the first day [back in Vorkuta]. (Zhenia, 2006) He also recited a story about having been set upon by a group of five lads while out with his girlfriend simply because he was dressed as a skinhead. He said he no longer dressed like that because it was risky (chtoby ne palitsia) (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006). Of course these responses to external threats were not recounted as ‘fears’ in the narratives of respondents; where they appeared, they were rationalised in a way that sought to wrest back control over this engagement with the rest of society. For example, respondents suggested that, since their presence on the scene over a number of years meant that everybody knew who they were, it had become pointless to demonstrate themselves by ‘booting up’. Another rationalisation was that, as they were already under suspicion, it would be stupid to draw attention to themselves unnecessarily. This was related to a growing awareness among respondents that, following the adoption of the ‘Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity’ (July 2002), skinheads were increasingly an object of hostile attention on the part of the police. This law made illegal a number of the respondents’ regular practices (including the public display of Nazi attributes or symbols and the propaganda of superiority on the grounds of racial or ethnic identity) and was accompanied by an increased vigour in the application by law enforcement agencies of elements of the existing criminal code, especially article 282 on the prohibition of

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incitement to hatred on social, racial, ethnic or religious grounds (see Verkhovsky 2008). Evidence of how this worked in practice is provided in Lera’s account of the following incident in Moscow when her lack of forethought had landed her in trouble: My parents know that I’m in the movement. They support me in principle but are afraid that something might happen, because when I went to Moscow I got into this situation. I went in my boots – ‘on parade’ as they say. And basically some non-Russian, he said something to me. And I remember that I just burst out with ‘Russia for the Russians!’ And this policeman goes, ‘Well then – show me your passport’. (Lera, 2006) She goes on to recount that the policeman confiscated her passport, took her to the station and demanded $300 to ‘find the person who took her passport’. This was one of many incidents recounted, indicating that respondents were aware that the external environment towards skinheads was changing and that they could no longer rely on tacit support for their cause. Indeed, it was self-evident that an increased threat of arrest and imprisonment for both race-related crimes and incitement to racial and ethnic hatred had had a major impact on the performance of skin. Over the period in which we worked with the group, the abstract possibility of imprisonment had become an increasingly tangible reality (see Chapter 6), and, at the time of interview, Zhenia was being actively investigated in relation to a racist attack while Andrei reported being regularly questioned by the police. Thus, in Vorkuta, as in other cities where particular incidents have caused law enforcement agencies to become more vigilant in their suppression of skinhead movements, the response is an increasing reluctance to display any external attributes (Tarasov 2005: 173).

Redefining performative style: the pleasures that bind Performative style practices accompanied but outlived the visual style practices of the group. This, it is argued here, is because performative style is more than, as in Moore’s (1994: 67–8) formulation, a set of activities that consolidate group belonging and maintain its boundaries. If performance is understood not as reflecting but as constituting identity (David et al. 2006: 422; Nayak and Kehily 2006: 460–61), then it becomes possible to understand skinhead identity as constituted through performative style practices. In the final section of this chapter, the significance of two components of performative style – fighting and tattooing – are explored. These practices, it is suggested, confirm Nayak’s (2005: 150) understanding of skinhead style as articulating ‘multiple masculine fantasies of existence related to manual labour, militarism, prison identity, and “hardness”’. However, these mascu-

Style and the performance of skinhead 157 line fantasies are constructed within, and between, locally specific codes of gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity. Moreover, it is argued, performative style practices go beyond providing an ‘imaginary’ or ‘symbolic’ resolution to the structural, and cultural, constraints experienced by respondents (Clarke et al. 1993: 47). While they clearly do not resolve problems inherent in the material relations of respondents’ lives, these style practices, and the pleasures embedded in them, engender bonds and solidarities which facilitate their negotiation. Fighting: ‘the real deal’ Fighting is an essential part of skinhead identity (Moore 1994: 66). Zhenia (2006) understands the importance of fighting, in precisely the way Moore suggests, as a means to confirming and enacting skin commitment: ‘You’re not a skinhead by calling yourself a skinhead and sitting on the sofa. You have to prove yourself on the street.’ Male respondents ‘proved themselves’ by defending the boundaries of skinhead affiliation, as described in Valera and Sergei’s account of the slam dance cited in Chapter 4, or fighting each other in rituals of skin against skin hostilities that confirmed internal hierarchies as well as kept the group in shape and reduced the boredom of ‘doing nothing’ (see Chapter 6 and Figure 6.1). Self-worth as a skinhead was also earned through fighting, as noted in the case of Valera, who felt the street was the only place in which he was treated with respect (see Chapters 3 and 6). Most importantly, however, Valera’s reminiscences convey the deep pleasure of the bonds forged through fighting – the physical sensation of having his ‘lads’ behind him – and the loyalty and respect he himself felt: There were lots of people beneath me, but always a lot above me as well. People like Andrei . . . If they rang and said, ‘We need you, quickly, right now’, then basically in five minutes I’d be there, whatever . . . I’d be up for it . . . I’d do it because I respect Andrei as – fuck it, he’s the main man, he’s high up, he’s achieved a lot . . . I’d always be happy [to act] for him. For him I’d rip anybody’s head off, I wouldn’t give a fuck how old or how big they were. I wouldn’t give a fuck. And if they rip my head off, fuck them. That’s how it is. Fuck it. Andrei’s the real deal. (Valera, 2006) As discussed in Chapter 6, the victims of these practices are a range of ‘others’ – ethnic minorities, other ‘subcultural’ groups with ‘softer’ masculinities, especially rappers and punks, or just other gangs that are up for a fight or, as evident from the excerpt above, who had crossed skinhead leaders. The enactment of these ‘hard’ masculinities comes also at the expense of internal ‘others’, as is evident in the effort expended to exclude skinhead girls from the performative aspects of style:

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The meaning(s) of skinhead . . . If a girl says she wants to go and prove herself? Personally I didn’t let my girl go anywhere. Because I was genuinely worried about her. What if something suddenly went wrong? We kind of agreed that I would go with them, the girls, but that I wouldn’t interfere if something took off. And so we went. And they kind of eyed someone up. But basically nothing came of it. I just laughed at them. And they said that they wouldn’t go with me again. (Zhenia, 2006)

The individual strategies adopted by female members of the group have been noted in earlier chapters of the book. After failing to ‘prove’ herself, Masha – Zhenia’s former girlfriend referred to in the excerpt above – appeared to accept that it was better to forego participation in these actions ‘because a girl is an extra burden for the lads’ (Masha, 2006), and this allowed her to carve out a distinctive space for herself in the group (see Chapter 3). Lida, in contrast, adopted a strategy of involving herself in modes of ‘direct action’ – intimidation and the production and distribution of racist and anti-Semitic propaganda – that made a strong ideological point but fell short of the use of physical violence (see Chapter 6). Lera – the only female respondent both to recount her own participation in violent racist attacks (see Chapter 6) and to say she herself ran a ‘brigade’ (see Chapter 3) – continued the struggle to assert her right to a street presence. But her attempts to gain a position of authority within the Vorkuta skins came to nothing, a fact she herself attributed to the resistance of a particular male skinhead for whom performative style was incompatible with femininity: There is a person in Vorkuta who really doesn’t like me – [he thinks] how can a girl be in the movement, let alone have her own brigade? And have her own ideas about how things should be done – how can that be? ‘You, you are a girl, you should stay at home, have children.’ And I go, ‘I’m still a bit young for that.’ And he goes, ‘No, it’s not right, there shouldn’t be any girls.’ We have really clashed badly about this. (Lera, 2006) It is tempting to read this policing of the boundaries of the male performance of skinhead as simply an extension of wider processes of remasculinisation in post-Soviet society (Watson 1993). However, just as Nayak (1999: 95) discerns a paradox in the way his skinhead respondents’ ‘highly sculpted white ethnicities . . . were founded on pale imitations of black culture’, so too the hyperbolic displays of aggressive masculinity among Vorkuta skins are rooted in bonds of trust, loyalty, emotion, mutual support and cooperation that are widely associated with the bonds between women – bonds which form a continuum between, rather than dichotomise, the ‘homosocial’ and the ‘homosexual’ (Sedgwick 1985: 3). The profound pleasure experienced in these bonds, over and above that attached to the fighting practices them-

Style and the performance of skinhead 159 selves, moreover, allude to the precariousness of the hard masculinities performed through them. Tattoos and piercings: pleasure through pain By 2006–7, street fighting and violence had ceased to be routine practices within the group and had been replaced by other ritual practices of masculine intimacy. These included showering together, sparring, the imitation of homosexual relations, and striptease demonstrations accompanied by demonstratively homophobic statements designed to establish a publicly visible line between the homosocial7 and the homosexual (see Chapter 8). More pertinent to the question of the performative style of skinhead, however, was the increasingly central role of tattooing, and subsequently piercing, to group practices. The decreasing inclination outlined above to display skinhead affiliation visually was accompanied by the articulation of skinhead by respondents as something that was an indelible part of one’s being rather than a surface covering to be adorned and displayed. The tattooing of skinhead symbols and slogans was an integral part of this shift (see Figures 7.6 and 7.7 as well as Figure 7.5 above). Valera had acquired his swastika tattoo in prison in, as he said, an act of direct defiance to the prison authorities:

Figure 7.6 Swastika tattoo acquired in prison Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

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Figure 7.7 Kolovrat tattoo Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

I ended up in prison and they started imposing their fucking restrictions on me. You can’t do this, you can’t do that . . . Basically, they beat us fucking all the time, constantly fucking broke us, in the cells, fuck it. Then I got the swastika done. Basically we had an inspection. We took off our fucking t-shirts, those who fucking could. And we laughed right at them. (Valera, 2006) However, respondents also had non-skinhead tattoos and, in any case, the meanings inscribed in the tattoos themselves are of less importance, it is argued, than the practice of their inscription. This explains why tattoos are considered here as an aspect of ‘performative’ style in contrast to David Moore (1994: 17), who considers them as elements of ‘visual’ style. Tattoos

Style and the performance of skinhead 161 invoke not only skinhead affiliation but the ‘masculine fantasies of . . . prison identity’ (Nayak 2005: 150) or, in Valera’s case, its realities, since the inscription of one’s criminal history and status as well as beliefs, affections, political persuasions and aesthetic tastes on the bodies of prisoners is well established in Russian culture (Condee 1999: 343). Moreover, tattooing was performed primarily within the group and as such formed part of its informal economy (Lera and Viktor, 2006) and contributed to the bonds of mutual trust and dependency that sustained it. In contrast to fighting rituals, tattooing – and the piercing practices that had become common within Slava’s group by 2007 (see Figures 7.8 and 7.9) – did not exclude women. Female members of the group themselves both sported tattoos and took part in tattooing.8 Nonetheless, tattooing, piercing and shaving each other’s heads involved rituals that clearly demonstrated the performative significance of male bonding and, like fighting (Valera, 2006), its pleasure was often experienced through pain (Lera, Lida and Viktor, 2006). The ‘multiple masculine fantasies of existence’ (Nayak 2005: 150) articulated by these respondents through skinhead style are not simply replicas of those identified elsewhere, but are constructed within, and between, locally specific codes of gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity. A crucial difference between the UK and the Vorkuta context, for example, concerns class

Figure 7.8 Piercing practices Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

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Figure 7.9 Shaving each other’s hair Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

location and labour identity. In sharp contrast to Nayak’s respondents, whose performance of skinhead was enacted within a context in which manual labour was a fantasy (ibid.),9 Vorkuta skins articulated a profound ambivalence towards their class location. Like prison, hard physical labour is articulated by Valera in terms of physical pain and longing for release: On Saturdays and Sundays I’m off. But it’s just these 12 hours, you really fucking feel them. An hour goes by and you’re already thinking about finishing work. Two hours go by, three hours . . . and then after a while you get used to it. So six hours have gone by and you’re thinking, you’re thinking about the work, thinking that you’ve actually fucking done something. But your strength is going, you feel that constantly. You’ve

Style and the performance of skinhead 163 only just started and already you’re shattered. You’re walking and everything hurts. You wake up hurting all over, it’s hard to breathe. That’s real work. That’s, that’s just what I want. For me, for some reason, the harder the better. (Valera, 2006) For Valera, the battered body symbolises the ‘real work’ to which one, almost masochistically – ‘the harder the better’ – subjects oneself. Moreover, he is alone in his pain, since the old solidarities, once organically inscribed in the ‘heroic labour’ performed in the Vorkuta mines, have been replaced by the lonely relations of ‘mutual extraction’ (Pilkington and Sharifullina 2009) of Russia’s born-again capitalism. Their loss is expressed through a resentment of ‘other’ labour inscribed with different gender and ethnic codes: Why at the markets – interesting, isn’t it – why do they [non-Russians] only trade at the markets? Why don’t they go down the mines, for example? . . . Because it’s easy money. You sell your watermelons, work for so long there, and you can already look after some brother or other. You get your brother to come here and he can take over from you while you sleep. He’ll sell the watermelons and you can sell something else while he sleeps. That’s how they multiply. (Roman, 2006) Minimal, masculine, ‘productive’ labour, according to Roman’s logic, allows maximum, feminine, ‘reproductive’ labour. The implication of the sexual prowess of the ethnic ‘other’ does not equate to the emulation of black, street masculinities that Nayak (1999: 94) identifies among skins in the West Midlands, however. What Roman struggles to suppress is rather the desire for the solidarity he associates with non-Russian ethnic groups that allows you effectively to make money while you sleep. This is mirrored in Artem’s story in 2006 of how, during military service, his friend had witnessed a group of ten ‘Azeris’ reduce 100 ‘Russians’ to their knees; with the same concealed envy, Artem explains this as a result of ethnic minority groups being ‘more united’ and prepared ‘always to stick together’, while Russians just ‘look out for themselves’. Skinhead style cannot resolve the structural and cultural constraints experienced by respondents, but it offers them an alternative, more outwardlooking strategy for creating solidarities than the semi-criminal street gangs in which most of the male respondents had spent their early teenage years (see Chapter 4). Its performative practices aggressively enact a particular constellation of labour, gender and ethnic identity at the expense of ethnicised, classed and gendered ‘others’. At the same, these style practices engender emotions, pleasures and bonds that destabilise aspects of the naturalised notions of gender, ethnicity and class upon which they rest.

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Conclusion Reviewing the historical and transnational development of the skin movement over the last 40 years, Brown (2004: 160) maintains, ‘skinhead is, above all else, a style community’. Based on the findings from the research conducted for this book, however, it has been suggested in this chapter that such a claim papers over important distinctions between style practices and their meanings. It has been argued, rather, that an important distinction must be made between ‘visual’ and ‘performative’ style; that visual style was relatively insignificant to Vorkuta skinheads and became increasingly unimportant over time; and that the performative dimensions of style are experienced as pleasure – and pain – that accrues not only from the practices themselves but from the intimacies, bonds and solidarities they engender. The final question still to be addressed is what this tells us about the meaning of style within skinhead more widely. One possible interpretation of the findings presented is that they confirm the claim that skinhead in contemporary Russia is essentially a mimetic phenomenon; the relative unimportance of style for this particular group might be explained by the fact that they were never ‘real’ skinheads in the first place. This conclusion, however, is resisted on two grounds. Firstly, such ‘authenticity’ is in itself spurious; as Hebdige (1982: 33) points out, ‘real skins are much less coherent then the stereotype’. The style they adopt may hold some ‘objective potential’ to express their values and views, but those views are only partially formed and often contradictory. Secondly, skinhead can no longer be read ‘straight’. Contemporary skinheads worldwide engage with a skinhead style that is not ‘raw’ but in a form pre-encoded in myriad ways. From the outside, stylistic practices are both demonised and eroticised while, from the inside, their resistive potential is recognised to be no more than symbolic. The ‘defensive retreat’ into whiteness is undertaken in full consciousness of the fact that, as Lera (2006) put it, ‘they are watching’; indeed, respondents’ anger is directed as much at this ‘they’ – the political establishment – as at the migrant workers or non-Russian minorities against whom their violence is meted out. Thus the first contribution to the wider understanding of the relationship between style and skinhead subculture to be offered by this case study is that, whatever claims and counter-claims to ‘authenticity’ are found in the narratives of skinheads in different times and places, understanding the continued relevance of skinhead requires the acknowledgement of the mediated and reflexive engagement of contemporary skinheads with its style. The second contention is that excessive attention to reading hyperbolic displays of masculinity through visual style may capture spectacular but not necessarily all the key moments in the production of ethnicised, classed and gendered solidarities. The evidence from this research suggests that, once the visual style of skinhead goes backstage, other expressions of bonding, affection and intimacy – the pleasure taken in them and the bonds of trust and

Style and the performance of skinhead 165 loyalty underpinning them – become more tangible. At such moments skinhead style is revealed not as objectively bearing either the subjective orientation of the group or the material conditions that shaped it, but as providing the rituals, foci and action that allow expression for this bonding in what was to respondents a more ‘progressive’ way than was possible via the alternative street and gang cultures available to them. This is not to claim that skinhead style has the potential to subvert or ‘denaturalise’ categories of gender, heterosexuality or race, but that, in its masculine intimacies and coveting of ‘other’ solidarities, it can, nonetheless, reveal their precariousness.

8

In search of intimacy Homosociality, masculinity and the body Elena Omel’chenko

The diverse and contested nature of the contemporary skinhead scene makes it impossible to identify a single common body regime, or set of gender norms, characteristic of the skinhead (sub)culture. The contemporary Russian nationalist form of skinhead ideology might be said to be underpinned by a regime of the body based on the principles of defending the ‘purity’1 of the race or nation, ensuring the ‘pure’ reproduction of the genus, strict adherence to patriarchal norms of family and state constitution, the power and authority of physical force, the moral superiority of the titular ethnic group, the display of ‘real’ masculinity, and an active hostility towards ‘others’. However, even within the Russian Nazi-skinhead movement, individual groups shape their own particular versions of masculinity as well as distinctive fraternal bonds and spaces in which these are enacted. Drawing on the research conducted with the group at the centre of this book, this chapter explores one example of how these fraternal bonds and spaces are constituted. It pays particular attention to practices of the body (individual and collective) within the group2 and how these practices were enacted to confirm its skinhead identity while shaping a particular regime of closeness and intimacy. It considers, firstly, the group as a particular form of fraternity based on homosocial bonds of friendship, closeness and (dis)trust. Secondly, the aesthetics and the ethics of intimacy within the group are discussed. In particular practices of displaying the – naked and bare – body of the skinhead are considered as well as tests of, and conflicts over, the meaning of the intimacies that these practices forge. Finally, the chapter explores these practices in the context of the wider and competing masculinities through which they are enacted.

Creating space for male bonding: fraternity, homosociality and masculinity The group of skinheads at the centre of this study, it is suggested here, is a predominantly male community aspiring to the creation of a closed space separate from women. In this sense it constitutes a contemporary version of the fraternal communities and solidarities – from fishermen or hunters to

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 167 secret Masonic orders, gangster clans or ‘mafia’ – that have taken different historical shapes and forms. Igor Kon’s (2003) study of fraternal bonding and homosociality demonstrates that closed male and female cultures have existed in all human societies but also that men express a stronger aspiration than women to the creation of closed (or partially closed) communities and unions. The borders of such (sub)cultural territories are maintained and regulated via group ideology, bodily regimes, masculine values and cultural models and lifestyles. Biological, evolutionary understandings of institutionalised forms of male communication explain male solidarity as a necessary reaction to danger, a means of overcoming tension caused by male competition for leadership, and a mechanism for the maintenance of discipline and subordination to leadership (Tiger 1969). Anthropological perspectives, in contrast, understand ‘instinctive attraction’ (both sexual and non-sexual) as a core element of primitive social systems and as central to inculcating patriotism and military valour. Hans Bluher (1912, 1917), for example, argues that male solidarity can be traced back to the unarticulated homosexuality among Aryan warriors and suggests that this may underpin many contemporary youth unions and movements. What Bluher is suggesting is that male homoerotic friendship presents itself in a psychological and aesthetic form, which acts as a channel for suppressed (or perhaps non-existent) sexual desire. Of course his claim that such practices exist only among men is questionable; nonetheless, both the connection he makes between male solidarity (based on fraternity) and the occupation of one’s own territory, and his recognition of the homosocial regime that governs it, are interesting. Of course other manifestations of masculinity, not based on gender segregation, exist also (see, for example, Gilmore 1990; Connell 1995) but do not challenge the principle of the aspiration of men to group solidarity. Moreover, male camaraderie retains its significance both as a form of bonding among young people and as a source of nostalgia among adults for ‘real’, male, friendship.3 The male respondents at the centre of this research emphasised the importance of activities and leisure practices in which they could be away, and ‘free’, from women, relax and contravene the rules of etiquette that inhibited them and have the space to vent aggressive feelings and emotions.4 The physical space they had created for this was the zal or basement gym (see Chapter 4), access to which was restricted to those who shared the unspoken rules of bodily control, discipline and performance that governed it (Omel’chenko 2008c). Thus, at one level the zal was a space regulated by codes of normative masculinity circulating within the fraternity: aspiration to the physically perfect male body (as defined by muscularity, reactive speed, beauty and hygiene), the demonstration of physical and spiritual strength, and heterosexuality. Indeed, as Kimmel (1996: 7) argues, masculinity is inseparable from homosociality since, notwithstanding the importance of relations with women for confirming manhood, it is through homosociality that ‘real’ fraternity is constituted. At the same time, differences in the use of the zal – which provoked the

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conflict between Andrei and Slava described in Chapter 3 – signalled a more fundamental divergence in understandings of acceptable and unacceptable homosocial bonds within two rather different versions of ‘real’ masculinity circulating in the group and embodied by Andrei and Slava respectively. For Andrei (2007) the zal was a space for physical training. The initiative for gaining access to the basement had been his, and it was a matter of particular pride that it was equipped to a comparatively high standard: These two months I worked and then spent [the money] – I bought a CD player [for the gym]. I put in a punch bag, with my own money. I bought a lot of stuff for doing martial arts. It cost me practically 10,000. I mean I ripped myself off – 10,000 is not small change. And I invested it in the gym . . . I bought equipment. (Andrei, 2006) In contrast, for Slava, the focal point of the gym was not the training room but the common room. It was Slava’s group who had furnished this part of the zal, and Sergei took responsibility for keeping it clean. Here people just hung out – listened to music, messed around, drank and sometimes slept, and this everyday life of the group was punctuated with intimate (routine and demonstrative) bodily relations. The lads carried each other in their arms, lay down beside each other, embraced, bared their backsides to each other, imitated homosexual intimacy, and showered together (Figures 8.1 and 8.2). This physical closeness – embracing, kissing, touching – was distanced from ‘real’ homosexuality, and thus legitimised, through the employment of critical, ironic commentaries which protected both participants in, and ‘witnesses’ of, these practices from accusations of excessive softness, femininity and homosexuality. The example of Valera was also often used to mark the boundaries of the acceptable, since he was seen by others as displaying unmasculine weakness, naivety and sensitivity. Valera left the Olympic.5 I didn’t see when. I sent him a text wishing him bon voyage. Incidentally, at the Olympic Pasha6 and Vova began to make fun of the excessive attention shown by Valera’s boss to him – ‘to go from a worker to a foreman in something like a month – why so quick?’ They were inferring some homosexual link – that it was ‘not for nothing’ that his boss had offered to let Valera move into his flat when he returned from Moscow. (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 26 September 2007) The fact that homosociality gives rise simultaneously to homoeroticism and homophobia is documented by Kimmel (1996: 8), who argues that homophobia expresses fear not so much of homosexuals as of exposure as not ‘real’ men by other men. It is a lack of self-confidence in one’s own masculinity, it

Figure 8.1 The common room Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

Figure 8.2 Legitimate closeness Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

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follows, that encourages the acquisition and display of hyperbolic symbols of masculinity. Thus, sexual success with women is often not important to men in and of itself but only as evidence of superiority over other men. This is articulated in the following excerpt from an interview with Sergei in which male superiority is described as emanating not from (hetero)sexual prowess but from ‘male’ activities: the ownership of a car, strength, power, money and male ‘back-up’: SERGEI:

A car for me is everything. You don’t even need a girl if you have a car. . . . you have to be strong, a car and that’s all . . . a girl is the last thing I need. INTERVIEWER: And what does being strong mean? SERGEI: Well some people want to be beefy, I mean big. I want to be strong but not big. . . . It is better to be small but robust . . . Strength doesn’t mean anything now. Before it was good, before strength meant something, but now it’s no longer a case of those who are strong are right. Now someone small can just get out his phone and ‘the brothers’ roll up . . . They mess up your face, take your money, car, take whatever you have . . . They let you know where you stand. It doesn’t matter whether you are big or small. (Sergei, 2006) Thus, although homosociality and homosexuality are deeply entwined, it is important not to deduce one from the other or reduce one to the other.7 Regardless of the contradictory and sometimes provocative nature of the bodily practices of the respondents discussed here, talk of any latent homosexuality would be inappropriate. The homosocial bonds constructed within the group nonetheless carry a paradox within them. The verbal and bodily communication that underpins the male camaraderie among respondents maintains group unity, forges a sense of collectivism and compensates for the desire to separate themselves more concretely from the surrounding world. It creates this space for legitimate intimacy and solidarity, however, only by simultaneously constructing defensive barriers against everything that might appear feminine (weak, soft, homosexual). In so doing it also partially undermines the relations of trust upon which that communication is based.

The aesthetics and ethics of intimacy: practices of the collective and the individual body Bodily practices varied across the group, referencing a range of familiar ‘classic’ constructions of the skinhead body formed, reworked and reproduced by respondents through their encounters with them in the media. These constructions certainly included ideas, actively developed within the ideology of national socialism, of the ‘hard’ male body standing over the ‘soft’ female body, and references to national socialist bodily codes were

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 171 present in the performance of our respondents; fascist symbols (such as the swastika or the number 88) or various Nordic symbols were incorporated into tattoos, greeting practices, slogans and rhetoric (see Chapter 6). These constructions also included representations of first-wave skinhead, and its roots in the British working-class community of the late 1960s, and media, police and other official representations of the contemporary Russian skinhead. The latter emphasised the shaven head, violence and excessive heterosexual aggression of the skinhead,8 and often drew heavily on images of the gopnik (see Chapter 4, note 4) body. Among the male respondents in this study, however, the ideal body was not the pumped body of the gopniki or ‘brothers’ (associated with the semi-criminal gang formations of postperestroika Russia), since that body should not only be strong and muscularly developed but also flexible – a body equipped not only for fighting but for rationality, thought and pragmatism. Moreover, respondents in this study did not seek to emulate completely the ‘classic’ skinhead style but adapted and reworked this image in a way that was concordant with wider youth cultural fashions and scenes and workable within their own particular cultural strategies. The healthy and beautiful body The degree to which the particularly monstrous forms of the cult of the athletic body in Nazi Germany have been adopted within contemporary skinhead ideology is a complex question, and to draw direct parallels between Nazi aesthetics and the cultural symbolism of a single skinhead group in Russia at the beginning of the twenty-first century would be wrong. However, the presence of individual elements of it – such as the striving for a strong, healthy and beautiful body – should also not be ignored. Almost all respondents expressed the desire to maintain a good physical form, although their means of achieving this varied widely. Andrei and Vasia were the keenest sportsmen, although Sergei also took bodily aesthetics relatively seriously and sought to gain mass with the help of dietary supplements as well as adopting a daily training programme: SERGEI:

. . . I’m trying to gain weight now. I eat various proteins, protein substances. I always have that kind of food. INTERVIEW: And what’s the point? SERGEI: The point is that it’s protein. I think I just need a couple more weeks and then that will be it, into the gym. I’ll start in the gym, just burn it off, and then you get a good physical shape . . . I do it for myself, for my beloved self . . . (Sergei, 2006) For Roman (2007) the process was more spontaneous; he did not chart his weight and fat levels regularly and wavered between periods when ‘you are

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Figure 8.3 Bodily aesthetics Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2006

spending all your time working on your health, trying to keep to a plan’ and others when ‘you do nothing and then suddenly remember’. His training was also sporadic; he worked out primarily not in the zal but while on duty at work – doing weights and using the punch bag when the opportunity arose. Slava (2007) differentiated himself from others in the group by claiming that he had never really bothered with boxing training. While physical exercise was important, he considered his job, in the power station, to be sufficient for this and, if he felt like training, he could use a recently opened gym at work. Zhenia was also pragmatic about physical shape; although it was important to be fit enough to be able to defend yourself, he had little time for sport or weights training and chose not to prioritise a beautiful body over other everyday pleasures:

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 173 I don’t set myself the goal of body building so that . . . I have a figure like Schwarzenegger . . . I’m not bothered about that. I know people who have good bodies but they are awkward and inflexible because of their weight. (Zhenia, 2006) Equally important as training the body was displaying it. This was evident in the respondents’ engagement in adorning the body through tattooing, piercing and dressing practices. Thus, in the following extract, Sergei denies that beauty is dependent on one’s natural physical shape and argues that the body can be made beautiful through aesthetic modification: No, well height, what’s height, why height? Everyone makes their own choices. For me, I dunno, I like everything. I want to train a bit more, maybe get another piercing somewhere, get a tattoo done, I don’t know, do something else, get a haircut, colour . . . (Sergei, 2006) As noted in Chapter 7, tattoos and piercings were undertaken only partially as a public confirmation of belonging to skinhead ideas and symbols. They were also practices that were painful and risky and thus sites of the testing of character and spirit; indeed such testing was directly connected to respondents’ understanding of what constituted the beautiful body. The procedures themselves (as well as scars from fights and self-inflicted wounds) were ways of working on one’s body, painting the body, to reveal the aesthetics of the bared, open male body, whose very openness signalled cold, hard (notfemale) beauty. Working on the body in this way also makes it available for viewing by others. The symbols of strength and hardness remove it from the danger of homosexual loving and make the body a work of ‘pure’ art, thus allowing men to feel themselves to be the subject rather than object of the process. Slava – for whom piercing and tattoos were the most important attribute of male beauty – explains his passion for piercing in this way: SLAVA:

Getting a piercing or a tattoo, for me, all that’s really cool. How else can you be beautiful? I don’t know how else . . . by dressing well? I guess everyone likes to dress beautifully . . . getting a tan? No, what’s the point of getting a tan? INTERVIEWER: And what kind of piercing do you like? SLAVA: Any really . . . everything you can pierce, just everything. (Slava, 2007) After having first pierced his own eyebrow, Slava recounted how he had ‘started to pierce everybody everywhere’, boasting not only that people liked the way he did it but that he did it ‘free of charge’, or at least in return for no

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more than a beer. He also continued to experiment on himself, trying, for example to pierce his nipples with an ordinary needle: SLAVA:

[I used] an ordinary needle when doing myself. When I tried to pierce my nipples, I got a bit more than half way, probably got as far as the nerve canal, and then thought I’d stop there . . . I did it without anaesthetic, without anything, just decided to have a go, to see how it would feel. Without anaesthetic, without anything, just like that . . . I’m not bothered by that. It’s fun, it’s interesting to find out what it’s like. You know what I’d really like to do – I want to hang myself, to string myself up [laughs], you know by hooks. . . . by hooks, by the back, and you are pulled up, pulled up on chains, by the arms and back. INTERVIEWER: Is it the pain you want to experience? SLAVA: People just say it’s brilliant, you probably get such a high . . . I’ve read about it and seen . . . They say at first you just feel pain and then a real ‘whoosh’. (Slava, 2007) Roman had also experimented with piercing to understand what it felt like rather than for the aesthetic effect, and he described the sensation by contrasting it to tattooing: Tattoos and piercing are different sensations. Getting a tattoo is a long and irritating feeling. Then you get used to it. It feels like somebody is slowly and constantly cutting you. It can be painful in places. The pain can sometimes feel routine and then suddenly they do something, and your head begins to hurt if the process goes on too long. I’ve had big ones done. On my arm, my leg. I don’t really like small ones, the big ones look more beautiful. . . . I think I’ll stop on one arm. I don’t think I want to be too covered. In the future somebody might not like them. (Roman, 2007) No less important for the bodily performance of the young men in the group was dressing up for outings to clubs, cafes and restaurants. As evident from the following excerpt from a conversation between Slava and Egor as they prepared for heading out to a club, the key to dressing correctly were clean (as far as possible) and fashionable clothes, hair and smell. The context of this conversation was Slava’s request to his friend to bring him his white t-shirt to go out in.9 When Egor responds that it is dirty, Slava asks him to ‘refresh’ it by spraying it with deodorant, at which Egor takes offence, saying that he is ‘no punk’ who goes round spraying sweaty t-shirts with deodorant: SLAVA:

No but I’m a punk, okay, refresh it, here smell this . . . At work I get so used to this sweat. I love this sweat at work. I sweat like a pig . . . EGOR: You work right next to me and I can’t bear it – get away.

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 175 SLAVA: Okay just bring me the white t-shirt. EGOR: I’ll give you a clean white t-shirt. SLAVA: Okay, fine.

(Slava and Egor, 2007) This pride in the ‘honest’ sweat of the working man is reinforced by Slava’s later revelation (2007), in response to the researcher’s questioning about how he manages to shave patterns in his hair, that ‘I wash all parts of my body, even my hair, with household soap’, evoking a Soviet, and working-class, mythology of the superior properties of simple, household soap not only for combating the smell of sweat but also, for example, for making your hair grow better. Thus understandings of the beautiful body within the group may draw on national socialist aesthetics and images of the contemporary skinhead ‘warrior’, but they are not wholly defined by them. Indeed, the body was imbued with different meanings for individual members of the group. For some the trained body demonstrated one’s ideological conviction and preparedness for battle; the importance of training, in this case, related to the process – showing strength of character – rather than the aesthetic outcome. For others, taking care of one’s body was central to the construction of selfrespect and incorporated a certain narcissism. For others still, a strong body had pragmatic value, since good money could be earned by acting as a ‘third party’ in the resolution of others’ disputes (see Chapter 4). In all cases, however, ideals of the physically trained, strong, masculine body were combined with recognition that physical strength should be accompanied by intellectual, spiritual and moral strength and an interest, and pleasure, in the body as a site of aesthetic modification. The vulnerable body One consequence of the constant preparation of the body to fight, or to face danger, is the expectation of attack and thus a sense of profound, and bodily, vulnerability. Participation in mass fights and aggressive group practices allowed individual skinheads to overcome this vulnerability through their sense of attachment to a grander, ‘collective’ body. Reich (1972: 199) suggests this feeling is particularly important in adolescent years as a means of concealing the adolescent body, and its sexual desires, in the crowd and, in this way, sublimating sexual desire to the belief in the collective ideal. The danger and physical closeness of skinhead practices such as fighting evoke not only aggression in the collective body – directed at the common enemy – however, but also a certain tenderness. This is also seen in collective practices of army or prison life, where routines of living together, sleeping together, washing together can not only be experienced as humiliating or awkward but may also be imbued with a physical closeness emanating from shared feelings of fear, hatred or battle spirit. They give rise to a mutual attachment and

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silent psychological intimacy unthinkable in other situations. This experience is intimated in Valera’s description of his experience in prison just before he recounts the collective ‘resistance’ in which he and his cellmates had engaged by revealing their swastika tattoos (see Chapter 7): Now, I . . . want to say what I feel, I have nobody to tell what I feel. . . . I was beaten even when I was lying there handcuffed, crying. I lay on a concrete floor for two days, with my hands behind my back and they just beat me . . . I cried, I begged them to fucking stop . . . It hurt so much, everything hurts, and you think, that’s it, why the fuck was I born? Prison is tough . . . You are in cuffs . . . They like that. You see them fucking smiling, laughing. You can hear it all. You just want to cry. . . . It was like that every day – every day. (Valera, 2006) Out of these shared experiences and practices there emerges a ‘direct’ trust – that is, a trust tested in real collective danger (not in words), a confidence in each other. For the group discussed here, however, by 2006–7 the shared experiences of real fights were largely in the past, and the young men substituted for the lack of experience of joint battle with forms of collective practices of a primarily communicative nature. However, their demand for unarticulated attachment and the collective overcoming of bodily vulnerability were retained. This can be seen in routine practices of training, sparring and communal showering. As is evident from the researcher’s description below of her discomfort, while for the lads the shower served the purpose of confirming trust, for her, as an outsider in the group, the practice compounded her sense of vulnerability: When they took me into the shower, I expressed my concern about it. . . . They (Slava and Sergei) said that it was great in their shower, that I should come in with them, and gave me a towel. I didn’t know where to look. I tried to get out of it by saying I had my period, but that didn’t work – they said I could leave my pants on. I couldn’t get out of it. I stood and thought for a while, and then undressed . . . They were sitting on a square rubber floor mat. I sat down next to them, pulled my knees up to my chest and put my arms across my chest. Slava noticed my piercing and asked me to show it to him. I stood up, covering my chest with my arm. He said there was no point covering myself because everything was visible anyway. I took my arm away. They commented that my belly-button piercing was too short for my body size. Slava began to recount how they had fought with some Caucasians. As an aside he said that that was all in the past and he wasn’t going back to it and then changed the subject. They had dragged the tape deck over into the shower too – the radio was on. They danced a bit to some track. I

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 177 held back. The dancing consisted of energetic jumping – I said to myself, thank goodness they have their backs to me. Then they sat under the shower again. They said that this was only the beginning – now we would run outside and lie in the snow. We ran through the whole gym, ran out into the yard, ran behind the parked cars and flopped down in the snow. It was minus 20 degrees outside. We ran back into the gym and went straight into the hot shower. We sat and warmed up. Slava said that he had to get up at 7 in the morning for work – it was already half one. Then we poured water on to us from the hose and sat under the warm currents. Sergei said that this – showering together – was very important to them. [He said] The girls had never gone in with them, but I had agreed, which was great. We sat under the hot water again and talked about music . . . (El’vira Sharifullina’s diary, 9 November 2006) On the one hand such demonstrative practices constitute tests of the researcher and homoerotic provocations of one another. On the other hand, however, the demonstration of one’s body in this way constitutes bodily, intimate proof of trust and reconstitutes the collective body in which one’s individual bodily vulnerabilities can be submerged. The nude and the naked body: homophobia and homoerotica For the male respondents, baring their bodies was a core part of the group’s (sub)cultural norms. However, these practices were not directly linked to professed ideologies; indeed, although fascist aesthetics celebrated artistic male nudity, real, everyday nudity, even nude bathing, was prohibited and equated with homosexuality.10 More important here is probably the postSoviet Russian cultural context in which, as a result of wide dissemination of erotic images in advertising, as well as the active publicising of images of new masculinity by the pop industry, the male body has started to win the right to be an object and not only a subject – to display itself and not only to act. The particular practices of nudity of the respondents discussed here were, sometimes, demonstrative and consciously engaged with these images (Figure 8.4). More often, however, they were simply routine (Figure 8.5). Perhaps more useful in understanding the bodily practices of the group, therefore, is Igor Kon’s (2003: 248–9) differentiation between the ‘nude’ (nagoe) and ‘naked’ (goloe) body. Kon writes that art historians and social scientists differentiate between the ‘naked’ or undressed body and the ‘nude’ body as a social and aesthetic construct, whereby the body is consciously put on show for a particular purpose and is posed for the outside observer. Consequently the nude body may be erotic while the naked body is sexual. This distinction allows us to recognise clear elements of homoerotica in the practices of the respondents in this study while recognising that they themselves distinguished between the naked body, which made the individual feel vulnerable and humiliated, and the nude bodies they displayed, which remained controlled by the subject.

Figure 8.4 Reflexive nudity Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2006

Figure 8.5 Routine nudity Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 179 Interpreting the practices of baring their bodies to one another among the male members of the group is further complicated by the fact that the practices witnessed or participated in by the researchers de facto meant that they had been performed for, or in the context of, the gaze of the (female) researchers. This is particularly intriguing in the case of the collective showering described above, where the researcher, as not only female but also as not fully included into the group’s cultural practices,11 could not be ‘trusted’ to view their bodies in a non-sexual way. If the intent was not to elicit a sexual gaze, perhaps the opportunity was exploited to subvert the constant, and controlling, gaze of the researchers (see Chapter 9) by providing both bodily evidence of their physical hardness and strength and a means of overcoming their positioning as the object rather than subject of communication with the researchers. This chapter has demonstrated how group members moved smoothly between homoerotic practices (communal showering, imitation of homosexual acts, striptease), the routine demonstration of tactile, intimate, caring and tender relations with one another, and declarations of homophobia.12 These observations confirm existing arguments made in feminist and queer theory regarding the complex and contradictory interrelations and oppositions between homosocial practices accepted in closed male communities, especially criminal and aggressively oriented groups, and homophobic feelings, whose demonstration is central to the maintenance of images of ‘real’, hard men. In the context of closed, oppositional and conspiratorial groups, it is suggested, the meaning of intimacy and tactility between men is rearticulated, becoming evidence of trust and strength rather than weakness and subordination.

Masculinities: images and realities The apparently complex and contradictory movement between the homophobic and homoerotic in the practices of the group are indicative of a broader ambiguity in the constructs of masculinity employed by them. To understand the masculinities at work, however, we need to move beyond a simple understanding of contemporary masculinity as an outcome of the apparent peripheralisation of men in the post-Soviet system, which drove them into the ranks of various pro-nationalist movements.13 Although social change is extremely important for the construction of gender, theories of socialisation pay insufficient attention to how individuals resist socially and culturally dominant determinations of masculinity, as well as how and why people transform the meaning of gender categories. In addition to social drivers of change in male behaviour, a significant role in the construction of ‘the self’ by men is played by discursive constructions of masculinity. In this sense all men are subjected to the expectations of hegemonic masculinity, even though few if any men actually conform to these expectations (Dellinger 2004; Messerschmidt 2000). Thus the majority of men support the

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maintenance of socially constructed gender differences because, according to Connell (1987, 1995), it brings them ‘patriarchal dividends’.14 Moreover, even men who have a marginal or subordinate position rarely support the full deconstruction of the gender order because they continue to gain from their status as ‘men’ as long as maleness and masculinity are constructed as different from, and superior to, the female and feminine (Whitehead 2002). Thus, notwithstanding internal nuances, contemporary academic research generally concurs that masculine identities are constructed through discourse, and associated discursive practices, which legitimate male dominance over women and the domination of some men over other men. This explains why masculine subjectivity today is neither uniform nor stable but in a constant process of creation and negotiation (Collinson and Hearn 1994, 2005). Of particular importance to the discussion here are the links between social constructs of masculinity and nationalism, since, according to Enloe, nationalism typically emerges out of ‘masculinised memory, humiliation and hope’ (Enloe 1990, cited in Bird 2006: 22). Thus nationalism entails an ideal masculinity in which its own national identity is represented as strong, bold, independent and mature, in contrast to other men who are weak, passive and primitive. Men – as colonisers, imperialists and nationalists – construct ‘other’ men as not-real men (Banerjee 2005: 1–19). Nationalism also invariably includes a system of normative prescriptions about the role and place of women. Such a construct of ‘other’, incorrect, non-men was reproduced, albeit differently, in the narratives of both male and female respondents in this study. Female respondents were concerned primarily with the ‘inappropriate’ (sexually motivated) way in which (ethnically) ‘other’ men related to women. Actual encounters with such behaviour focused on interactions in public places, such as the local market. From her experience, Lera concludes (2006) that ‘I’ve never come across one who behaved properly, who didn’t behave crudely’, while Galia complains (2006) that ‘no Russian man would think he could say to a woman, or a girl, “Hey, gorgeous! Come here, let’s introduce ourselves, let’s go out!” . . . But there, the khachiki . . . don’t think twice about doing that . . . ’ However, one of the girls recounted an incident from her own childhood which, she said, had profoundly shaped her attitude to ‘other’ men: I don’t like blacks, really don’t like them, because, how all this hatred began? When I was 11 years old a black tried to rape me. It was in the entrance way to my own block of flats. If it hadn’t have been for my neighbour, I just don’t know how it would have ended. I was 11 years old and afterwards it was simply like . . . from that sad personal experience. Because they are pushy. They behave like, I dunno, in Russia, on our territory . . . (Masha, 2006)

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 181 The narratives of the male members of the group, in contrast, centred around the inappropriateness of any – including mutually desired – relations between Russian girls and ‘non-Russians’, especially those from ‘the Caucasus’. Moreover, the ‘blame’ for such relationships was generally attributed to the (Russian) girl, who ‘is after money and a car, not the person’.15 Such views were often highly aggressively articulated and characterised by an absolute certainty of the justification of violent intervention. These views were further justified by reference to authoritative texts circulating within the skin community in which such relations are portrayed as selling ‘the white body and the white soul’. Referencing Nesterov (2004), for example, Andrei (2006) described how he would respond to encountering a Russian girl going out with a Caucasian man: ‘I wouldn’t do anything to the Caucasian, but I would stick a knife to the girl’s throat. Because you should beat up the one who is pregnant from a black first, you should kill her first.’ Of course these articulations have to be seen in the context of both the wider anti-miscegenation ideology of the group (see Chapter 5) and gender relations within and outside the group (see Chapter 3). Moreover, any idea of a simple reproduction of a ‘hard’ version of nationalist (racist) masculinity within the group is complicated by evidence of the internal contestation of those constructs. The research revealed competing masculinities, clustering around different versions of masculinity associated with the two leaders – Andrei and Slava (see Figures 8.6 and 8.7). Fragments of this racist ideology were articulated in both, but in neither did any ideal type of the male coloniser emerge. Andrei’s version of hard masculinity is rooted in the celebration of male logic and rationality: . . . what is being hard [brutal’nii]? It’s something extreme, do you understand? I consider myself mainstream [tsentrovii] because I base everything on logic . . . The golden middle . . . some may consider the golden middle to be when you sit quietly, work, you know, but for me the golden middle is my philosophy, because I see it as all logically grounded and therefore mainstream, and any deviation is not logically grounded and so can be considered to be extreme. Do you understand? (Andrei, 2007) This is particularly well illustrated in one piece of dialogue between Andrei and one of the researchers, in which Andrei sets out a common argument for the right of strong men to dominate weaker ones and for the need to ‘cleanse’ the male ranks of the latter in particular. What is interesting here is the way in which normative masculinity is reproduced not only in the content of the argument but in the mode of its elaboration, which is punctuated with verbal statements of the respondent’s (male) superiority (intellectual, logical) over his (female) interlocutor: ANDREI:

I’m no romantic, . . . but I’m going to become a soldier.16 . . . I

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really think that we should shoot any cripples straight away, kill them, throw them off a cliff . . . those kind of people shouldn’t exist in the world. INTERVIEWER: But if they do . . . ANDREI: There shouldn’t be men like that . . . INTERVIEWER: You really think they should be killed? ANDREI: [pauses] They die themselves. They die anyway because they are weaker . . . are you suggesting educating moral freaks? . . . What kind of soldier? . . . I think my view on this is the only correct one and should be the only one that exists, and the rest should be shot . . . I mean it’s one thing if you are killed under attack . . . at least you retain your manhood, but if you just crawl away like a rat . . . INTERVIEWER: I think that if somebody has been born then you don’t have the right to take his life away . . . ANDREI: How’s that? They do abortions don’t they? People are killed, so many people are killed in the world [pauses] aren’t they? And you’re telling me nobody has the right to take away life. (Andrei, 2007) As the argument progresses, Andrei seeks to undermine the researcher’s position by demonstrating the consistency of his own ‘logic’ while declaring her argument to be invalid because it rests on feminine sentiments. Thus, when the researcher expresses her opinion that ‘any murder is bad’, he responds ‘Why? You’re talking as a woman again . . . ’: INTERVIEWER: Why do you say that is talking like a woman? I don’t get it. ANDREI: Because, well [pauses], a man shouldn’t think like that. He

shouldn’t think like that. There are morons like that, a certain kind – I would say they were half-men, to be precise. There are men, there are women, and there are half-men who think that killing is bad . . . (Andrei, 2007) To drive home his point he constructs a test of logic for the researcher in which he asks her to say how she would respond if faced with an intruder in her house who was about to kill her mother or child, continuing with the scenario until she is left with the option either of appearing to be willing to stand by and let somebody murder her family in cold blood or admitting that, if she could, she would shoot them first. Having succeeded in driving the researcher into a corner, Andrei clarifies his position. For him, he says, ‘murder is not some terrible, absolute sin’. On the contrary, ‘murder is natural and [pauses] even if there is a single person in the world prepared to kill, then you also have to be prepared to kill too [pauses] . . . .’ He concludes the dialogue by declaring he has won the argument, because ‘everything is always logical with me because I am firm in my convictions’. It is evident from this dialogue also that, for Andrei, proper masculinity is

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 183 articulated not only in physical but in mental or spiritual strength. One example of the importance of such spiritual strength is the ability to overcome fear and thus avoid humiliation. This is articulated in another part of the dialogue with the researcher during which the latter admits that she herself is afraid of pain. Andrei again chooses to expose her incomprehensible ‘female logic’ by providing an example of the illogicality (and impermissibility) of fearing pain. Suppose, he argues, a man were to behave like a woman and be prepared for any humiliation in order to alleviate his fear of pain, then he would be prepared to offer himself up to the ultimate humiliation – allow himself to be raped. Thus Andrei imagines, ‘he’d be sitting there and I’d say to him: “Okay, get on with it” – I dunno [pauses] – “bend over [laughs] and take everything off”, and he would reply, “I’m afraid of pain. So yes, of course”.’ Again the dialogue presents a classic example of the construction of dominant masculinity, as the ‘real man’ (the respondent himself) is constructed in relation to weak men – the homosexual and the coward – and women. Slava shared with Andrei a communicative practice which used dialogue not as conversational turn-taking but as an opportunity to argue his position and, in so doing, to convince both the interlocutor and themselves of the rightness of their argument. However, in contrast to that of Andrei, Slava’s

Figure 8.6 Masculinity – the right of the strong Source: Photo given by respondent, 2006

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Figure 8.7 Masculinity – happiness in freedom Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

masculinity is fundamentally rooted not in the assertion of logic and rationality but in a will to independence or, more accurately, non-subordination. This is illustrated, for example, in his anti-authoritarianism and highly critical engagement with the world. While this, as in the case of Andrei, often appeared to necessitate the undermining, or subordination, of others (see Chapter 9), it was accompanied by a capacity for self-criticism and a genuine openness to new ways of viewing the world. Moreover, a ‘real’ man, it appeared, was envisaged not in terms of his physical constitution or mental capacity but in his achievement of a particular emotional state – happiness through freedom. This is expressed succinctly as he describes the impact of having split up with his girlfriend: So look, I like recently, well like I was with Olia, with my girlfriend, well, former [girlfriend]. I’m now without Olia. I’m really happy, happy with life . . . I am so happy in this life . . . it’s just, just fab, I feel just great . . . can you understand? (Slava, 2007) Comparing the different versions of masculinity within the group, it is impossible to discern any hegemonic model. Andrei’s rational male self was not

Homosociality, masculinity and the body 185 unproblematic and was clearly vulnerable in isolation, in the absence of real support and security. Slava’s version of masculinity was constructed on a greater openness and communicativeness and a real desire to understand us and open up himself (see Chapter 9). It was also provocatively erotic. On the edges of the group there were also marginal masculinities; Valera’s need for constant tactile contact with friends and his extreme openness left him somewhat out on a limb, and he clearly sensed a lack of understanding on the part of others. At the same time such alternative masculinities were not suppressed and coexisted alongside those of each individual in the group. This confirms that the fraternity constructed was not subject to any absolute authority of the leader but was forged out of the everyday practices engaged in by a group of individuals, with their own life strategies, in the context of a very particular local environment.

Conclusion The analysis of the practices of masculinity, the body and intimacy among male respondents in this group confirms Kimmel’s (1996: 7) argument that masculinity is profoundly intertwined with homosociality. To some extent, the male world, regardless of the importance of relations with women, remains self-sufficient. However, at the same time, this study suggests that other men are not the sole reference group for the confirmation of masculinity; in this particular case our own presence as women and as researchers revealed the male respondents’ reference to other criteria and markers of selfevaluation. The different strategies of masculinity displayed by the two leaders were shaped and articulated at least partially as a product of their communication with us; they emerged and were reinforced through talking to, and arguing with, us. This included references, in rhetoric at least, to a politically informed notion of ‘correct, hard’ masculinity drawing on respondents’ understanding of Nazi aesthetics. Thus, for example, the idea that the nude body expressed not only muscular but spiritual strength – in line with the principles of Nazi aesthetics – was particularly characteristic of Andrei’s mode of argumentation. A man, in his words, should be ready for action and brutal (to the point of killing the weak). The body of a real man should not experience pain or be wounded or sensitive. Warm, bodily brotherhood between men was important but must be controllable and subject to the direction of the leader (himself). The homoerotic manifestations of this brotherhood, moreover, should be as hard as the body itself and asexual. This masculinity was in particularly sharp contrast to that displayed by Valera, who was soft, sensitive and open and who, despite being aware of his own exploitation within the group, hung on to his role within it since it provided him with an important sense of being needed (see Chapter 3). At the same time, to reduce the observed differences between these masculine performances to our presence alone would be wrong. This was evident from the fact that strategies were constituted not only in verbal declarations

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but in their everyday interactions and practices. Thus, while Andrei sought to maintain a distance and construct a communicative space that he himself controlled (he prepared for his discussions with us, for example), Slava allowed us further into his world and was more open and accessible. Both tested us constantly for honesty, professionalism and the genuine or selfinterested nature of our interest in them. While for Andrei, however, these tests were employed primarily to expose our weakness and vulnerability, Slava used them to measure the degree of genuineness in our communication (see Chapter 9). Either way, they not only articulated but demonstrated their masculinity by firmly putting us in our place – in Andrei’s case through his demonstration of proper, male logic, in Slava’s case through his careful regulation of his warmth and openness to us. If, through these diverse masculine strategies, a common characteristic does emerge, therefore, it is found not so much in claims to physical prowess as in respondents’ belief in their own moral, spiritual and intellectual superiority and the strength they drew from trust and communicative practices within the group. This suggests that, for this group at least, masculinity and skinhead identity were woven together in a way that prioritised the presentation of self not as a skinhead, whom people fear, but as a man, who is understood.

Part 3

Reflections on the research process

9

No right to remain silent? In search of equality in the field Elena Omel’chenko

SLAVA:

No, really, when you come, for some reason we start drinking, the whole group suddenly starts drinking [laughs]. INTERVIEWER: That must be the sociological impact . . . SLAVA: It’s some inexplicable sociological impact. Seriously, the whole group, they all just start drinking. Immediately. (Slava, 2007)

The ethnographic tradition in which this research was conducted requires the nurturing of close and trusting relations between researchers and respondents. Building and maintaining this level of closeness, it transpired, also demanded significant emotional labour from all those involved, since it meant overcoming the mistrust and inequality that haunt the research process. We addressed this by modelling our relations with respondents on the everyday practices of the group itself. We also tried to move beyond a purely formal commitment to ‘equality’ in our relations by recognising the equal right of the respondents to question and ‘research’ us. Adopting such an approach, however, had an unanticipated consequence; our interlocutors persistently expected ‘something extra’ from us and, through tests and provocations, but also demonstrations of affection, turned the research process on its head, making themselves the agents and us the dependents in the research relationship. Whether equal relations in the field can ever be achieved in practice is doubtful; no matter how much effort is expended in trying to communicate ‘naturally’ within a research environment, the right to ask questions, and the right to remain silent when respondents reciprocate with their own, remains firmly with the researcher. The fact is that the research process remains unequal because real inequality exists between participants in terms of their structural location (age, profession, status, gender, expertise, habitus) and their role in the research. Researchers and respondents have different reasons for participating, unequal rights to initiate communication and unequal responsibility for, and ownership over, its results. Notwithstanding these structural obstacles to equal communication, the desire to understand each other’s life strategies and choices, compromises

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and protests, was genuine and mutual. Central to our attempts to understand one another was a series of discussions, arguments, reflections and emotional responses on the question of sociology – its purpose, its ethics and who was able and entitled to conduct it. This chapter draws on those discussions, and in particular on a series of conversations with one of the core respondents – Slava – who not only frequently initiated this topic of conversation but was himself an experienced sociological subject, having been engaged in our research over a period of five years.

Relations with sociologists: bitches and condoms In Slava’s narrative of sociology the sociologist appeared frequently in the guise of ‘bitch’ and the respondent as ‘condom’. The ‘sociologist bitch’1 was someone who wormed their way in everywhere and tried to find out everything and whom it was impossible to shake off. Sometimes Slava’s use of the term simply signalled the gap between our worlds: A sociologist is something incomprehensible. It’s a bitch, that word sociologist, a bitch, an incomprehensible, bitch of a word . . . I tell everyone – [you are] reporters. Everyone goes, ‘Okay, I get you, a reporter’. It’s better to call you reporters than sociologists . . . but a sociologist, what does a sociologist want? (Slava, 2007) When he was in more aggressive mode, however, the ‘sociologist bitch’ – and her instruments of torture – appeared as an object of oppression (see Figure 9.1): This sociologist bitch who’s always on my case, this bloody, bitch of a [tape] recorder, fuck it, this bloody bitch, where is it, show me that camera, fuck it, seriously I . . . I am so used to this bitch, to these bloody, fucking recorders, cameras, fucking hell. . . . (Slava, 2007) The term ‘condom’, in contrast, was used by Slava in 2007 to refer to the use by us – the ‘sociologist bitches’ – of them, the respondents. Although the term was used jokingly, its repetition concealed a suspicion, and a hurt, that our communication with and interest in respondents was motivated only by our research aims. The implication was that the close and trusting relationships that accompanied that communication were temporary – for as long as we needed them – after which, when the condom had served its purpose, it would be thrown away as redundant and somewhat repugnant. In one conversation Slava said that he even found the term ‘respondent’ offensive ‘because it’s the same as condom’. The researchers taking part in this conversation, each in their different way, tried to convince him that our approach to research was

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Figure 9.1 Instruments of torture Source: Photo by Al’bina Garifzianova, 2007

not that utilitarian; we had returned four times to Vorkuta, and our relations were based on genuine mutual interest. Seeking to paint themselves in a good light, the researchers threw in that this was not always the case in sociology and that, in some instances, respondents had to be paid for their participation. This last argument backfired, serving only to confirm Slava’s worst nightmares: ‘So . . . you sociologists also pay for it, what kind of attitude is that? That’s prostitution. I’d rather leave. I’m not going to be a prostitute, I’d rather be a condom than a prostitute. Seriously.’ The use of both terms – bitch and condom – in relation to the research relationships that we had hoped would be as ‘equal’ as possible also has a distinct gender dimension. Both terms have a clear sexual connotation, indicating a mode of communication in which we are positioned first and foremost as women and they as men. We are bitches, they are condoms and,

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having got what we want, we dispose with them. This is evident in the final part of the conversation with Slava: Interviewer: So you don’t care then? Slava: . . . it’s not that I don’t care, but basically for as long as you have been seeing us, as long as we have been seeing you, you are condoms for us just as we are for you. It’s just that you come to us, you take from us, and we give [it] to you. You see? Is that interesting? Interviewer: Brilliant . . . Slava: Brilliant? We’re the same – we are the same as you . . . (Slava, 2007) The parting line – that ‘we are the same as you’ – reveals, however, that this essentialised understanding of gender did not equate, in the minds of respondents, to innate inequality, only innate difference.

The female researcher in a male field: research as a gendered conversation As discussed in earlier chapters, group norms were predicated on a patriarchal gender regime, a circumscribed space for women in the group and hard masculinities. At the same time, as discussed in detail in the previous chapter, an unspoken but manifest sensitivity, emotionality and open bodily intimacy between male members of the group appeared to be, at least in our presence, central to their interaction with one another. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, respondents expressed some consternation that all the researchers, at all stages of the fieldwork, had been women. SLAVA:

Lena, take you, you’re not only a researcher, you’re not a sexless being, are you? You’re a woman. INTERVIEWER: Is that so important to you? SLAVA: Of course it’s important. Why is it that it was always women who came? If it had been a lad, a bloke, he’d have dug up a lot more. I’d have dragged him everywhere with me, I would have taken him to such places. He would have gathered such information for you . . . (Slava, 2007) That Slava genuinely believed that a male researcher would have ‘got more’ is indicative, above all, perhaps, of his particular understanding of the ‘material’ that was sought; he continued to view sociology as essentially an extrapolation of journalism. But it was also indicative of the ‘trouble’ women bring; to Slava’s mind a male researcher would have made everything simpler, for, as he emphasises in a phrase repeated almost as often as that of the ‘sociologist bitch’, sociologists are not ‘sexless beings’. The fact that they saw us as ‘not sexless beings’, and that our conversa-

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tions were perceived outside of the formal framework of the research, is illustrated also by the constant stream of questions from respondents about our age and marital and family status. Yet behind these interactions was a genuine curiosity and interest. Respondents asked about our family situations, husbands, children and friends not least because they found it difficult to imagine how, as women, we could leave families for so long. They read our biographies on the Internet because it was important to them to know what kind of professional status and reputation we had, what books and articles we had written. Moreover, reading back transcripts of conversations, the researchers’ own playfulness, flattery of or even flirtation with respondents became visible. That we viewed ourselves as ‘not sexless beings’ was evident, for example, in coquettish responses – ‘How old do you think I am?’ – to the repeated questions about our age. Indeed, the sustained and close contact with respondents generated real attachments and a desire to know as much as possible about one another. During a particular conversation, for example, Slava asked Al’bina to tell him the ‘most secret and personal things’ about herself. At these moments – and many others when we were asked deeply personal questions that would reveal profoundly private thoughts and feelings – it became clear that research and personal relations had become deeply interwoven and mutually sustaining but also demanding, for, as the fondness and mutual attachment grew, so did the hurts, arguments and expectations.

Friends, relatives or drinking pals? What was it between us? As the quote from Slava that opens this chapter suggests, many of our conversations with informants took place in the context of hanging out in the evening with them and joining them in the drinking that had become a significant part of the everyday practice of the group by 2007. Whether or not our presence did, as Slava jokes, impact on the intensity of these practices is impossible to measure (see Figure 9.2). As the following excerpt from a conversation with Valera suggests, it is more likely that the influence was mutual: INTERVIEWER: I haven’t drunk vodka for two years . . . VALERA: I haven’t drunk for a long time either. I’m not

supposed to drink

vodka. INTERVIEWER: VALERA: No I

Where aren’t you supposed to drink – at work? shouldn’t drink it at all. It does my head in. The day before yesterday I tried drinking vodka – I got drunk and was okay on it . . . But usually – for example we went to the sauna on my birthday and I got drunk on vodka and fell asleep. And when they tried to wake me up, I didn’t fucking recognise anybody and began to lash out at everyone. INTERVIEWER: Well then, cheers! (Valera, 2007)

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Figure 9.2 The sociological impact Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

To some, this might provide further evidence of the dubious ethical nature of the approach to research adopted here and of the need to treat its results with corresponding caution. For us it is suggestive rather of the honesty and equality we sought in relations with respondents and the genuine ambiguities of the field. Yet the question of just what those relationships were – and whether it was possible to recognise the point at which, for example, the participant observer becomes no more than a drinking pal – played on our minds constantly. It was these kinds of questions that we discussed together in the evening; such impromptu ‘seminars’ helped us test our own interpretations of events and provided mutual support and a kind of protective mechanism for our professional identity. The nature of our relationships was something we also discussed with respondents. For Slava (2007) we ‘weren’t family’ but, nonetheless, people to whom he was close (blizkie liudi) – people with whom he could share things and talk to about himself in a way he wouldn’t with others (see Figure 9.3). And the sociologists, you, got involved with us, became closer, that’s all. . . . You took root. We were virtually attacked psychologically, you are armed. Bitches armed with psychology . . . Really, I can seriously say,

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Figure 9.3 People you are close to Source: Photo by El’vira Sharifullina, 2007

I didn’t think about you, but at the same time I remembered you so much! I missed you so much, [missed] Al’bina, who, as you know, is so funny. You know, the kind of person . . . who’s always so, kind of naïve, stupid, a naïve, stupid sociologist . . . (Slava, 2007) The emotional labour required of Al’bina to manage a relationship with a respondent which was, at the same time, intimate in this way but also undermining (constantly challenging to her professional status and confidence) is discussed in the following chapter. However, it was not only Al’bina who needed reassurance of her professional expertise; for Slava too it was important that our relationship with him was both significant and based on something genuinely ‘shared’: Wait, I wanted to ask, did you say that everyone in Region 2 knows me? You mean not only you and maybe one other person there knows me? . . . I mean apart from you here (and Olia), others from Region know me? (Slava, 2007)

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It is not a question of confidentiality that Slava is raising here; on the contrary, he is seeking confirmation of the status that he had acquired through the project.3 Thus the question of what we had become to each other concerned us all. The respondents’ jibes that we used them like ‘condoms’ were mirrored by the researchers’ reproaches that those same respondents saw us as ‘temporary’ or ‘disposable’ friends. We too wanted to be understood, and the longer and closer our communication, the more important to us became their attitude to us as both sociologists and people.

To be or not to be . . . a sociologist During our conversations with respondents, one of the key dilemmas for contemporary sociology emerged spontaneously; if explanatory and predictive forms of sociology have become discredited, what is the sociological mission? Our suggestion that this mission might be not to predict, or even to explain, but simply to understand, Slava considered to be a non-starter. ‘You can’t understand me’, he asserted (2007), because ‘I can’t understand myself even’. At the same time, he was engaged in a constant – almost sociological – mission to understand not only himself but who and what was around him. In the process he adopted a highly self-critical position: To be honest I don’t understand myself, and what I like most about myself is my lack of understanding of myself, that I am not friends with myself. . . . A lot of people are friends with themselves, but not me . . . I adore self-bloody4-criticism . . . (Slava, 2007) He was also profoundly fascinated with the idea of sociology and offered on numerous occasions to work for us and ‘bring’ us a huge amount of any information we liked. Although it is hard to know just how seriously we were meant to take this proposition, during one conversation Slava intimated that the communicative practice of sociology – and the power it gave you – genuinely attracted him: Constantly talking to people. . . . Yeah? So that’s it, if I talk to people, it means I’m a sociologist? Is that what makes you a sociologist, yeah? I go around working out the psychology of every individual and use it to learn everything from him . . . I’d use this sociology to wring every last thing out of him, fuck him to death . . . (Slava, 2007) As this quote indicates, Slava interpreted sociology as involving both the absolute power of the researcher over the research subject but also the opportunity to explore and experiment in life. Thus, whether or not he was serious about trying it as a profession, the intense and close communication we had

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with him (and other respondents) worked to confirm, but in some cases also to overcome, the myths and prejudices about what sociologists did. Above all, however, our conversations elicited a genuine interest in the sociological endeavour.

The sociological impact Towards the end of the fieldwork period, we spent considerable time reflecting on the impact on our respondents of participation in the research. The fact that the group had undergone an irreconcilable split in our presence was a particular cause for concern but, at the individual level too, we wanted to be sure we had inflicted no lasting damage. Respondents’ comments on this question were ambiguous, suggesting either that we had not harmed but we had unsettled them or, on the contrary, that we had never got close enough to even understand them, let alone do any damage. The first conclusion is evident in Slava’s reflections on his engagement with the research: What remains . . . what do sociologists leave behind? Memories of course, and habits . . . A lot of shit! Talking to you, basically . . . the human organism adapts, adjusts itself to things constantly, right? When Al’bina left, it was hard. I kept thinking that she might ring, we’d chat, go out, and that would be enough . . . Here there’s always some, I mean it, some hassle, either we’re meeting, or not meeting, we have to do an interview . . . we have to do this or that. I dunno, if I was a sociologist bitch I’d do it in one bitch of a way. I’d make it really cool for everyone . . . (Slava, 2007) In contrast, Andrei claimed that we had not had any effect at all, either on him or on the group as a whole. I want to ask you something – why should we bother with you? . . . you need us, that’s obvious, we are a source of information for you. But why should we bother with you? We are living our lives and you come along, observing and asking a load of bollocks. Why should I bother with that nonsense? . . . You don’t have any impact. For us it’s just a bit of fun. You are kind of studying us and we [are studying] you. When we meet sometimes we discuss it, have a laugh. It’s just like entertainment – that’s all. No . . . it’s interesting of course, new people and all that, but change? Change what? No, you don’t change anything, you couldn’t . . . (Andrei, 2007) Andrei’s attitude towards the research process had been critical from the start. He also resented the attention paid by researchers to other members of

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the group, considering that this undermined his authority as ‘leader’. To counter this, he sought to conduct conversations with us as ‘equals’ and to insist that he was no less concerned than us, as sociologists, about the situation in the country: What I’m saying is that I’m concerned not only about my personal, selfish problems, about being warm and dry. . . . And you sociologists, why do you travel and study? I’m not a sociologist of course, I don’t put myself on the same level as you, but at the same time I’m also concerned about where our country is going, why this is happening. And, as far as I can, I try to change it. (Andrei, 2006) This concern, he suggested (2006), was also a kind of professional one, since ‘for me being a skinhead is like a profession’. His critical attitude to sociologists, and to us in particular, he explained, was because we had, in his opinion, committed some unforgivable professional mistakes by focusing our interest on the group’s skinhead identity: . . . your only interest is in why I am a skinhead and all that. You have not once tried to find out who I am, what makes me tick, just about my life. Why isn’t that important to you? It turns out I’m more of a sociologist than you. Over this time I’ve learned to be really careful about what I say, to avoid saying anything I shouldn’t, to control myself. You think that you’ve understood stuff about me . . . But it’s not you who are studying us, but we who are studying you . . . (Andrei, 2007) At one level, Andrei was right – the very short, intense periods of fieldwork envisaged in the project meant that the researchers focused disproportionately on gathering material directly relating to xenophobic sentiments and attitudes. On the other hand, it was ironic that Andrei, who, more than any other respondent, sought to exclude us from his own emotional world – which was actually central to our interest – should criticise us for not seeking to know him beyond his ‘professional’, skinhead, self.

Conclusion: equal dialogue or privileged silence? Although the empirical research for this book was finished more than a year ago,5 we continue to debate the methodological questions it raised. Reflecting self-critically, we have questioned our own attempts to seek equality as constituting, perhaps subconsciously, just another experiment whose ‘results’ we could observe. We have alternately worried about what ‘impact’ we might have had on the group and ridiculed ourselves for entertaining such a degree of self-importance. We have relived and discussed our field experiences long

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after our return and then queried the tendency to revel in our post-field emotions and bask in our professional sensitivity. These and many other concerns, however, remain the emotional subtext not only to this chapter but to all our subsequent field research. The question of emotional interactions between researchers and those who allow access to themselves is increasingly debated within sociology. It is now recognised that, in engaging in research, we enter into a distinct kind of relationships requiring reflection on the human baggage, habits, values and ideals that we bring to this communication. Are we ‘infected’ by xenophobic, homophobic or other ‘phobic’ attitudes during our fieldwork, as we subconsciously begin to adopt the values of respondents? Or do we, as participant observers, take such prejudices into the field ourselves? Do we need to elaborate a strategy for managing emotions during research? And how can we learn to use emotionally tainted knowledge? Reflecting on emotions during the field is pointless, after all, if we have no appropriate language for turning the emotional side of research into sociologically useful knowledge and if academic writing continues to demand the eradication of emotions from the published text. The risk for respondents of participating in research is frequently discussed, the risks for researchers less often. At the professional level, emotional engagement risks accusations that the researcher has tainted his or her ‘data’. Bringing emotionality to the presentation of research findings, moreover, is often interpreted as weakness or addressing ‘women’s issues’. However, engaging emotionally in fieldwork incurs much bigger risks that not only affect professional status but potentially transform researchers’ lives. At the very least, deep immersion in field research means accepting the burden of daily emotional (unpaid and unvalued) labour and the struggle to overcome feelings of helplessness, vulnerability and loneliness. As is discussed in the following chapter, emotional engagement also results in daily questioning of oneself, one’s competence and capacity and, in some cases, a desire to abandon research altogether in favour, often, of staying close to or helping the research subjects. Above all, however, engaging emotionally means abandoning the privilege of silence. The question of whether it helps generate more equal dialogue between partners in the field remains open. But it certainly exposes researchers to the risk of uncovering their own emotions and dealing with the often painful consequences.

10 Research emotions The view from the other side Al’bina Garifzianova

This chapter considers the significance of emotions in research in, and after, the ‘field’. It draws on the experiences of my personal ‘research debut’ during fieldwork conducted for this book, and considers the particular issues relating to managing emotions faced by first-time researchers. Reflecting on the emotional engagement of the researcher while conducting participant observation, I suggest that the expression of openness, concern, sensitivity and other human emotions towards events in the field is the researchers’ strength; it is the means by which they understand other ways of life and enter informants’ worlds. However, the researcher who acts and reacts emotionally in the field also encounters a number of difficulties. Firstly, by forming close, trusting relations with respondents, the researcher ceases to be an outside observer and becomes a full subject of the research process, with all the emotional commitment that entails. Secondly, emotional engagement in the lives of informants generates problems that accompany the sociologist out of the field and on their subsequent return to it. Moreover, the post-field situation itself becomes a source of reflection and emotion, as revealing one’s feelings publicly risks misunderstanding by colleagues since, for many, emotional engagement continues to be understood as signifying a lack of objectivity.1 Finally, the chapter sets out the argument for more extensive public discussion of the emotional labour of ethnographic research as a means both of understanding the impact of emotions on the researcher and of improving the capacity of qualitative methodologies more generally.

Emotions and sociological knowledge Contemporary sociological debate on research emotions turns on the question of whether to conceal or to seek to understand the role of emotions in the research process. According to Hubbard et al. (2001: 132), ‘the research process is not an emotion-free experience’, and the recognition and management of such emotions can become important at various stages and in a wide range of contexts of research (ibid.: 133). Shane Blackman (2007: 699) has described the recounting of emotions, not to mention the revelation of more intimate relations with informants in the field, as the ‘hidden’ part of ethno-

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graphic research. While he understands the burying of ‘empirical data’ in this ‘hidden ethnography’ to be a result of its controversial nature (ibid.: 700), however, Barter and Renold (2003: 100) argue that such data remain hidden because ‘emotion is deemed to be epistemologically irrelevant’. The ‘irrelevant’ nature of emotion to research is particularly well illustrated by academic debate in contemporary Russian sociology, in which ‘objectivity’ is frequently considered as the key criterion for distinguishing between the reflection and distortion of ‘real facts’. Il’in (2006: 85) argues that the maintenance of ‘distance’ between informants and the researcher guarantees that the material gathered will not be ‘subjective’ or distort the field results, while Semenova (2003: 274) maintains that it is essential to adopt the position of outside observer if the researcher is to ‘conceptualise the actual experience of participants in the events’.2 Baranov (2004: 27), meanwhile, argues that, once shared feelings, emotions or intuitions become centre-stage, then the individual researcher’s impact increases and the data gathered lose their absolute objectivity. Shteinberg (2008: 189), in contrast, calls the ‘objective and distanced position of the researcher’ a myth. He argues that maintaining such a distance in the field is difficult and disruptive, since ‘the researcher is unable . . . to experience the normal human desire to help, [and] support their interlocutor as they recount a tragic story or honestly share their feelings, [and] doubts’ (ibid.: 189–90). However, the issue here is surely less the psychological burden borne by the researcher seeking to maintain their distance in the field than the impossibility of doing so in practice. Concealing one’s emotions in the field ‘demands exceptional effort to distance oneself from one’s own body’ (Sokolovskii 2003: 4), and the artificial maintenance of distance can be detrimental to both the researcher and their work; for the field quickly stops being an imagined reality and becomes an integral part of the biography of the researcher. Indeed, since the very nature of research in the social sciences presupposes the close interaction of the object and subject, all research is rendered, necessarily and properly, subjective (Bobretsova 2009). While the value of subjective knowledge is widely recognised in Western research,3 in Russian academic circles the understanding of research as a dialogic process, in which the positioning of the sociologist is integral to the understanding of the field, is relatively rare. According to Abashin (2004: 15), in Russian academic circles subjectivity has either been driven out or discriminated against.4 However, even in the West, it is recognised that this reflexive turn involves both power and risk, since the sociologist exposes their origins, biography, locality and ‘intellectual bias’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, cited in Blackman 2007: 700), and thus not everyone is prepared to talk openly about work in the field. Emotional openness, on the one hand, allows a researcher to enter a group relatively quickly, develop relationships and participate in group practices but, at the same time, it opens the researcher to the scrutiny of others. This may be particularly difficult for young academics (Coffey 1999, cited in Blackman 2007: 700), dependent upon the appreciation

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of the quality of their data from others more established in the field. However, even established sociologists, who accept that emotions are central to the research process, often choose to keep silent rather than risk their reputations. One of the key sites of such ‘risk’, according to Blackman (ibid.), relates to the ‘ethical demand that storyteller and the narrative should be “clean”’. It is the impossibility of fully controlling the degree to which relations between an informant and the researcher can be kept ‘clean’ that this chapter exposes, drawing on the experience of my own field research.

Reflexivity and the research debut The fieldwork described in this book was my first such experience, and, as I prepared for it, a sense of fear and discomfort about conducting research into xenophobia seemed natural. However, on reflection, it is apparent that I was less worried about what it meant to try to understand the everyday practices of people who consider themselves ‘skinheads’ than I was about not messing up. Deep down I was thinking mostly about getting the research right, accomplishing what had been asked of me and being successful in the field (see also Chikadze 2005: 80). At that time I did not realise that rising to the challenges of the project would mean not simply living in two worlds – my own and theirs – but taking certain research risks, including emotional ones. The actual experience of fieldwork turned out to be, on the one hand, a huge adventure, furnishing me with all kinds of valuable experience, but, on the other, an emotionally traumatising experience, which undoubtedly changed the whole way I looked at the world. I had left to study a group of ‘skinheads’ armed with little more than a set of stereotypes about their everyday life and with no expectation that I would feel any fondness for them. Before entering the field my main concern was thus that I might not find sufficient points of contact with people in the group and that, as a result, the work would fail and the faith my colleagues had in me would prove unwarranted. I thought the key to success was simply generating enough empirical material, and my preparation focused on devising strategies for behaving within the group. I never imagined at that point that such ‘games’ were impossible in ethnographic observation. I knew that the desire to ‘see the world through the eyes of the respondent, in his terms’ (Il’in 2006: 4), required certain sociological skills: making decisions in critical situations, following your intuition, being open to and ready for criticism and irony and being genuinely interested in the lives of other people. What I learned was that this is impossible without emotional engagement, reflection and labour; life in the field is just like ‘normal’ life, and the researcher lives it with no immunity to the emotional experiences it brings (Hubbard et al. 2001: 120, 133). Emotional labour relates not only to developing relations with informants but also to reflection and diary writing. The degree of openness and comprehensiveness with which one writes the diary is a matter of personal choice,

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but it was only later that I became aware of this. During my first period of research in Vorkuta, I wrote my diary with the maximum openness, describing and analysing everything we usually consider to be private. It was only subsequently that I became conscious that I was effectively writing a personal diary as a public work and that sooner or later others would read it. Some researchers have resolved this by writing two diaries – one for public consumption and another for themselves – thus clawing back control over whether to reveal what is usually hidden or to play safe and not risk their reputation. My own research debut took place in the context of a team-based project, and this shaped my experience of the field considerably. On the one hand, being alongside other researchers provides support; on the other, knowing there is a witness to how you are working in the field, inferring some kind of evaluation of your actions and the decisions you take, creates a certain stress. Managing this stress demanded another form of emotional labour. During our participant observation my co-worker – El’vira Sharifullina – and I developed a routine practice of collective reflection during which we discussed events that had taken place and our personal feelings about them. Many hours of ‘talking’ became an integral part of our work with emotions and not only acted as a support but was important to our professional development (see also Hubbard et al. 2001: 134). Emotions in the field: managing pain One of the discoveries I made during my ethnographic debut was that, if you genuinely want to understand the lives of your informants, remaining an outside observer is practically impossible. Recognising this requires accepting the contradictory feelings of attachment and friction that engaging emotionally brings (Smith 1987). On the one hand this meant experiencing and reacting to events with the same emotions as in ‘normal’, life. On the other it meant learning to tread the fine line between trust and distrust, deceit and truthfulness, hypocrisy and sincerity, that characterises relations in the field. This brought both pleasure and pain. This might be illustrated with reference to relations with two key respondents that required intense emotional labour. The first relates to an unexpected incident during the first period of fieldwork in 2006, described in the diary extract below: Then Andrei began to talk about his philosophy, about common blood, and quoted Hitler. He said that for him there are also people he calls ‘virtually black’, such as those with one black parent; they are ‘virtually black’. Then something happened that I was not expecting at all. He said: My philosophy doesn’t permit me to talk with you [plural you]. What do you mean with us?

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Reflections on the research process Well, you’re from Tatarstan aren’t you? And? Well, for me a Tatar [pauses] – is a Tatar. You should live where you belong . . . What’s your surname? Why? Just tell me . . . Maybe I should show you my passport?!!! Yeah, you could . . . I was shaking with hurt, welling tears, insult, anger and fury. I got up and left. Andrei thought I’d gone to get my passport. I went back with my coat on already and asked if anyone wanted to see me out, open the door for me? They all followed me. I turned towards Andrei (who was looking down, smiling, knowing that he had hurt me) and said, ‘Bye! Next time I come I’ll remember that you check passports before you let people in here! Okay!’ And I left. I went out of the building and the tears trickled down my cheeks. I had never imagined before what it must be like to be an outcast, to be unacceptable ethnically . . . (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 9 October 2006)

I had come to Vorkuta to study xenophobic attitudes among young people in relation to some mythical person with ‘incorrect ethnicity’, never imagining that I would become that person. Although good personal relations were quickly re-established with Andrei, experiencing what it felt like to be one of those at whom intolerance was directed was, in equal measure, unexpected and painful. It was, however, also instructive; it demonstrated, as Brannen (1988) notes, that researchers as well as respondents sometimes need protecting.5 A quite different but equally difficult situation arose in 2007, when particularly close relations with another respondent developed out of a growing mutual interest in, and fascination with, not only our work together but in each other personally. Our closeness became evident both in displays of kindness in the field, providing a real sense of security, and helping access additional respondents, and simultaneously in some painfully honest commentaries on me as a person and a sociologist: SLAVA:

To be honest, you’ve just become a friend [drug]. You’ve become a friend [drug], a friend [podruga].6 You’re, like, funny – it’s fun to talk with you, it’s fun to have a laugh with you . . . INTERVIEWER: [interrupting] You mean make fun of me . . . SLAVA: Make fun of you? Make fun of you even. Lots of things are fun with you. You, you don’t always behave as you should, in some situations, seriously. Look, I’m looking at you now. Take your glasses off, I prefer looking at you without them. Seriously. Right. And, seriously, yes, you behave not wholly appropriately. It’s not your thing. Seriously, I under-

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stand sociologists. You know, last year, I looked at you, you were somehow, for a sociologist, you’re stupid. INTERVIEWER: [laughs] SLAVA: Seriously. You’re really stupid for a sociologist . . . INTERVIEWER: Maybe ‘inexperienced’ rather than ‘stupid’? SLAVA: No. You’re stupid. Inexperienced. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. How do you mean you’re inexperienced? You’re stupid. Do you know what you are stupid about? INTERVIEWER: Life? SLAVA: . . . You are really stupid sociologists . . . Why are you stupid? You kept on [asking], I remember from last year, ‘Can I photograph here?’ Who gives a fuck? (Slava, 2007) In this case, the pleasure at being able to relate to a respondent not merely as a source of information but as somebody close to you comes at the price of making yourself emotionally vulnerable and open to being undermined professionally. The lesson of these experiences was that attempting not only to study and describe accurately what is happening but also to engage emotionally, and to understand the lives of respondents genuinely, maximises the proximity of ethnographic research data to the ‘reality’ encountered. It does so, however, by turning the researcher into one of the subjects of the field. As Omel’chenko (2008b: 250) writes, ‘the researcher – his/her professional skills, abilities, knowledges as well as their body with its feelings and emotions, physical and mental parameters and abilities, is transformed into a kind of instrument with whose help the research is conducted’. In this process, the researcher becomes the most ‘accessible and open informant’ (Il’in 2006: 95) in a context in which they are unable to draw on their usual communicative circle for support. In this situation, retaining one’s own subjectivity requires not so much ‘objectivity’ towards respondents as constant emotional labour in managing relations with them. Moreover, this emotional labour itself becomes a key element of sociological reflection that both keeps the researcher’s sense of self intact and opens new possibilities for understanding social reality.

Returning to the field My feelings and personal transformations in the field did not end on returning home. Since family and friends could not understand my field situation in Vorkuta, it was impossible to talk about or explain the emotions I experienced. This resulted in a lengthy period of depression and a sense of emptiness. These feelings were intensified by the lack of understanding on the part of my partner and my yearning for Vorkuta. I genuinely missed the Vorkuta lads; I missed the feeling of being immersed in that ‘other’ and, at the same time, familiar life. I had been with them when they were out, met up,

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spent their free time; when they were at home cooking food, playing ‘Associations’; when they went to the basement gym, drank beer, gathered at someone’s flat, pierced each other, sold or used drugs, danced, went for a drive – at all these moments I was there, trying to live, feel and perceive the world around just as they did (see Figures 10.1 and 10.2). Returning to the field, therefore, felt like going back to people who were close to me – people whom I knew and trusted. My return to Vorkuta in 2007 brought more tests, this time of myself not only as a sociologist or a person, but also as a woman. As noted in the previous chapter, respondents liked to remind us that we were ‘not sexless beings’, but it was increasingly something of which I needed no reminder. Blackman (2007: 707) suggests that ‘intimacy, close contact, love, romance and flirtation are part of the ethnographic endeavour, which allows for a more substantial grasp of the true dialogue between participant and observer’. How, in my case, affection turned into falling in love is difficult to determine, although a number of circumstantial issues played a role. Firstly, in 2007, the communication I had with Slava became more intense as, following the split within the group, he began to play the main mediating role in the field. Consequently, except when he was at work or at home with his mum, we were in constant touch. We went out together, visited his friends,

Figure 10.1 A boxing lesson Source: Photo by respondent, 2006

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Figure 10.2 First snow Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

sat around in the basement; not surprisingly, I began to be taken for his girlfriend (see Figure 10.3). Secondly, the field situation itself, difficult and alien as it was, evoked a longing to be able to confer all responsibility for it, transfer the burden of controlling the course of events in it, on to someone else – someone who appeared stronger and more decisive. In this situation, it was difficult not to fall in love with Slava, who was so genuine and open and yet whose very presence personified both the risk faced and the strength to manage it. After that things happened like they do in the movies. Slava, rushing past with Iulia, didn’t notice me. It was me who stopped him. He said he was tired of looking for me and insisted I dance. He grabbed me by the hand and we began to dance. To say that the world disappeared at that

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Reflections on the research process moment is to say nothing. [There was only] the deafening music, the bright light and Slava’s eyes. I drew him close to me. He embraced me and simply lifted me high, then he wrapped my legs around him and pulled me close. He stroked my hair, tenderly brushed his lips against mine. It was incredibly erotic and touching. Incredibly emotional. The lightest of kisses, the strongest of embraces and the spinning – spinning with closed eyes. For a minute I couldn’t hear anything. I simply never imagined that this person could be simultaneously so strong and so tender. It amazed me. Strength combined with super tenderness – I simply stopped controlling myself. After a while I opened my eyes and saw Slava smiling . . . (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 12 October 2007)

It is possible that if I had been alone in the field these events would have remained part of the ‘hidden ethnography’. For me this choice did not present itself, however, for the mutual attraction between Slava and me was noticed by my colleagues. After writing up the events described above in my diary, I thought constantly about what their reaction would be and feared condemnation for having demonstrated my feelings.7

Figure 10.3 Unpredictable emotions Source: Photo by El’vira Sharifullina, 2007

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It remains extremely difficult, and painful, to remember the experiences of Vorkuta. If it is difficult to articulate the feelings, likes and dislikes, attractions, romantic gestures and disappointments that we experience in our everyday lives, then it is even more difficult to speak about this publicly, as a sociologist. Yet, if Lutz is right that ethnographic work consists of a range of sources of information, including what your body and emotions as well as your head tell you about the field (Lutz 1986: 290), then this kind of emotional intimacy might be seen as just another source of information. It is impossible to control against emotions, let alone love, in the field, essential only that we recognise that the research process is a natural part of life and that we have a clear sense of our responsibility for our own desires and actions.

On the other side of the field Returning home in no way signifies the end of the researcher’s emotional engagement with events in the field. The analysis of material brings a mental return to it and fresh emotional engagement with the events experienced, initiating a second, often painful, stage of reflection. The field also leaves an imprint on your own self-understanding and perception of the world; much of what you did is uncharacteristic of your former self, and these changes to your personality become tangible only after returning home. Thinking about how to present the material gathered publicly, without compromising ethical norms or your own promises to respondents, presents itself as a new emotional stress. In the case outlined here, the question of whether, and how, to use visual materials gathered was particularly sensitive and necessitated intense individual and collective reflection and discussion. Finally, the question of whether to acknowledge publicly the emotional labour of the field in the dissemination of research results had to be addressed. Since the researcher who reveals their emotions in this way renders themselves vulnerable to particular ethical scrutiny, this question presented itself often as a stark choice between the prioritisation of human relations with respondents or professional advantage. The decision to take the risk of writing about emotions, in my own case, however, was informed not only by the desire to treat respondents as fully rounded human beings rather than data sources, but also by the conviction that ‘unless the hidden ethnography is made more transparent a more realistic account of fieldwork will not be forthcoming’ (Blackman 2007: 701) and the ‘living texture’ from which we derive our understanding of social reality disappears.

Conclusion Two broad positions are evident in contemporary sociological discussion of emotions in research. The first recognises experiences in the field to be significant for understanding the world studied and emphasises the necessity of

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publicly recognising this fact. The second suggests that emotions play an ambiguous role in the research process, impacting on the results. Indeed, despite the recognition of the importance of emotions in the field, few sociologists choose to share their experience, preferring not to risk their reputations: established researchers fear ‘losing face’ by revealing their subjectivity and emotions, while younger sociologists, whose research debut is likely to be particularly memorable and emotionful, risk having the ‘objectivity’ of their data questioned if they recount their emotional experiences openly. Whether one is prepared for these risks or not, however, the reality is that the researcher is able to maintain an outside, ‘objective’ position only up to the point at which they are drawn into the field situation (Shchepanskaia 2004: 131). Once that engagement takes place, moreover, its successful management is achieved not by seeking to re-establish distance in relation to the ‘objects’ of research but by conducting emotional labour aimed at analysing one’s own actions, feelings and relationships with informants. Only through the critical analysis of one’s own actions, including research emotions, is it possible to come close to understanding the life trajectories and events that play out in the field; as Shchepanskaia (ibid.: 132) puts it, ‘strong objectivity demands strong reflexivity’. It is not only the lives of informants that are changed by the researcher’s presence in the field; the researcher is profoundly influenced by their informants. It is virtually impossible to ‘enter and leave a research environment with all pre-existing values unchallenged or unchanged’ (Pilkington 2008: 97–8). The Vorkuta field undoubtedly allowed me to see myself differently and understand much that was not only around me but inside me, triggering deeply personal changes in my understanding and perception of love, trust and intimacy and causing me to act in a previously uncharacteristically decisive manner. Since there are no strict ‘rules of engagement’ in the field, and emotional shock and stress are experienced not only by informants but by the researcher as well, work requires constant reflection on one’s own presence. The main aim of such reflection is, of course, to ensure ‘no harm’ is done to informants. However, if we are aware that emotions are an integral part of our fieldwork, then by working with emotions – by discussing personal experiences with other sociologists, building trusting relations with informants, keeping diaries and engaging in profound reflection – it is also possible to generate emotionally sensitive forms of academic knowledge (Hubbard et al. 2001: 135) and in this way broaden the capacity of qualitative methodologies.

11 Does it have to end in tears? Reflexivity and team-based ethnography Hilary Pilkington

The idea of a collaborative ethnographic practice seems almost counter-intuitive in a research environment in which the ‘reflexive’ turn has led to an ever greater focus on the individual relationship between researcher and research participants and the capacity of the individual researcher to account for the personal ‘baggage’ they bring to the field. As demonstrated in Chapter 10, relationships with research participants are complex and emotionally charged and their negotiation requires not only ‘reflection’ but sustained emotional labour. Team-based research can be helpful in this respect, as it provides an intellectually and emotionally supportive environment for individual researchers. At the same time it can generate claustrophobic situations, limiting the space for individual reflection. It also brings with it additional sets of relationships (researcher–researcher, ‘other’ researcher– research participants) that must be managed. This becomes particularly problematic when writing up the research, since the ‘self’ that constructs, and is constructed through, the text must retain credibility not only with the reader (including potential participant-readers) but also with research colleagues who may be profoundly implicated in the construction of this ‘self’. Notwithstanding these challenges, this chapter suggests that the precariousness of subjectivity experienced in conducting team-based ethnographic research should not be seen primarily negatively, as distorting the research relationships for which the researcher ‘accounts’ through reflection. On the contrary, it can help avoid the fetishisation of individual reflections on fieldwork and help enact reflexivity as a process of placing ourselves as researchers within rather than outside the social relations of research.

Subjectivity, reflexivity and ethnography In its classic form participant observation consists of a single researcher spending an extended period of time . . . living among the people he or she is studying. (Aull Davies 2008: 77; emphasis added)

‘Classic’ ethnographic studies, whether rooted in the discipline of anthropology or sociology, are based on a model of the lone cultural interloper.

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Indeed, heavy reliance on the subjectivity of the researcher has been heralded as both the key to its ability to illuminate hidden worlds from the inside and as its chief limitation – its lack of ‘objectivity’. Resolving this contradiction – described by Pratt (1986: 32–3) as a mismatch between the authority of fieldwork, which is rooted in ‘subjective, sensuous experience’, and the need for the resulting text to ‘conform to the norms of a scientific discourse’ – came at the cost of expunging the subjective and the sensuous as ethnographers rendered their fieldwork into writing that was ‘surprisingly boring’ (ibid.). The rehabilitation of ‘subjectivity’ within social science is now well advanced. Strategies designed to minimise the influence of the researcher and maximise the ‘natural state’ of the ‘object’ under study have been exposed as erroneously denying subjectivity in the research process and, thereby, making ‘a secret compact with positivism to preserve the subject finally as an object’ (Willis 1976: 247). Central to this movement have been broader shifts in social theorising, in particular the post-structuralist critique of the domination of meta-narratives in the explanation of society and social change. This is clearly articulated in Clifford’s introductory article to the classic volume Writing Culture, in which he refutes the epistemology of naturalism as ‘an ideology claiming transparency of representation and immediacy of experience’ (Clifford 1986: 2). Consequently, training in ethnographic method today requires students to recognise the research process as part of the social world being studied and research ‘data’ as the product of the social relationship between the researcher and their subjects. This reflexive practice is rooted in the understanding that researchers are shaped by their socio-historical locations, including the values and interests that accrue to these, and that these positionalities are part of the research terrain. Indeed the subjectivity of the researcher has come to be seen as an essential tool of the ethnographic trade; feelings of trust, empathy and mutual respect are considered the foundations of sound ethnographic practice, and the ‘art of listening’ the means to ‘have the humility and the honesty to reflect on our assumptions and prejudgements’ (Back 2007: 12). This reflexive turn has generated its own problems for the theory and practice of ethnography, however. Geertz (1988: 79) traces an ‘introspective turn’ back to the 1920s as ethnographers wrestled with the dilemma of how to marry fieldwork as ‘personal encounter’ with ethnography as ‘reliable account’ (ibid.: 84). One resolution has been to turn the fieldwork diary into text for publication in which a private self is constructed for public presentation (ibid.: 89). Such ‘diary disease’, Geertz suggests, has become ‘endemic’, producing ‘highly “author-saturated” . . . anthropological texts in which the self the text creates and the self that creates the text are represented as being very near to identical’ (ibid.: 97). The reduction of reflexivity to the interminable interrogation of the ‘I’ of the researcher risks rendering ethnography a practice in which the ‘self’ displaces the ‘other’ as object of research. Another possible consequence of the reflexive turn is the undermining of the ontological basis of representational ethnography in realism. Tyler (1986: 126), for

Reflexivity and team-based ethnography 213 example, proposes a ‘post-modern ethnography’ that does away with the ‘ideology of “observer–observed”’, replacing it with an understanding of ethnography as ‘cooperative story making’. The aim of such an ethnography is not to represent but to evoke; representation implies that symbols in the text refer directly to something in reality (but currently absent), whereas evocation is something in and of itself (ibid.: 129–30). This movement has been resisted by others who, while critiquing naturalism for neglecting the fundamental reflexivity of social research, remain committed to a realist epistemology (see, for example, Hammersley and Atkinson 1995: 21). Aull Davies (2008: 26) also advocates the incorporation into ethnographic practice of key elements of post-structuralist thought (attention to multiple perspectives and critique of meta-narratives) while rejecting what she refers to as ‘extreme relativism and antipathy to generalized explanation’. The adoption of a critical realist perspective, she argues, resolves this problem by allowing ethnographers to ‘explore the phenomenological reality of actors’ understandings and interpretations and their effects on social structure, but not to take these interpretations as fully constitutive of social structure’ (ibid.: 22). Aull Davies’s (2008: 7–11) concern is that any more radical form of reflexivity can be ‘destructive of the process of doing research’, producing a never ending iterative cycle in which individual researchers reflect upon their own subjectivities, then upon these reflections themselves and the knowledge claims such reflections may have. While recognising this danger, this chapter argues nonetheless for a relatively radical form of reflexivity, albeit of a kind that is rooted not in introspective reflection but in the capacity of the researcher to confront their own subject position as researcher and challenge their own field of power. This is what Bourdieu refers to as an ‘epistemic reflexivity’, since it goes beyond acknowledging the social and personal drives of the individual analyst and asks us to deconstruct the sociological self – to scrutinise the very act of construction of the object in the collective scientific unconscious embedded in theories, problems and categories of scholarly judgement (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 38). Post-structuralist critiques of the unified, rational (Cartesian) subject who ‘thinks the world’ are also helpful here, since they reveal how the subject that imagines itself as set off from and assessing the significance of an objective world is, in fact, inescapably implicated in that world. If, moreover, we recognise that the subjectivity of one is predicated on the constitutive presence of ‘the other’, then we have also to abandon the right to judge the other as object from the place of the self as subject (Bowman 1997: 43–4). Far from undermining the research process, this kind of questioning of subjectivity, identity and difference is central to everyday ethnographic practice and experience which, no matter how uncomfortable for the researcher, makes transparent the complex and unstable construction of the self. Back (1993: 222–3), for example, describes how, when undertaking his work in working-class communities in South London, he felt a strong empathy with his respondents, since to him their experiences felt very close to his own background, while to them he was

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another educated and, by implication, middle-class ‘social worker’. The point Back makes here is that reflection by the individual researcher on how his or her own background might affect relations in the field does not constitute a reflexive research practice. On the contrary, he acknowledges, identifying common ‘origins’ is a way of ‘fictitiously dissolving the division between self and other’ (ibid.: 222). Developing this idea, it is argued in this chapter that, by accepting the significance of reflexivity to be its capacity – through the routine challenging of constructions of self and other – to illuminate the very social relations or contexts that are the subject of the research, it becomes possible to move beyond the self-absorption narrative of reflexivity rooted in the interrogation of the individual relationship between researcher and research participants.

‘Here come the girls . . . ’: ethnography as a collaborative research practice The substantive part of this chapter puts this argument to the test by exploring the experience of the authors as they experimented with a teambased rather than an individual ethnographic practice in the course of the research for this book. The ‘team’ referred to here involved two researchers – Al’bina Garifzianova (Al’bina) and El’vira Sharifullina (Elia) – who were present throughout the main periods of fieldwork in 2006 and 2007 and who were responsible for individual case studies (Al’bina for the research with skinheads, Elia for a separate case study focusing on drug use among young people). It also included Elena Omel’chenko (Lena) and myself, who were physically present in the field for the final two weeks of each period. It is also important to recognise the significance to the discussion below of ‘absent’ members of the team – in particular Ol’ga Dobroshtan (Ol’ga/Olia), who had completed ethnographic work in Vorkuta in 2003 and retained contact with a number of core group members.1 The decision that Al’bina and Elia would travel to the city at the same time and live together while conducting their separate research was taken consciously; it provided a level of security and support for them as they worked through both the emotional and intellectual challenges of the research. The team nature of the research also provided simple distractions from problems encountered and reduced the loneliness of remote fieldwork. The friendships that developed during – or survived – the research provided a real anchor during periods when the work was particularly disturbing (Figure 11.1). The arrival of additional members of the team later – although requiring careful management, as discussed below – also had some advantages. In particular it provided a natural group dynamic to the research team which, in its own way, mirrored the communicative practices of the group with whom we were working; they learned and interrogated our ‘group narratives’ as much as we did theirs as a means of getting to know each other better and

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Figure 11.1 The emotional labour of fieldwork Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

marking the boundaries of the relationships. The very different backgrounds and characters of individuals in the research team also allowed respondents to talk to different people about different parts of their lives2 and maximised respondents’ exposure to others’ life experiences – which, they said repeatedly, was what they gained from being involved in the research. At the same time ethnographic research conducted as a team transgresses the very first principle of the canon; it blurs the boundaries between the individual researcher and their ‘group’ of study. In this case, not only were respondents ‘shared’ with ghosts of researchers past (Olia), but there was also considerable slippage between the two parallel case studies. Thus, although Elia was engaged primarily in a separate case study, she socialised frequently with the ‘skinhead’ group of respondents – going to the basement gym where they hung out and being around when they visited the flat the researchers

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shared. This blurring of boundaries between fields complicated relationships between researcher and respondents and between researchers themselves. In relation to the research team this was apparent from debriefing sessions – and post-fieldwork meetings – during which researchers felt uncomfortable with narratives of possession (the use of the term ‘my’ or ‘your’ respondents) even as a simple shorthand when comparing different findings in different case studies. Yet hierarchies of authority could not be escaped; they became visible in particular as we made decisions, especially of an ethical kind, about what should or should not be included in presentations or publications, at which point the main researcher in each case was often asked to make the final judgement on what was appropriate, positioning them in some respect as internal ‘gatekeepers’. Of greater significance for the discussion here of the possibilities for a reflexive ethnographic practice when working in a team, however, is the question of how the presence of other members of the team becomes implicated in relationships between researcher and respondents. The discussion below first highlights key moments in the process when the presence of other ‘others’ in the field clearly shaped, and in some circumstances undermined, the construction of the researcher’s ‘self’. It then explores strategies employed by respondents participating in team-based research. It concludes by arguing that team-based ethnography, by inviting multiple challenges to the researcher’s subjectivity, enacts the kind of reflexivity which exposes the academic field of power and illuminates the social relations of the research process and of the wider society in which it is embedded.

‘Virtually black’: the fragility of the researcher’s ‘self’ Sharing field territory renders a researcher’s carefully constructed subjectivity highly vulnerable. This is illustrated particularly starkly by the traumatic incident recounted in the previous chapter when Al’bina was described by Andrei as being ‘virtually black’. The whole diary extract is not reproduced here (see Chapter 10), only the section of dialogue between Andrei and Al’bina within it which reveals an additional dimension to the incident – the implication of other researchers (Olia and Elia) in the apparent crisis of credibility of the ‘self’ for Al’bina: ANDREI: AL’BINA: ANDREI: AL’BINA: ANDREI:

My philosophy doesn’t permit me to talk with you [plural you]. What do you mean with us? Well, you’re from Tatarstan aren’t you? And? Well, for me a Tatar [pauses] – is a Tatar. You should live where you belong. AL’BINA: You do know that Tatarstan is part of the Russian state don’t you? ANDREI: Yes. AL’BINA: So who forced you to talk to us? Do you do it for Olia?

Reflexivity and team-based ethnography 217 ANDREI: AL’BINA:

No, if I hadn’t wanted to, I wouldn’t have talked to you. So what do you mean by ‘my philosophy doesn’t permit . . . ’? What if I’d said that I was from the suburbs of Moscow? ANDREI: But you already said you are from Tatarstan. AL’BINA: Well, maybe I just moved there recently? ANDREI: But you said already! Elia [El’vira] is clearly not Russian [ethnically Russian]. What is your ethnicity? AL’BINA: Elia’s from Ul’ianovsk, a Tatar . . . does that mean we’re nonRussians? (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 9 October 2006) The incident itself could be read as a classic moment of exposure, although the fear of exposure is secondary in the researcher’s emotions to hurt and mediated by the context of the team-based research. The first ‘hurt’ is to the professional ‘self’, as Al’bina struggles to understand why Andrei had suddenly turned on her. The shock at feeling the withdrawal of the warmth with which she had been treated by him up until that point is expressed in her challenge to Andrei to say whether he had only talked to her ‘for Olia’. The second hurt relates directly to the ethnic labelling and exclusion that Andrei’s attack marks. Backed into a corner by his interrogation of her ethnicity, and implication of her ethnic ‘guilt by association’ with Elia, she differentiates herself from Elia by distinguishing between an ethnic Tatar from a Russian city and herself as someone of undeclared ethnic belonging from a city in Tatarstan. Although this was not an identity Elia had concealed from Andrei or other respondents, it is nonetheless apparent that, in the intimate team context of the research, one researcher’s means of protecting herself leaves another exposed. The hurt Elia feels at this is described in her own diary entry around a week after the incident, when she notes that, while the crisis seems to be over for Al’bina, ‘I’ve remained “virtually black” for them’ (El’vira Sharifullina’s diary, 17 October 2006).3 Of course, not all research generates such cardinal challenges to the researcher’s subjectivity, and by the second period of research in 2007 Al’bina was confident that the relationship she had built with respondents was with her, and not via the proxy of Ol’ga, while Elia had become fully accepted by the group. Nonetheless the incident exposes how the internalisation of the standard ‘tests’ of ‘good ethnography’ (trust and acceptance by the respondents), designed around the assumption of ethnography as an individual research practice, can both reveal and reproduce practices of identity, differentiation and exclusion within the research process that mirror those in wider society.

The bosses are coming . . . : hierarchy and role in team-based ethnography The definition of ‘roles’ of researchers in team ethnography is worthy of separate discussion; the delineation of roles in this case was largely pragmatic4

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and easily rationalised in terms of function. During that first period of fieldwork, Lena and I took on the role of responsibility for the making of a documentary film including interviews with respondents (Figure 11.2). By 2007 our arrival was not so difficult to explain, and our role could be naturally rooted in requesting recorded interviews. Because our particular role was premised on the achievement of a certain degree of acceptance in the group (such that respondents would be willing to participate in the video making) and because, for the purposes of the larger transnational project, a certain number of recorded interviews had to be generated, our imminent arrival became an additional burden on the researchers already in the field. This manifested itself in an anxiety over achieving the ‘target’ number of interviews by the time the ‘bosses’ arrived. This is articulated clearly in the following extract from Al’bina Garifzianova’s research diary, written in the aftermath of the hurt caused by the incident with Andrei described above: I’m completely overwhelmed. I just don’t know where to go with the research – try and get into some new groups when as it is there is barely enough time to talk to the people you already know? . . . I interpreted everything Elia tried to explain to me as being evidence that ‘I’m doing

Figure 11.2 Reviewing film footage with respondents Source: Photo by Hilary Pilkington, 2007

Reflexivity and team-based ethnography 219 something wrong’, although poor Elia is just trying to get me not to take everything so much to heart. It’s like a black hole! I just can’t stop crying. And that makes it difficult. Yesterday I thought I was doing everything right. Now it seems that I have been just messing about here. It’s turned out that the most difficult thing is not to access the group but to get the twenty interviews. Now I will force events. I’ll go out and find new informants. (Al’bina’s Garifzianova’s diary, 10 October 2006) Although, in fact, the researcher was not being asked to ‘find new informants’ – an impression which arose from a misunderstanding of a phone conversation with ‘the bosses’ giving advice about strategies for generating interviews relayed by her fellow field researcher – the pressure she felt ‘from above’ was very real. Not surprisingly, therefore, the ‘bosses are coming’ scenario was employed to encourage existing participants to agree to more formalised interviews by appealing to them to side with the researcher in the face of these ‘bosses’. This is understandable, but problematic in terms of the moral pressure exerted on informants and in the positioning of those same ‘bosses’, given that this label sat uncomfortably both with their own sense of self and with the relationships they had built, or sought to build themselves, with respondents. Tensions over negotiating interviews ran particularly high towards the end of the second period of fieldwork for a number of reasons. Firstly, Lena and I increasingly took on the role of conducting the recorded interviews. This was a natural product of the research trajectory; as the main researchers became increasingly embedded in the everyday lives of respondents, it became harder for them to explain the need for the formality of the recorded interviews. However, it effectively meant that the main researchers felt themselves in a position of negotiating these interviews on behalf of the ‘bosses’. This is evident in my own diary extract: Evening, after waiting for Slava to call, Al’bina rings again. Isn’t picking up the phone. Tries Vova – not with him. Tries Slava again after a while. Now he picks up – says he was sleeping. Al’bina gives him a hard time because [he] ‘promised’ to meet again tonight and finish interview, and now looks like [he] doesn’t want to. He says he wants to hang out around town [guliat’] . . . Heated discussion, after which Al’bina says I should arrange the meeting with him directly – using Elia’s phone. Al’bina is upset by it all. Says she can’t bear being in the field any longer. Wants to go home and never do fieldwork again . . . (Hilary Pilkington’s diary, 10 October 2007) Secondly, the video project during the second fieldwork focused on respondents’ reflections on their experience of being part of the research. This put additional pressure on the main researchers as respondents used the formal

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opportunity to do this to ‘evaluate’ the researchers and to dictate the terms of the interview – for example, determining who and who was not present (Hilary Pilkington’s diary, 13 and 16 October 2007; Egor, 2007).

The ‘sociologist bitch’: authority, power and the research process The challenge mounted by respondents to the professional ‘self’ of the researcher and the academic field of power in general was far from elicited by the request to them to reflect upon their experience of participating in the research. From the beginning of our work with respondents in 2002, they had never hesitated to question or criticise the sociological endeavour or advise and comment on our performance as sociologists. Respondents sought to redefine the academic field of power by wresting control of it from us. Slava had the most direct approach to this; he frequently turned questions we asked – either during recorded interviews or simply in conversation – on their head and began to interrogate us in a playful but insistent way. He also sought to use the experience of the research as part of his ‘upgrading’ project (see Chapter 4). In 2007 he expressed the desire to ‘compare’ himself now with the time of the first interview, and, in the context of our discussion of his recent change in attitude to drug use, he asked if he could see transcripts of an interview he had given the previous year because he was interested in what he had said then (Hilary Pilkington’s diary, 9 October 2007; Slava, 2007). Andrei asserted his own control of the situation less demonstratively, but no less authoritatively, by redefining it as his project through phrases like ‘My goal [in this interview] . . . ’ or by rejecting our formulation of the research process as a listening practice by declaring: . . . you could listen to any old person. I am trying to have a discussion with you. You could listen to anyone. But definitely not me. I am having a discussion with you, and I hope that it is an equal one . . . (Andrei, 2006) As noted in Chapter 9, Andrei also repeatedly asserted authority over the research by claiming that he had learned more about us than we had about him. In this process he actively exploited vulnerabilities he identified in different members of the research team. In the case of Lena and myself, he sought to expose the age difference between the older and younger researchers, implying, albeit humorously, that there was something ‘unhealthy’ about Lena’s and my position as youth researchers (Hilary Pilkington’s diary, 26 October 2006). Such statements were designed to undermine our right ‘to know’ young people, but also our authority within the team. In the case of Al’bina, her relative inexperience in conducting fieldwork and what Andrei considered to be her excessive sensitivity were used to undermine her competency. As discussed in the previous chapter, in 2007 Slava also subjected

Reflexivity and team-based ethnography 221 Al’bina to constant professional criticism, saying that, although she was ‘in general cool, as a non-sociologist, really cool’, as a sociologist she was ‘stupid and difficult’. Dislodging the researchers from their position of authority and redrawing the field of power is an uncomfortable experience but one which illuminates the relations of power that normally underpin it. Back (2007: 18–19) describes a case of a respondent who repeatedly undermined the implicit hierarchy between questioner and respondent and deliberately challenged researchers with sexist remarks and responses that did not address the researchers’ questions. In so doing, Back argues (ibid.: 19), the respondent ‘helped identify some of our own illusions about or tensions within the project’s participatory research design’. These tensions were clearly evident in our research (see Chapter 9), although so too was evidence that respondents’ challenges to our authority were much more fundamental than the carnivalesque overturning of hierarchies articulated, for example, through their reference to us as ‘sociologist bitches’. The five years of intense – if intermittent – communication with a number of the respondents meant that they had learned a lot about the field of power to which we as researchers lay claim and were able employ its norms and principles. Roman illustrated this perfectly, describing how he went along with Al’bina when she went to hang out with a new group of punk acquaintances. When asked in 2007 if the punks accepted him, given his association with the skin group, he replied: ‘Yeah, you just have to show . . . how interesting it is to you. Like Al’bina [laughs], “Wow – how brilliant!” How amazing it all is. They like that. If you come and go, “Wow.” You do that!’ At the same time, of course, they also poked fun at those norms of the field that they considered ridiculous. A particular object of scorn proved to be our ethical concerns, and it was a standing joke that we would repeatedly ask permission to take photos (Slava, 2007) when they themselves took and shared photos, text messages, information and resources within the group – including us – routinely and without requesting permission. Yet it was these cameras and audio recorders that remained the symbols of power and authority – the weapons of the ‘sociologist bitches’. Thus, when Slava offered his services as a sociologist during the summer of 2007, he said he would work for free as long as we provided him with ‘a camera, an audio recorder and subsistence money’.

Conclusion This chapter has considered whether the principles of reflexive ethnographic practice can be enacted when conducting fieldwork collaboratively. It has acknowledged that such reflexivity is generally predicated on the assumption of a single researcher reflecting on who they are and how this impacts on the environment they are entering and the relationships they forge within it. This model of ethnography is problematic when working collaboratively, since

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there can be no ‘collective positionality’ that can be accounted for through reflection. Indeed, the presence of other researchers in the field problematises the very construction of the ‘self’ by the researcher, as it is constrained by the equal needs of others in the team to construct a credible ‘self’ and is subjected to multiple challenges from both respondents and other researchers. A number of examples from the experience of the authors in attempting to conduct team-based ethnography have been drawn on to illustrate the nature of these challenges. Although these constitute a selection of isolated moments in the process, which was more similar than different to ‘individual’ ethnographic practice, taken together they illustrate the greater constraints upon the construction of the researcher’s ‘self’ in the field and the heightened precarious of their subjectivity as researcher. The exposure of one researcher as ‘virtually black’ – and that researcher’s subsequent strategy for avoiding exclusion from the respondent group – was predicated upon the ‘othering’ of another research team member. This revealed not only the contingency of subjectivity for both researchers in team-based ethnography, but also the way in which standard ‘tests’ of ‘good ethnography’ (degree of trust and acceptance by the respondents) are premised upon the understanding of ethnography as an individual research practice in which the construction of a ‘self’ that ‘fits’ does not imply the differentiation of ‘others’. The fact that identity always implies differentiation was so blatantly revealed – because that differentiation was not abstract but in relation to another member of the team – that it made the team acutely aware of how the reproduction of social relations within the research process mirrors that which takes place in wider society. It also raised the question of whether the criteria by which we judge good ethnographic practice need revision. The fact that the team in this instance consisted of researchers with different degrees of fieldwork experience as well as a range of other formal and informal markers of authority (age, institutional authority, length and closeness of acquaintance with respondents, ‘native’ as opposed to ‘foreign’ researcher, etc.) both liberated and constrained the subjectivity of individuals. On the one hand it overturned to some extent traditional hierarchies – allowing younger researchers the authority of greater experience of this particular field, for example. However, by the same token, the space in which to make one’s own mistakes was constrained by the presence of ‘the bosses’ in the field, and the freedom for ‘the bosses’ themselves – precisely from authority – was also lost. Finally, through a number of examples of the way in which respondents reflected on, and engaged with, their participation in the research, the chapter has illustrated how working as a team not only places constraints upon the ‘self’ that can be constructed in the field but also makes those selves vulnerable to manipulation and play by respondents. Through the exploitation of differences within the group of researchers, respondents challenge the field of power of the researcher and claim the right to be the knower rather than the

Reflexivity and team-based ethnography 223 known, the subject rather than the object of research. It has been the argument of this chapter, however, that, far from undermining the research process, this kind of questioning of subjectivity, identity and difference is central to everyday ethnographic practice and experience which, no matter how uncomfortable for the researcher, makes transparent the complex and unstable construction of the self. It is, as such, the substance of reflexive ethnographic practice.

12 Conclusion Solidarity in action Hilary Pilkington

This book has set out to expose ‘Russia’s skinheads’ not for their racist bigotry – although this has not been evaded or romanticised – or for cheaply imitating and distorting the true ‘spirit of ‘69’. It has sought rather to bring to the surface something much more disruptive of skinheads’ verbal and stylistic posturing: the beliefs, hopes, joys and pleasures, concerns, fears, hurts and pain that bind and separate them. In this final chapter we try to understand how the ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ of skinhead are connected by asking what being a ‘skinhead’ meant to respondents beyond offering a convenient stylistic wrapping for racist sentiments. We do this, first, through a discussion of the meanings attached to skinhead identity by respondents. This is followed by a broader consideration of what the approach adopted in this book, and the resultant findings, add to our understanding of why skinhead continues to find resonance with new generations of young people in ever wider parts of the globe.

‘There’s no such thing as a former skinhead’: representation and authenticity Despite belonging, ‘objectively’ speaking, to the ‘Nazi-skinhead’ element of the Russian skinhead scene, respondents uniformly identified first and foremost not as ‘nationalists’, ‘racists’ or ‘fascists’ but as skinheads – that is, as skinkhedy or, sometimes, in the Russian translated form, as britogolovie (Zhenia, 2006).1 They also often referred to themselves by using the term ‘the movement’ (dvizhenie) (Lida, Zhenia, Lera and Masha, 2006) or ‘skinhead movement’ (Andrei, 2006).2 This primary identification as ‘skinhead’ does not signal any uneasiness with declaring publicly their racist political positions or a desire to claim direct lineage from the original (or ‘trad’) skinhead movement of the 1960s. As discussed in Chapters 5 and 6, for respondents, ‘skinhead’ expressed, first and foremost, an ‘active’ life position. The extensive media interest in the skinhead movement in Russia, however, means that respondents cannot but use the term ‘skinhead’ reflexively. The group was increasingly aware of, and concerned by, the changing public and police perception of skinheads, and this led them frequently to

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relate their own beliefs and practices to the representation of skinheads circulating in the media and ‘public opinion’. Lera (2006), for example, complained that acts of violence between criminal gangs were often falsely attributed to skinheads, while Zhenia (2006) resented rumours that skinhead gangs had ‘beaten up some granddad [and] a pregnant Russian woman’, which, he said, was ‘unthinkable’. This had a direct and material impact on the group; as discussed in Chapter 7, members became more reluctant to display publicly their affiliation to the movement externally, through style. It also meant that they consciously sought to differentiate their skinhead identity from that of the ‘skinheads’ portrayed in the media. This differentiation is spelled out by Andrei: I’ve been approached by those who are, like, ‘The lads want to use the gym.’ They are considered to be skinheads as well. But they are very narrow-minded, very narrow-minded in the sense that they don’t think about anything. It’s like – ‘There’s a black, let’s stick a knife at his throat.’ Then, ‘It’s okay, we’ve done him’, and they move on. That’s really what they’re like. That violence is often unfounded, it is justified only in their minds, which are not capable of anything . . . It’s impossible to talk to them about subjects like, for example, if you said, ‘Let’s talk about why this is happening. Let’s discuss it – maybe the problem is not in them but in the situation that has developed, and it’s not them who are responsible for that situation.’ To that kind of question they go, ‘Oh!’ and that’s it. You can’t talk to someone like that. But he is a skinhead too. I don’t want to be counted alongside people like that, for people to think I’m also like that. I don’t want that. That’s why I say you have to differentiate. (Andrei, 2006) In contrast, ‘real’ skinheads were described by respondents as ‘clever’ (Masha, 2006) and their ideas as grounded in real knowledge, especially of history (Lera, 2006). Zhenia (2006) summed up this difference as being one between those who ‘will always run around beating people up’ and those who ‘love their country, care about it and . . . develop themselves, including intellectually, by reading books . . . ’ Other ‘inauthentic’ skinheads were considered to be those who joined because they thought the movement was ‘hard’ and thus they would gain protection in it (Vasia, 2006) or because it was ‘fashionable’. Lera (2006) described the latter as ‘spineless’, since they left at the first whiff of danger. In contrast to these types of people, respondents considered themselves to be ‘authentic’ skinheads. However, carrying off this authenticity was becoming increasingly problematic. By 2006, many of the group had been involved in the movement for a number of years; all had begun to display their skinhead allegiance only on special occasions, leading Galia (2006) to note that, ‘at the moment it’s difficult to say whether they are skinheads or

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not’. Indeed, some respondents had begun to rethink their identity. Valera and Sergei were the most inclined to doubt their current skinhead status. In 2006, for example, Valera claimed in one interview that ‘I consider myself still to be a skinhead in my soul. I’m always up for it [vsegda gotov]’, but in a separate interview in 2006 with his friend Sergei, when the latter denied his own skinhead status, saying that ‘there aren’t any skinheads any more’, Valera also reread his identity: INTERVIEWER: But you used to be a skinhead, before that? VALERA: A skinhead? Well, probably not. I was just

someone, just a machine that, if told to go and beat up [someone], went and beat [them] up. Really I was just a total waster.3 I never really got immersed in it, got really into it . . . I didn’t need that, just to beat [someone] up. Basically I was just a hooligan, you could say. That’s probably the best way of putting it. (Valera, 2006)

Others in the group, however, insisted that being a skinhead meant lifelong commitment to the movement. A common trope of this narrative was the dismissal of claims that one could ever be a ‘former skinhead’ (Masha, Andrei and Lera, 2006). All three of these respondents used the same argumentation: if you could call yourself a ‘former skinhead’, then you had never really been one in the first place. Andrei encapsulates this most succinctly: . . . there is a category of people who refer to themselves as ‘former skinheads’. But you just can’t have a former skinhead. If you call yourself a ‘former’ [skinhead] then you simply never really believed in it. But it’s not a matter of belief, but of using your brains. So, you simply never grasped it fully. (Andrei, 2006) This did not mean respondents thought that the way in which one articulated one’s skinhead identity would never change. Lera (2006), for example, imagined that as people grew older they might contribute to the movement financially or by trying to set up some more political organisation rather than going out ‘on parade’, while Lida (who had got married between the two periods of research in 2006 and 2007) declared in 2006 that the skinhead ‘idea’ would always stay with her but, when it came to actions, ‘if I had children I would think ten times about whether I really needed that’. Zhenia also had thought consciously about how his mode of engagement with the movement could evolve without abandoning his core beliefs and recognised that ‘I’m not going to be running around with turned up jeans and a shaven head yelling “Sieg Heil” for the rest of my life’ (Zhenia, 2006). Seeing the meaning of skinhead as being not fixed but evolving with young people as they grow older is made possible by the longitudinal nature of the

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research and is essential to understanding the long-term social significance of the movement. As Jack Moore (1993: 183–4) recognises, while skinheads often leave the active scene or style for various reasons, ‘there is a clear tendency for racist skinheads, when they cease to be active or visible skinhead group members, to retain many of their racist, homophobic outlooks and attitudes’. In the case of this group of respondents, as explored in Chapter 7, this process was in evidence as they shifted definitions of the authentic skinhead from visual and physical displays belonging to an internalised commitment to skinhead ideas.

Things to die for: personal meanings of skinhead Shared definitions of what it meant to be a ‘real’ skinhead did not preclude very different journeys into, through and, for some, out of skinhead. While we cannot claim to have understood all of these profoundly personal trajectories, a few are discussed here with the aim of teasing out what makes individuals feel passionately enough about the movement not only to hurt others in its name but also to risk the consequences of such action for themselves. For some the movement remained essentially a personal form of protest. For Zhenia (2006), for example, it was his way of ‘opposing the system’. For Andrei, protest was also central to his attachment to the movement, although he understood this less in terms of an ‘opposition’ than as a ‘responsibility’. Skinhead was, to him, about how you understood the world and faced up to your responsibility for changing it: The word skinhead holds significance for me – above all it’s about how you yourself understand the world around you. You yourself. If you say, ‘Nobody defends our country’, then you should be able to defend the country, be able to say the right thing. You should never have to off-load [the responsibility] onto anyone else. You should be self-sufficient. (Andrei, 2006) The compulsion to take responsibility for social problems and injustices and to prioritise social concerns – the future of the country and its people – over ‘individual interests’ is a common and strong motif in the narratives of respondents. It is Andrei, however, who expresses this most clearly: I’m also concerned about where our country is heading, why this is happening. And, as far as I am able, I try to change it. I can’t change everything, I try to change that which is around me. Like with the zal. I tried to encourage a lot of people to come. I said, ‘Come on, come and work out, do some weights. Let’s do sport, let’s show all those fools who gather in gangs that there might be 30 of them and only ten of us, but we’ll be so in their faces that they’ll flee in fear.’ (Andrei, 2006)

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For these respondents, skinhead violence is a rationalised means of enacting a social or political ideal, and, as discussed in both Chapters 6 and 8, considerable effort is spent in justifying it philosophically. Such respondents also talk about violence in primarily abstract terms and envisage it as being meted out always on the body of ‘the other’. In sharp contrast, Valera’s trajectory through skinhead is narrated in a way that reveals how the violence of the movement is played out through and on his own body. In his narrative, violence – and the relations that surround it – are more ‘real’ than the political aims via which it is justified: It’s all politics, it’s politics. It’s Adolf Hitler, I mean Mein Kampf, it’s like, fucking purify the race, so that they’re all Russians [rossiiane].4 But I don’t believe in it because I know it’s not real. I’m a machine, me. I’m a machine that follows orders. If I’d been told to kill someone or other, I’d do it. I’m not afraid of that . . . We believe in that. It’s fucking ideology. I believe in that. But not in anything political, not in getting into power . . . it’s not realistic. There’ll never be fascism here. We’ll never have that here. And if we do get fascism then it’ll be fucking communism. (Valera, 2006) This description is typical of Valera’s characterisation of his life as oscillating between being the victim of tough, physical discipline (meted out by men), deep, psychological hurt (at the hands of significant women in his life) and his own violent and ‘out of control’ behaviour (Valera, 2006, 2007). For him, violence was not a means to a political end, therefore, but an everyday experience to which skinhead – or rather the deep bonds of loyalty and respect that came with it – gave meaning. In Valera’s narratives, his struggle to resist the violence acted upon his body requires more violence. This is apparent in the incident described in Chapters 7 and 8, when he had sought to counter physical violence with symbolic violence by demonstratively displaying the swastika tattoo in an act of protest against the violence of the prison guards. Perhaps the most graphic example, however, is in the description of his struggle to withstand the sexual violence that was commonplace in the juvenile prison. It was tough. Especially the four months we had at the juvenile prison. The juvenile prison is just chaos. There are no rules there. I mean, they fuck anything. So, like, because some lad is missing his girl, he’ll fuck whoever he wants – if he has authority. When I went over to the juveniles, one of my acquaintances was there. He was the fucking top one. But then, basically, we fell out. I hung around with him basically for a couple of days. He said something like, ‘Pour me some tea’. And I just fucking hit him in the face. It made no sense. He goes, ‘Are you against me then, when I have 400 people behind me?’ They were losers basically. But I didn’t take it, not in the arse, not in my mouth. They told me to

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suck [him] off, but I never did. I would wake up and there would be blood trickling from my mouth. They started to beat me and burn me with a lighter. I was at the juvenile prison a long time, four fucking months. It’s a long fucking time, I’m telling you – mayhem. I wouldn’t recommend the juvenile prison to anyone . . . (Valera, 2006) There are also suggestions, possibly connected to some of his personal circumstances explored in Chapter 3, of a masochistic pleasure in violence bordering on the will to self-harm. Reminiscing about his fighting days with the skins, Valera said: VALERA:

I’d be fucking burnt, fucking cut – to be honest sometimes it was nice, fun. I mean, I kind of felt something inside me, fucking saw myself from the inside. It made me feel good. INTERVIEWER: What was nice? I didn’t get you. VALERA: I like the blood. INTERVIEWER: Really? VALERA: Yeah. I like it when the blood drips from me and I can see it. I would recommend every skinhead not to be afraid of it either. And if he can cut his own fucking arm, then he is worth something, to be honest. (Valera, 2006) These deeply personal accounts of the significance skinhead held for individual members should not be read as ‘excusing’ the violence perpetrated in the name of the movement. They do, however, help uncover something of what makes skinhead so profoundly meaningful in their lives. This is perhaps best exemplified by the significance attached to knowing the meaning of one’s life. Knowing what you are living for, and what you would be prepared to die for, was another way of distinguishing ‘real’ from inauthentic skinheads: Andrei and Roman began to talk about the meaning of life and . . . Kirill, sitting opposite Andrei, started to argue about whether there was any meaning to life. Andrei was furious and starting saying that the difference between them [himself and those like Kirill] was that he [Andrei] thought, had an idea, while those sheep, animals [like Kirill] had nothing. ANDREI:

You are just existing. You think only about yourself, you don’t think about the world in which you live, or about others! KIRILL: And what have you done Andrei that I haven’t? What have you given to others? What do you do? ANDREI: At least I’m trying to change the world around me and not just eat and sleep. I think about the continuation of our race [rod].5

230

Conclusion . . . At that point Roman weighed in on Andrei’s side. I asked Andrei what the meaning of his existence was. [He replied] ‘I live to change the world and for the sake of the continuation of our race [rod]. What does any person live for if not to ensure that his blood will be there in the future? Ian Stuart wrote that, if a person doesn’t know what they are prepared to die for, then what does he have to live for?’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 13 October 2006)

The passion with which group members argue for the need to know what you would die for brings to life the significance of what Roger Griffin (2008: 12) calls ‘programmatic modernism’ in extreme nationalist ideologies. This, Griffin suggests, consists of: . . . the bid to reinstate a sense of transcendent value, meaning, or purpose . . . [which] is closely bound up with the need to belong to a community united by a shared culture which acts as a refuge from the potentially life threatening fear of a personal death bereft of any sort of transcendence [and which focuses on] the creation of a ‘new world’ . . . (Griffin 2008: 15) Thus, while the preparedness to engage in violence (euphemistically, but significantly, referred to by respondents as ‘actions’) is what members of this group themselves mark out as distinguishing them, as ‘skinheads’, from everyday ‘kitchen’ racists, such violence is never an end in itself. Rather it is a collective practice that, in a very physical way, binds them in the struggle to find transcendent meaning; knowing the meaning of their own death provides the purpose for which to live. The centrality of skinhead solidarity to the maintenance of a sense of the transcendent meaning of life is encapsulated in the following excerpt from a conversation with Slava, which ensued after he had challenged the researchers to justify what the purpose of their lives was: INTERVIEWER: I don’t know for what, for what I would be prepared to die. SLAVA: What’s the point in living then, just to earn your money, basi-

cally? . . . INTERVIEWER:

Aha. Do you know what you would be prepared to die for then? SLAVA: There are a lot of things I’d be prepared to die for. For the lads right here, for example . . . (Slava, 2006) Here Slava consciously posits not an idea or a political aim as the source of transcendent value embedded in skinhead, but the bonds between people that it engenders. The meaning of skinhead, this suggests, may be located in neither style nor ideology but in the existential comfort of solidarity – or, in

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Maffesoli’s terminology, the immanent ‘transcendent warmth of collectivity’ (Shields 1996: x).

Rethinking skinhead lives: beyond the personal Why bother trying to get beneath the skin of a skin? What is the point of attempting to understand the personal meanings of skinhead identity to a handful of individuals in a remote part of the world? And what do the subjective meanings attached by individuals to skinhead tell us about its ‘real’ social significance and impact? Russian, still more Vorkuta, skinhead lives might be considered, legitimately, to be no more than one outcome of the historical process by which the skinhead subculture is ‘communicated’ over time and space (Brown 2004: 161). Understanding these lives, it follows, carries no additional value other than that contained in their particularity or exoticness. On the other hand, if ‘skinhead’ has no fixed meaning and at best denotes a range of scenes in different times and places, then the Vorkuta node in the network is as good as any other starting point for considering what it might be that connects those scenes and explains why skinhead remains so meaningful to so many. Indeed, while the ethnographic approach adopted in this research pays particular attention to the significance of place, to what was termed in Chapter 2 the distinctive ‘aura’ of Vorkuta, it has also been argued that it would be wrong to lock young people into localised lives by reducing the significance of place to the constraints of the city’s gulag history or territorial marginality. On the contrary, ethnographic research can not only elicit how young people play out their lives in the here and now but project and connect their lives with other, real and imagined, lives in other places and times. In rethinking what it is that connects ‘skinhead’ in its many different manifestations, we have argued that it is no longer sustainable to envisage skinhead style as an unreflexive stylistic expression of a collective response to structural (primarily class) location. In addition to the contemporary and current critiques of this understanding of skinhead, outlined in Chapter 1, it is fair to say that this theorisation has proven not to travel well across time and space; the post-socialist context, to take just one example, fits uneasily with a central tenet of the CCCS theory of youth subculture concerning the relationship between parent (working-class) culture and dominant culture. Equally, however, it has been suggested here, to think of skinhead as no more than a ‘style community’ taking different historical forms (Brown 2004: 160) fails to explain its longevity and continued subcultural presence, especially given the profound rifts in ideology and music that it has experienced. What we have proposed instead, drawing on insights from the contemporary UK scene (Nayak 1999, 2005), is an understanding of skinhead identity as constituted in its repeated performance. These performances shift in expression and meaning over both time and space, as a consequence of their structural and cultural location. What remains constant are the bonds engendered through

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the performance of skinhead that sustain a vital sense of solidarity at the expense of gendered, classed and ethnicised ‘others’. It is with these bonds that this book has been most concerned. Such bonds, we have suggested, are neither ideologically rooted (as like-minded individuals seek each other out via virtual communities or organised political parties) nor a product of shared consumer sensibilities embedded in wider ‘lifestyles’ (Bennett 1999: 607). Rather they emerge from what Maffesoli (1996: 81) sees as the basic given of any society – an ‘undirected beingtogether’. This basic sociality is enacted through the companionship of individuals and groups (ibid.: 86) – the shared cultural interests and practices of friendship, trust and loyalty discussed here in Chapters 3 and 4. Moreover, Maffesoli argues (ibid.), it is a given ‘that the bond itself is more important than the elements which are joined together. It is less a case of the goal to be reached than the fact of being-together which will prevail’. The significance for the male members of the group of the creation of a partially closed space filled with homosocial practices of intimacy has been detailed in Chapter 8. Moreover, as argued above, the bonds forged in this space carry the potential for the realisation of the immanent transcendence underpinning the fragmented worldview of the group – a philosophy concerned less with the pursuit of political agendas in contemporary Russia than with a transcendent mission to overcome death and continue ‘the race’. If we are to avoid becoming excessively romantic about the capacity of ‘the people as mass . . . to triumph over ordinary death’ (Maffesoli 1996: 63), however, these bonds need to be brought back into social context, at both micro- and macro-level. At the micro-level, one might reasonably ask, if the bonds and solidarities underpinning skinhead really do matter more than its stylistic or ideological manifestations, how is it that, as described in Chapter 4, the interests and ‘strategies’ of individual members came to be prioritised over skinhead solidarity, resulting in an irreconcilable split in the group? The answer, we have argued, does not lie in rational self-interest, specifically the struggle over the control of the group’s major resource (the basement gym). While a dispute over the gym’s use ostensibly triggered the conflict, beneath it lay more significant shifts in the bonds and solidarity between group members. For Andrei, as routine practices of maintaining the principles of being together (street authority, conspiracy of silence around violence, and ideology) diminished alongside the group’s movement away from direct action, the bonds in the group needed reinforcing with renewed commitment and displays of loyalty. Thus, for him the split was a ‘natural process of evolution, after which the weak retreated and the strong became stronger’ (Andrei, in a letter to Al’bina Garifzianova, February 2008). For others, such as Slava, the existing practices of companionship and ‘being together’ became uncomfortable for other reasons; the conspiratorial and exclusive practices of skinhead solidarity began to feel like being ‘caged’, restricted and constantly subjected to mistrust and the demand to prove loyalty. Demands,

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from Andrei, to confirm this loyalty in bonds of solidarity that were increasingly exclusive and hierarchical were thus resented and, in the end, rejected. At the macro-level these bonds are formed not in some abstract realm of the social, but out of real physical, emotional and spiritual contact in a concrete place and time. In each of its local manifestations, it follows, skinhead identity is constituted through a set of performative practices that aggressively enact a particular constellation of labour, gender and ethnic identities at the expense of ethnicised, classed and gendered ‘others’. In Chapters 5 and 6 of this book, the attitudes and practices of ethnic hostility found among this particular skinhead group are outlined and the degree to which they can be traced back to the ‘everyday racism’ found in wider society is analysed. Running through each chapter has also been a concern with the ways in which the strength and meaning of the bonds formed in the group are predicated on the exclusion of women; the very notion of ‘female friendship’, for example, is rejected (see Chapter 3). Even women accepted into the group have their engagement in the performative style practices that confirm skinhead identity circumscribed and their attempts to enact them ridiculed; they are left no choice but to accept that their exclusion is in the best interests of the group, since the lads’ ‘concern’ for them would distract them during ‘actions’. This process of othering can only be understood, however, within the context of a complex interplay of gender, class and ethnic identities. Central to this is the gendered labour heritage that is absorbed and reproduced by male respondents, who talked with pride about having followed their fathers into manual labour in the mines and power stations of the city. As described in Chapter 3, this heritage ensures respondents ‘fit’ into those work ‘collectives’ and gain respect and authority easily. They work there in teams, ‘brigades’, which are mirrored in the same ‘brigade’-based structure of the skinhead movement, and – like that movement too – they engender (exclusively male) spaces and ritual drinking practices during which individuals exchange jokes and stories and bond in the absence of oppressive ‘others’ (bosses and women). Yet respondents also demonstrate a profound ambivalence towards their class location. They describe their physically demanding labour as ‘self-torture’ (Slava, 2007) and wear their burns, bruises and cuts from work as badges of both honour and oppression. ‘Other’ labour – whether it be ‘Jews . . . in official positions’ (Sasha, 2006) or Caucasian traders who make ‘easy money’ at the markets (Roman, 2006) – is resented and inscribed with ethnic difference. Here we see the ‘masquerade’ of which Nayak (1999: 94) talks – a masquerade behind which huge effort is expended to accomplish essentialised and romanticised working-class and Russian national identities. At the same time, these ‘other’ labour identities are emulated through myriad informal economic practices – many of which directly contradict skinhead ideology and group norms – and the perceived solidarity of ‘other’ ethnic groups is admired. Masculinity was also an

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unfinished ‘project’ (ibid.). As demonstrated in Chapter 8, shared notions of what constituted a proper, ‘hard’ masculinity papered over a range of individual, sometimes competing, masculine strategies within the group. Moreover, the physical, intimate, caring and supportive bonds between men in the group, and the pleasure taken in them, rendered precarious their verbal articulation of patriarchal attitudes and hard masculinities. In attempting to understand the continued resonance of the skinhead movement, therefore, we suggest neither directly extrapolating the structural and cultural factors important to the emergence of skinhead style in the United Kingdom of the late 1960s to other times and places, nor accepting that the movement’s global diversification renders it no longer possible to understand skinhead as something more than the sum of myriad subjective meanings attached to it by individuals. The findings of this study suggest, rather, a number of dimensions to contemporary skinhead identity that are central to its successful theorisation today. Firstly, for contemporary skinheads, the style, and movement, is mediated by public, media and subcultural representations of it, and thus individuals’ engagement with it is necessarily reflexive. Skinhead style can no longer be read ‘straight’; it must always be seen in the context of constructions of it and unconscious fantasies tied up with it (Pilkington 2010). Secondly, the presence and familiarity of skinhead within the cultural landscape means that it is an available cultural resource for an increasingly large and diverse number of young people for whom it plays a particular role within their wider cultural strategies and lives. The challenge of this should be met, we have suggested, not by seeking to filter ‘inauthentic’ skinheads out of the research gaze but by an approach which follows, and seeks to understand, individuals’ trajectories in, through and, in many cases, out of skinhead. This is why we have talked about this particular study as one of ‘skinhead lives’ rather than skinhead subculture. Thirdly, and whether or not this forms part of an explicitly ‘ideologised’ variant of skinhead, it is precisely the space skinhead provides for the naturalisation and essentialisation of gender, race or class identities that continues to make it attractive to many people today. The absolute ‘certainties’ preinscribed in the style – be they racist or anti-racist, homophobic or gay – help explain the (injustices of) the world and one’s own purpose in it. Finally, this purpose carries with it a promise of a transcendent value to skinhead lives. This value may be articulated as a set of rational ideological principles and political goals. It may, alternatively, have no expression beyond the experience of the pleasures of ritual fighting or the sensations of being part of a collective body. Either way, it is located in the bonds that are formed in the everyday practices of skinhead, for it is in these that individuals find the existential comfort of solidarity in action.

Appendix 1 Parties and extra-parliamentary groupings

This appendix provides a brief overview of political organisations referred to directly in this book. For a comprehensive discussion of all major radical nationalist organisations, publications and events in Russia, see Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova (2009) from where, unless otherwise indicated, the information below is taken.

Freedom Party (Partiia svobody) (PS) The Freedom Party, founded in 2001, is currently an unregistered organisation (its official registration was revoked in 2004). It has no fixed membership and a network-style structure. Its leader is Iurii Beliaev, who fought as a volunteer alongside Serbian troops during the war in Bosnia and has a series of convictions for incitement to ethnic and religious hatred. Beliaev became chair of the Narodno-sotsial’naia partiia (NSP) in 1991 and subsequently took that organisation into Nikolai Lysenko’s National-Republican Party of Russia (NRPR) in 1992. When the NRPR split in 1994, Beliaev continued to lead a faction without official registration until he registered it under the new name of the Freedom Party in 2001. The members of PS are primarily Naziskinheads oriented towards direct violent action. This element of their activity was formalised in St Petersburg through the formation in September 2005 of the White Patrol, whose goal was declared to be to ‘purge the city of foreigners [inorodtsy]’ and whose violent attacks on such foreigners, as well as members of left-wing youth groups, were documented on the PS website. The party promotes a racially exclusive model of Russian nationalism in which ethnic Russians are privileged as the state-forming ethnic group, although other ‘indigenous peoples’ are recognised. Members of other ethnic groups (including Jews, Roma and people from the Caucasus, Africa or Asia) are considered to have no right to live in Russia. The PS is a neo-Nazi party which views both historical and contemporary forms of fascism, including Nazism, favourably. Initial declarations of support for the Putin regime were followed by a switch to radical opposition to it. Following Beliaev’s arrest in May 2008 (and subsequent imprisonment for six months) the party split into two wings: the north-west regional group under the leadership of Oleg Sharapov and the Moscow regional branch under Denis Tananin.

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Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (Liberal’no-demokraticheskaia partiia Rossii) (LDPR) The LDPR is a registered political party founded in 1989 and led by Vladimir Zhirinovskii. It has had parliamentary status since 1993, although it has never repeated the level of its initial electoral success. While both Zhirinovskii and his party have a reputation of being ‘political clowns’, the party has maintained a stable, if declining, electoral base over the last two decades. Despite its integration into the political regime, sections of the party, including some individuals with seats in parliament, have extreme right-wing views. Since the beginning of the 2000s ultra-right-wing groups such as the Slavic Union have attempted to lobby their interests through the LDPR, and LDPR deputies have maintained links with groups such as the NSO. The electoral campaigns of the LDPR have employed anti-migrant and ethnically charged language, and the party has been associated with repeated political scandals related to xenophobic sentiments. However, its secure position within the regime has meant that the party has largely avoided punishment or prosecution; for example, when Rodina was excluded from the Moscow city Duma elections in 2005 because of its xenophobic advertising campaign (see below), the LDPR – which ran a similar campaign declaring ‘We are for a city with Russian faces. Illegals have no place in the capital city’ – went unpunished. The party’s official ideology is based on a cultural rather than a biological understanding of Russianness, although the rhetoric of individuals, including its leader, often employs biological terminology (such as ‘genetic purity’), and the party has a strong anti-migrant stance in which migrants are, by definition, understood to be non-ethnic Russians. While the LDPR has never supported political or racist violence and its activists do not engage in such action, they maintain contacts with ultra-right-wing groups and fail to condemn the violence of others. All attempts to prosecute members of the party for xenophobic propaganda under anti-incitement to racial and ethnic hatred legislation have failed.

Movement against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’no immigratsii) (DPNI) The DPNI is an unregistered movement founded in July 2002. It is led by Aleksandr Belov and Vladimir Basmanov (who are brothers and share the real surname Potkin), who began their political trajectories as teenage members of the National Patriotic Front Pamiat’. The movement was structured originally as a network of organisations allowing direct membership but also ‘sympathiser’ status. This creative and flexible organisational form allowed the movement to grow rapidly and gain wide visibility. The movement also adopted the novel stance of rejecting any political ambitions and declaring support for President Putin; this ensured it avoided any extensive interference from the authorities. The DPNI has been central to the organisa-

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tion of the Russian March (Russkii marsh),1 held annually since 2005 on 4 November. The march acts as a coalition of right-wing radical groups and provides a space for the public demonstration of force for Nazi-skinheads. The DPNI also played a key role in whipping up anti-Caucasian sentiment and attacks in Kondopoga; Belov and a number of DPNI activists were personally in the city leading events in the first few days of the pogroms at the end of August 2006. In May 2008 the DPNI split into three factions, after which the Belov/Basmanov faction held the organisation’s first official congress and reconstituted it with a more vertical and traditional structure. At the same time they joined the Russian National Movement (Russkoe natsional’noe dvizhenie) coalition, founded in June 2008. The movement’s strategy is to engage in the rhetoric of the defence of rights and protection of social welfare in order to promote its particular ethnic politics. It has sought to avoid overt racist language by focusing its struggle on ‘illegal immigration’, but, in practice, ‘illegal migrants’ is used to refer to all non-Slavs. The movement supports the introduction of a visa regime with CIS countries, the end to illegal migration, and the deportation of illegal migrants from Russia. It engages with the Nazi-skinhead environment and uses some of the symbols and slogans circulating within it (for example, David Lane’s ‘14 words’). Its original political loyalty to President Putin was maintained until 2007 but abandoned after its failed attempt to enter mainstream politics, when it became a founding member of the party Great Russia (Velikaia Rossiia), which was not granted registration and thus was unable to compete in parliamentary elections. Consequently, by autumn 2007 the movement advocated boycotting both presidential and parliamentary elections, and Belov was seeking to reconfigure the DPNI from a network into a party-like organisation (Verkhovsky 2009: 98). Formally the movement rejects all illegal actions, including armed struggle. However, it advocates the legal acquisition of firearms and of fighting skills for ‘self-defence’. It also conducts street patrols and ‘raids’ to uncover illegal migrants.

National Bolshevik Party (Natsional-bol’shevistskaia partiia) (NBP) The NBP is a prohibited organisation led by Eduard Limonov (real name Eduard Savenko). The original National Bolshevik Front was founded in May 1993 by Limonov and Aleksandr Dugin and later renamed the National Bolshevik Party. Limonov had previously been a member of the LDPR and co-founded the National-Radical Party (Natsional’no-radikal’naia partiia) (1992–3). Limonov is a well-known writer who emigrated and lived abroad between 1974 and 1992. The party’s infamous Limonka newspaper began publication in November 1994. In September 2002 the Limonka had its registration withdrawn, and there followed (between 2002 and 2008) a series of new publications under different titles (General’naia liniia, Na kraiu, Trudodni). Until its prohibition (see below) the party claimed 56,000 members, although the active number was much smaller. In the early years

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(1995–8) the NBP sought to facilitate the creation of a united bloc of the far left and right through a series of ultimately failed coalition movements. At this time its ideological stance also combined extreme left-wing economic doctrine with extreme right-wing political attitudes; this is symbolised in the party’s flag, which adapts that of the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or Nazi Party) by replacing the central swastika symbol with that of the hammer and sickle. It is also evident in its appeal to people from a wide range of former political and subcultural scenes (skinheads, punks, anarchists, RNE activists, greens) (Toporova 1999: 120). During this period Aleskandr Dugin’s ideological influence was paramount, bringing to the party ideas of ‘conservative revolution’, traditionalism, and the ‘new right’ doctrine of neo-Eurasianism. However, the party was also simultaneously infused with all kinds of eclectic ideas from the cultural avant-garde and counter-cultural aesthetics. In spring 1998 Dugin left the party, as the gap between his esoteric philosophy and the theatrical direct action and symbolic violence approach of Limonov became increasingly apparent.2 His departure signalled the start of a left-wing turn in the ideology of the party, with the philosophical focus shifting from national to social revolution. In 2001 Limonov and the founder of Limonka, Sergei Aksenov, were imprisoned, having been held responsible for planning the acquisition of automatic weapons by four NBP members in Saratov. During Limonov’s absence the party was effectively led by its Latvian branch leader, Vladimir Linderman, whose involvement in the defence of the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Lativa added human rights rhetoric to the party’s ideology. Following release from prison in 2003, Limonov began to steer the party in another new ideological direction and to form a coalition of opposition forces that included the liberals. This led to a split, as supporters of a more radical nationalism first tried to remove Limonov from the party administration and subsequently left themselves. Limonov’s NBP went on to become central to the formation in 2006 of the Other Russia (Drugaia Rossiia) opposition movement, which brought together the NBP, Gary Kasparov’s United Civic Front (Ob”edinennii grazhdanskii front), the Republican Party (Respublikanskaia partiia Rossii) of Russia led by Vladimir Lysenko and Vladimir Ryzhkov, the ex-prime minister Mikail Kas’ianov’s People’s Democratic Union of Russia (Rossiiskii narodnodemokraticheskii soius) and Viktor Anpilov’s Working Russia (Trudovaia Rossiia). The most successful actions of this coalition have been the series of opposition rallies known as the ‘March of those who don’t agree’ (Marsh nesoglasnikh). While nationalism remains a core part of NBP ideology, it is a nationalism that has consciously avoided any ethnic connotation; ‘Russianness’ is determined by self-identification, cultural and linguistic affiliation, and loyalty to the Russian state rather than by any biological marker. Following the departure of Dugin, the party became largely indifferent to religion and currently emphasises its secular character and displays hostility towards the Russian Orthodox Church, which it considers part of the state

Parties and extra-parliamentary groupings

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apparatus to which it is opposed. The party was declared an extremist organisation by the Moscow city court in April 2007 and its activities prohibited. Since that time it has been formally considered not to exist, and any activity undertaken in its name is liable to prosecution under paragraph 282 of the Russian criminal code. In August 2006 members of the NBP discontent with Limonov’s new ideological direction established the National Bolshevik Front (NBF), which then allied with the Eurasian Youth Union (ESM), effectively reuniting them with the former main ideologist of the NBP, Aleksandr Dugin (Verkhovsky 2009: 92).

National Great Power Party of Russia (Natsional’no-derzhavnaia partiia Rossii) (NDPR) The National Great Power Party of Russia was founded in 2002 and has been led by Aleksandr Sevast’ianov (until November 2008) and Stanislav Terekhov. The party was officially registered upon formation but had its registration rescinded in 2003. The very different positions of its two leaders – Sevast’ianov is a journalist and writer as well as avowedly anti-Christian, while Terekhov has military training, participated in the defence of the White House in 1993 and is an Orthodox national communist – signals a party with a broad base. From 2003 the NDPR actively sought to promote its message among school pupils and students through initiatives, such as essay competitions and academic conferences on ‘patriotic’ themes, that received the support of official institutions (such as the parliamentary Committee for Culture and Tourism and the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences). In October 2005 the NDPR became a member of the organising committee of the Right March and subsequently of the Russian March (see note 1). Both leaders have unsuccessfully stood for election to Russian parliamentary and executive institutions. The NDPR promotes a worldview based on Russian (russkii) ethnic nationalism in which ‘Russianness’ is rooted biologically (at least one parent must be an ethnic Russian) and with which some ‘other’ ethnic groups (such as Chechens and Ingush) are considered to be culturally ‘incompatible’. Consequently, the party, unusually among this part of the Russian political spectrum, supports the exclusion of the Chechen and Ingush republics from the Russian Federation. Its ideological statements also contain a strong trope of antiSemitism and a positive evaluation of various forms of fascism, including national socialism. Sevast’ianov’s publications, for example, argue for the adoption in Russia not of national socialism but of ‘national capitalism’.

National-Socialist Association (Nastional-sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo) (NSO) The NSO was formed in 2004 by Dmitrii Rumiantsev (who had been excluded from the Slavic Union by Dmitrii Demushkin in 2001) and a former

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activist of the Belarusan RNE, Sergei Korotkikh. The organisation courted strong links with active skinhead groups, including Maksim Martsinkevich’s Format-18, whose joining of the leadership of NSO resulted in the latter becoming a more visibly neo-Nazi organisation. After the arrest of Martsinkevich in 2007, the NSO split; part of the Moscow branch, the Voronezh cells and most of Format-18 supported Korotkikh, while the rest were behind Rumiantsev. By the beginning of 2008 Korotkikh’s part of the NSO had virtually ceased to function and in April 2008 Rumiantsev stepped down from the leadership of his wing of the organisation, after which the group also became largely inactive. Martsinkevich’s subsequent imprisonment in February 2008 for three years also triggered the collapse of Format-18 (Kozhevnikova 2009).

National Front Party (Partiia Natsional’nii Front) (PNF) and Church of Nav (Tserkov’ Navi) Both organisations were founded by Il’ia Lazarenko. The National Front Party developed out of earlier organisations formed by Lazarenko, and it acquired this name in 1994 (Shenfield 2001: 249). It is a political organisation consisting largely of skinhead members (Likhachev 2002: 118) and adopting a classical fascist ideology (Shenfield 2001: 249). The Church of Nav (also known as the Society of Nav and the Sacred Church of the White Race) was founded in 1996 when the PNF began to lose members (ibid.: 250). It is a ‘military-spiritual occult brotherhood’ whose members define themselves as Ariosophists rather than pagans (ibid.). They worship the supreme deity Nav, who is said to have created a race of people, the Aryans or Whites, who would carry Nav’s spirit into the material universe; this people, it is believed, migrated from their original earthly homeland, Hyperborea, near the North Pole to Eurasia, where racial mixing and spiritual decline are believed to have led to their moral degeneration (ibid.: 251). Neither organisation is still active.

People’s National Party (Narodnaia natsional’naia partiia) (NNP)/ Russkaia tsel’ The People’s National Party was founded in 1994 and received the name NNP in 1995. It was originally registered in the latter year but denied official registration when it tried to re-register in 1998. It is led by Aleksandr IvanovSukharevskii, of Don Cossack heritage, whose early career as a film director was cut short when a number of his films were banned because of Russian chauvinism and anti-Semitism (Shenfield 2001: 222). The NNP publishes the newspaper Ia – russkii. Ivanov-Sukharevskii was twice prosecuted for inciting ethnic hatred in relation to the paper’s content. The ideology of the NNP is rooted in the philosophy of Rusizm, invented by Ivanov-Sukharevskii and grounded in classical biological racism combined with ‘popular nationalism’, ‘national-ecologism’, Orthodoxy and the Russian imperial idea (ibid.:

Parties and extra-parliamentary groupings

241

225). However, the party includes both Orthodox believers and pagans. The future state is envisaged as unitary, with citizenship open only to those of Russian descent – where ‘Russian’ includes Belarusans, Ukrainians and Ruthenians (ibid.: 226). Orthodoxy would be the state religion, although other religions not contradicting Orthodoxy would be tolerated (ibid.: 227). The party is definitively anti-Putin as part of its anti-oligarch and anti-immigration stance, and also because it sees the regime as denying nationalists the right to stand for democratic election. The party thus called upon a boycott of the most recent presidential and parliamentary elections. Awaiting trial, Ivanov-Sukharevskii shared a cell with Semen Tokmakov, leader of the skinhead group Russkaia tsel’ (Pushchaev 2002: 78; Tarasov 2000: 40–41), and thereafter Russkaia tsel’ joined the party as an autonomous youth concern, and Tokmakov began to lead its youth organisation (Likhachev 2002: 119). In October 2003 Ivanov-Sukharevskii was injured following an explosion at his flat; this incident was said to have been an attempt to murder the party’s leader, although the police claimed a home-made grenade had exploded and no prosecution was ever brought. By the end of 2008 Ivanov-Sukharevskii had become peripheral on the political scene.

Rodina (Homeland – Congress of Russian Communities) (Rodina – Kongress russkikh obshchin) (Rodina–KRO) Rodina is an unregistered organisation founded in 2006 and led by Dmitrii Rogozin, Andrei Savel’ev and Aleksandr Belov. Rogozin is arguably the most electorally successful and influential of nationalist politicians in Russia. He was one of the initiators of the formation of the Congress of Russian Communities (KRO) – originally an organisation of Russian compatriot associations in the former Soviet republics – and was elected chair of its executive committee. He was successfully elected (in a regional seat) to the state Duma in 1997 and subsequently made the deputy chair of its commission on ethnic affairs. He was re-elected to the Duma in 1999 and became chair of the parliamentary committee on international affairs and head of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council. In September 2001 he was elected deputy chair of the People’s Party of the Russian Federation (Narodnaia partiia RF) (NPRF) and in September 2002 also became co-chair of the Party of Russia’s Regions (Partiia rossiiskikh regionov) (PRR), which joined the People’s Patriotic Union Rodina electoral bloc in September 2003. In 2003 Rodina successfully passed the threshold for inclusion in parliament on the party list section of the vote, having gained 9 per cent of the popular vote. A parliamentary faction was formed under the same name and Rogozin was elected deputy chair of the state Duma. Under Rogizin’s leadership the party was successful in the regional elections of 2005, although it was prohibited from participating in the Moscow city Duma elections following the scandal over the openly xenophobic electoral video it used, entitled ‘We’ll cleanse our city of rubbish!’

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The ideology of the organisation is ethno-nationalist in character, although this stance is articulated in party documents in moderate tones. Its formation with the purpose of electoral success means that its formal structure conforms to current legislation on social organisations, and it has branches in 52 regions of Russia. The closeness of the organisation, and in particular Rogozin, to the administration ensures that official statements do not support violence. However, statements of individual members reveal racist and anti-Semitic sentiments and in some cases even apologias for past and contemporary fascist ideas. The party leaders differentiate between ethnic Russians (russkie) and civic Russians (rossiiane) – the latter referring to indigenous non-Russian ethnic groups traditionally living on the territory of Russia – and consider Orthodoxy and the Church to hold an important social role. In December 2006 Rogozin initiated the re-formation of the KRO3 and was elected chair of Rodina–Kongress russkikh obshchin. The structure of the Rodina–KRO was designed in such a way as to allow the participation of nationalists of all kinds, among them those already associated with notable organisations; it includes, for example, members of the DPNI (Belov, Baranovskii and Kuznetsov). Rodina–KRO was refused official registration twice in the course of 2007, and the leadership subsequently declared it was moving its head offices to Minsk (Belarus). Rogozin announced the formation of a new political party to fight the parliamentary and presidential elections – the Great Russia Party – to be headed by Andrei Savel’ev (Rogozin became the leader of its Voronezh branch). However, the party failed to be registered and, since he was not included in any other list, Rogozin was not returned to the new parliament. He became the permanent representative of the RF to NATO in January 2008, and thereafter the activities of Rodina– KRO were implemented within the framework of the Great Russia Party. The fact that Rogozin was invited to be permanent representative to NATO but at the same time his party was not allowed to compete in the elections illustrates the ambiguous relationship between the government and nationalist political movements – a relationship that the Kremlin clearly keeps on its own terms (Verkhovsky 2009: 98).

Russian National Union (Russkii national’nii soiuz) (RNS) The RNS was formed in 1993 and registered as an interregional organisation in 1994. Its founder and leader is Konstantin Kasimovskii (formerly of Pamiat’). The party had its own department dedicated to working with skinhead groups and published the newspaper Shturmovik. The RNS also assisted skinheads in producing its own journal, Pod nol’ (Likhachev 2002: 118; Shenfield 2001: 242). The ideology of the RNS combines Orthodox Christianity, imperial monarchism and German Nazism (Shenfield 2001: 239), and its programme envisages the future Russia as granting citizenship only to Great Russians and making marriages between citizens and non-citi-

Parties and extra-parliamentary groupings

243

zens ‘racial crimes’ (ibid.: 240–41). It organises its ‘stormtroopers’ in a special detachment divided into squads and sections and has its own training camp outside Moscow (ibid.: 242). In November 1998 the party was renamed the Russian National-Socialist Party (Russkaia national-sotsialisticheskaia partiia) but was not granted official registration, and in December Shturmovik had its registration revoked and its printing press confiscated by the FSB (ibid.: 243). At this point many of the skinheads involved with the RNS peeled off into the Moscow Skinlegion (Likhachev 2002: 118). The party ceased activity after Kasimovskii’s conviction in 1999, although he himself went on to create the Russkoe deistvie group.

Russian National Unity (Russkoe National’noe Edinstvo) (RNE) Until the beginning of 2000 the RNE was the largest and most successful ultra-right movement in Russia with an active membership of around 15,000 and having, at regional level, strong links with local authorities and a sizeable infrastructure of military and sports training centres. The movement was founded in October 1990 and led by Aleksandr Barkashov (previously a member of Pamiat’ and one of the main ‘defenders’ of the White House in Autumn 2003). It had at that time a strict hierarchical structure and a highly militarised ethos. In 1999 Barkashov topped the list of candidates to the state Duma from the electoral bloc of national-patriotic organisations Spas; the bloc was subsequently prohibited from taking part in the elections. In September 2000 the movement split, and a group under Oleg Kassin and Iurii Vasin moved away from the main party led by Barkashov. This breakaway group then split once more, as those supporting the Lalochkin brothers left. The structural organisation of the Lalochkin wing, in stark distinction from the Barkashov wing, was based on the network principle. The Kassin–Vasin group subsequently rebranded themselves as Russkoe vozrozhdenie. Dmitrii Demushkin led a further breakaway group of RNE activists to form the Slavianskii soiuz in 2001. Today there are two main groups using the RNE label: the Obshcherossiiskoe obshchestvennoe patrioticheskoe dvizhenie (OOPD) RNE, led by Barkashov, and the Vserossiiskoe obshchestvennoe patrioticheskoe dvizhenie (VOPD) RNE, led by the Lalochkin brothers. Despite the split, no fundamental shifts in ideology were made by either wing, and the founding documents of the RNE from the 1990s remain the core of its philosophy. This ideology rests on a biological and exclusivist understanding of Russianness in which ‘Russians’ (russkie) denotes ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusans. Other ‘indigenous’ ethnic groups are considered civic Russians (Rossiiane), while all others (foreigners), regardless of their place of birth or length of residence in Russia, according to the Lalochkin wing of the movement, should be stripped of Russian citizenship. Barkashov also promotes a racial definition of the Russian nation and argues that the USSR’s nationalities policy constituted a programme of miscegenation of Slavs with

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non-Aryan peoples in the attempt to eradicate the former (Laruelle 2009: 30). For both wings of the movement Russian Orthodoxy is an essential element of Russianness, although both are also extremely critical of the current leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Anti-Semitism is also an integral part of the ideology of all factions of the RNE and partly explains the positive attitude towards Hitler on the part of the Barkashov wing. However, the movement continues to be fractured, and it would appear that most groups currently using the name RNE conduct their own activity independently of the overall leadership and form their own coalitions with other groups at the regional level. The RNE continues to be an active object of attention for the authorities not least because of its open use of Nazi symbols and widespread involvement in racist violence and in other criminal activities (including racketeering). At least four regional branches of the RNE and six of their publications have been banned under anti-extremism legislation.

Slavic Union (Slavianskii soiuz) (SS) The Slavic Union is an unregistered national-socialist movement that has been in existence since 1999 and is led by Dmitrii Demushkin. It was originally formed as an intra-party structure of the security service of the RNE (of which Demushkin had been a member since 1995). In 2000 the grouping sided with the Lalochkin brothers when the RNE fractured and in 2001 broke away from the RNE to become independent. Demushkin was elected its first chairman and claimed, in 2005, that the SS had 44 branches (38 of which were in Russia) incorporating around 5,000 people. Currently there is evidence of the existence of 11 branches (eight in Russia). Its main activity involves sport and military training for its members. The movement has been active in the Russian March organisation since 2007. Ideologically it is classically national-socialist, promoting racial purity and the formation of a Russian (russkoe) national state in which the interests of ethnic Russians are prioritised. The SS recognises both Orthodoxy and paganism as ‘true’ religions of Russia, and there are many neo-pagans among its members. It opposes the current political regime. Although the organisation does not openly advocate the use of violence, it promotes a cult of force and individual members of the organisation – including its leader – have been convicted and investigated for violent acts. Two of the three people convicted for the murder of the anti-fascist Aleksandr Riukhin in 2006 were members of the SS.

Union of Veneds (Soiuz venedov) (SV) The Union of Veneds is a pagan fascist organisation founded by Viktor Bezverkhy and promotes the worship of pagan gods of the Slavic pantheon. The organisation has around 300 members across Russia and publishes a monthly periodical (Shenfield 2001: 249–50).

Data missing

In full-time work (social security office)

22

29

Male

Male

Female 18

Female 18

Denis

Egor

Galia

Lera

Engagement with researchers

Associated with Zhenia and Lida’s group; strong stylistic and ideological identification with skinhead.

‘Brigade’ leader most closely associated with Zhenia.

Girlfriend of Valera during research in 2006; does not support racist views or violent action of the group.

Participated in research in 2006

Moved to Moscow region in 2008; has gone back into education and is learning karate.

Was still in Vorukta in 2007, still hoping to train for police service.

Moved to Moscow in 2008.

Participated in research in 2007

Participated in research in 2006

Data missing.

Moved to Moscow with girlfriend in spring 2008; working in finance office of company laying cable.

Current Status (summer 2009)

Participated in research in 2006

Co-founder of the skinhead group and one Participated in research in 2003, 2006 and 2007 of the two acknowledged ‘leaders’ whose conflict split the group in 2006.

In full-time Not a member of the original skinhead employment (at group but friend of Slava, who became a power station) core member of his friendship group between 2006 and 2007. He was sympathetic to skinhead views but did not support direct action or ideological ‘fanaticism’.

In full-time education

In full-time education

20

Male

Andrei

Educational/ Relationship to skinhead group employment status (October 2006)

Age (October 2006)

Gender

Name

Appendix 2 – Biographical characteristics of respondents

Associated with Zhenia and Lida’s group; strong stylistic and ideological identification with skinhead.

Participated in research in 2006

19

Male

Sasha

In full-time employment

In full-time Elder brother of Vasia; identifies as Participated in research employment (at ‘skinhead’ and associated most closely with in 2006 and 2007 army base) Andrei and Slava.

21

Male

Roman

Girlfriend of Slava during research in 2006; Participated in research strongly opposed to skinhead violence. in 2006

In prison.

Still in Vorkuta in same employment; married in 2009 and has an eightmonth-old baby.

Still in Vorkuta; working as a nurse and registered as a part-time student in Nizhnii Novgorod.

In 2006 was studying in Syktyvkar.

Participated in research in 2003

In full-time education

Classmate of Andrei and Slava; one of the original group of skinheads from the Retribution-18 brigade (2002–3).

Studying at veterinary college in Kirov.

Participated in research in 2006

Still in Vorkuta; has ninemonth-old baby with husband Viktor.

Participated in research in 2006

Female 18

In full-time education (2003)

Close friend of the group hanging out with Andrei and Slava and former girlfriend of Zhenia; strongly sympathetic to skinhead views but did not participate in skinhead actions.

Identifies with the ‘movement’ but came out of the music/punk scene and most closely associated with Zhenia.

Current Status (summer 2009)

Engagement with researchers

Olia

Data missing

In full-time education

Female 17

Masha

Nikolai Male

In full-time education and part-time employment

Female 21

Educational/ Relationship to skinhead group employment status (October 2006)

Lida

Age (October 2006)

Gender

Name

18

21

19

Data missing

Data missing

17

23

Male

Male

Male

Male

Male

Male

Male

Sergei

Slava

Valera

Vasia

Viktor

Vova

Zhenia

Hung out at the basement gym and was a Participated in research keen bodybuilder; classmate from school in 2006 and close friend of Valera. By 2006 expressed doubts about identifying himself as a ‘skinhead’.

In full-time employment

In full-time education

Identifies as skinhead and ‘led’ a subgroup of skinheads including Lida and Lera but also had close links with Andrei.

On periphery of group – central only to drugs procurement activities.

Boyfriend of Lida, whom he married in 2007; tattoo artist.

Younger brother of Roman; closely associated with Andrei.

Data missing

Data missing

Met Andrei through one of his brothers; participated in skinhead actions but sees himself as a ‘foot soldier’ rather than a skinhead leader.

In full-time employment

Participated in research in 2006 and 2007

Participated in research in 2006 and 2007

Participated in research in 2006 and 2007

Participated in research in 2006

Participated in research in 2006 and 2007

In full-time Co-founder of the skinhead group and one Participated in research employment (at of the two acknowledged ‘leaders’ whose in 2002, 2003, 2006 and power station) conflict split the group in 2006. 2007

In full-time education

Imprisoned (ten year sentence) on drugsrelated charges in Krasnodar in 2008.

Still in Vorkuta and working as driver.

Still in Vorkuta and has a nine-month-old baby.

Still in Vorkuta and studying part-time in higher educational institution.

Lost job and returned to full-time education (vocational education college) in Vorkuta.

Still in Vorkuta, working in the turbine room of the power station.

Moved to St Petersburg in 2007 and working as a car mechanic.

Notes

1 Introduction: Rethinking skinhead lives 1 Other first-hand accounts, however, suggest that, while the music was shared, attending the same gigs often led to fights between punks and skinheads (personal communication from a member of an early 1980s Oi! band, 3 July 2009). 2 Weinberg (1998: 25) draws on James Rosenau’s differentiation between ‘emulation’ and ‘penetration’ as key modes of cross-national relationships (Rosenau 1969). ‘Emulation’ occurs when a group located in one country chooses to copy the name, style and modus operandi of a group active in another but no direct transnational communication has necessarily taken place. In contrast, ‘penetration’ is a process that requires direct personal contact between members of groups from different countries. 3 I came to this group via respondents from earlier research, and thus I make no claims to its representativeness of Moscow skins at the time. Among this particular group, however, scene affiliations were closest with the bikers (rokery), who were held to share the same racist views and tough masculine image. Indeed, Oleg Abramov, the former director of the Sekston club, where many bikers and other members of Moscow’s rock tusovka hung out, was also a member of the punk-Oi! group Terror, popular among skinheads (Tarasov 2000: 39). In contrast, although hardcore and Oi! music was listened to, punks were universally disliked, and young skins emerging out of the punk movement were described as ‘dirty’, treated with hostility and sometimes beaten up (Pilkington 1996: 252–3). 4 See Appendix 1 for a brief overview of key political organisations referred to in the book. 5 Visible groupings in provincial cities included Sever in Nizhnii Novgorod and the White Bears in Iaroslval (Tarasov 2000: 40). 6 Semen Tokmakov was arrested in relation to the attack on William Jefferson and sentenced, on 27 September 1999, to three years in prison but released on the same day under the terms of an amnesty (Likhachev 2002: 122). 7 The volume of media (including TV airtime) coverage of the movement that accompanied the reporting of these incidents, in which skinhead leaders openly espoused their racist views, led Tarasov to suggest that this campaign was tacitly organised in order to ensure support for the passage through parliament of draft legislation ‘On combating extremist activity’ (Dolgopolova 2006). 8 The source of these data is not given. They show that 58 per cent of participants in the Moscow skinhead movement have parents who work in trade and restaurant business; 22 per cent work in small and medium-sized business – for example, in services. In contrast, only 4 per cent have one or both parents who are manual workers and 3.2 per cent have professional parents (engineers, teachers, doctors, etc.).

Notes

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9 For a detailed and nuanced discussion of the changing legislative environment in relation to hate crimes, see Verkhovsky (2008). 10 Among the most notorious examples were the distribution of footage of the execution-style murders of a Tajik and a Dagestani man in 2007 and an incident in December 2008 when a nationalist group claimed to have murdered a Tajik worker and sent photos of his severed head and an email claiming responsibility to the Moscow Human Rights Bureau (BBC 2008). 11 In 2007 a series of ‘raids’ was carried out by groups working together in Moscow and in St Petersburg, resulting in a number of deaths (Kozhevnikova 2008). 12 Tarasov claims there are virtually no ‘Redskins’ in Russia; small groups of such appeared in Belgorod and Voronezh and in Krasnodar but quickly disappeared again. 13 Tarasov’s position is a little more complex. He routinely refers to the skinhead movement in Russia as a ‘subculture’ (Tarasov 2004a, 2004b; Tarasov cited in Burt 2004; Tarasov 2000: 44, 45). However, as noted above, he also argues very explicitly that it is not a subculture of the working class and that attacks on foreign traders at markets are classic signs of the actions of an economically threatened petite bourgeoisie (Dolgopolova 2006: 10). 14 In fact the CCCS make explicit their interest in the interactions between the ‘everyday life’ and the ‘subcultural life’ of different sections of youth (Clarke et al. 1993: 16), and contributions by Paul Corrigan and Chas Critcher to Resistance through Rituals (1993), as well as parallel work by CCCS members (see, for example, Robins and Cohen 1978), are indicative of the recognition of the importance of non-spectacular youth cultures. 15 These debates are usefully summarised in Bennett (1999, 2005); Muggleton (2000: 1–31); Blackman (2005); Hesmondhalgh (2005); Shildrick and MacDonald (2006). 16 Not least because the CCCS understanding of class, class factions and their historical trajectories would require significant revision before application in a socialist or post-socialist context. 17 It is important here to recognise that this approach is not simply the product of the Russian peculiarities of our empirical base; our analytic categories confirm sociological observations in the UK over the last three decades (Frith: 2004: 173; Shildrick and MacDonald 2006: 133). 18 In his early exposition of the theory of youth subculture, Cohen (2005: 90) argued that there were three levels to the analysis, all of which were essential: the historical – specific problematic of a particular class fraction; the structural/semiotic analysis of the subsystems; and the phenomenological analysis of the way the subculture is actually ‘lived out’ by its members. In the subsequent work of the CCCS, however, with the exception of the work of Paul Willis, this phenomenological element was rather neglected. 19 Jack Moore (1993: 191) writes: ‘Skinheads in fact commit more standard crimes than they commit hate crimes’ – a statement that is readily applicable to respondents in this study. 20 Vorkuta has its origins in the gulag system; it was established in 1932 to exploit a major coal deposit in the Pechora basin. The significance of this heritage is discussed in Chapter 2. 21 This information is based on national and regional official data from the following online sources: http://komi.gks.ru/r01/NASELEN_gr2.htm; http:// komi.gks.ru/r02/NASELEN_gr.htm; http://vorcuta.ru/industry.htm; http://komi. gks.ru/r03/Ur-gizz.htm; http://www.gks.ru/gis/D_02.htm; http://www.gks.ru/bgd/ regl/b07_16/IssWWW.exe/Stg/02–10.htm; http://www.gks.ru/bgd/regl/b07_13/ IssWWW.exe/Stg/d01/04–23.htm; http://www.gks.ru/bgd/regl/b07_13/IssWWW. exe/Stg/d02/06–09.htm.

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Notes

22 This research was conducted under the auspices of the project ‘“Everyday” but not “normal”: drug use and youth cultural practice in Russia’, funded by the ESRC under the Research Grants Scheme (Ref. R000239439) (2001–4). The project was a collaborative one between the University of Birmingham, UK, and the Research Centre ‘Region’, Ul’ianovsk State University, Russian Federation. It was designed and led on the UK side by Hilary Pilkington and on the Russian side by Elena Omel’chenko. The empirical research was conducted by Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omel’chenko, Erica Richardson, Natal’ia Goncharova, Evgeniia Luk’ianova, Ol’ga Dobroshtan, Irina Kosterina and El’vira Sharifullina. 23 The ethnographic element of the empirical research in Vorkuta in 2003 was conducted by Ol’ga Dobroshtan (see, for example, Dobroshtan 2004), but two of the key respondents – referred to below as Andrei and Slava – were known also to Elena Omel’chenko from the work conducted in the city in 2002. 24 This project was funded within the European Community’s Sixth Framework programme (STREP-CT-CIT5–029013) and coordinated by Egidija Ramanauskaité Kiškina, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania. For further details, see the project website at http://sal.vdu.lt/. The findings of the research presented in this book reflect only the authors’ views, and the European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. 25 The numbers 18 and 88 are used frequently among skinhead and neo-Nazi groups to signify the numerical position of the first letters of ‘Adolf Hitler’ and ‘Heil Hitler’, respectively, in the alphabet. 26 Chapters authored by Elena Omel’chenko and Al’bina Garifzianova were written in Russian and translated and edited by Hilary Pilkington. 27 Tarasov (1999) confirms that skinhead groups in Russia are generally ‘microscopic’ in size – from three to ten people. 28 This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, under grant AH/E509967/1, ‘Russian national identity since 1961: traditions and deterritorialisation’. 29 A video film was made together with the young people and includes their reflections on the research process. 30 In fact until this point fear played a remarkably small role in the many dilemmas that accompanied us through this fieldwork, which is rather ironic given Tarasov’s (2000: 45) claim that the reason there is so little research on skinheads in Russia is that ‘The majority of our sociologists are middle-aged women who are simply afraid of approaching skinheads . . . ’. 31 This particular comment was directed at the author of this chapter during the Russkoe pole: vzgilad iz-za rubezha [The Russian field: the view from abroad] conference, St Petersburg, 28–31 May 2009. 2 The weight of the Vorkuta sky: Placing youth cultural identities 1 The potential for understanding the specificity of Vorkuta through its ‘long internalized history’ (Massey 1994: 155) was particularly compelling at this point in the story because, due to a technical problem with acquiring a visa, I was unable to accompany the rest of the team to the city for our first period of fieldwork there in 2002. When analysing the data from that research, therefore, I found myself working with a temporary deprivation of the ethnographic senses and compensated for this, I suspect, with a heightened sensitivity to other ways of making sense of the findings. 2 These data stem from the project ‘“Everyday” but not “normal”: drug use and youth cultural practice in Russia’, funded by the ESRC under the Research Grants Scheme (Ref. R000239439) (2001–4). A number of respondents from this

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project went on to become core informants in our subsequent research in Vorkuta in 2006–7 (see Chapter 1). Slava was first interviewed as part of the project on drug use (2002–3), and this excerpt comes from an interview he gave as part of that research when he was 17 years of age. This respondent was a classmate of Slava, and the jacket he refers to is the one Slava was wearing. My focus on visual re-creations of the city was partly a response to the collaborative nature of the ethnography and the role I played within the wider team (see Chapter 11). At this time, my photographs of respondents, their places and crowds were taken largely in response to requests from respondents themselves. These settlements were often the original sites of the Vorkuta camps. Buca (1976: 160–73) describes the camp at the ‘Cement factory’ that would develop into the ‘Cement’ settlement (poselok), illustrated in Figure 2.8. First-hand accounts of the strike of 1953 and its brutal conclusion can be found in Scholmer (1954: 205–35) and Buca (1976: 231–74). Buca (ibid.: 174–7) also notes the importance of an earlier uprising in camps 40 kilometres to the east of Vorkuta, in the Urals, which left thousands dead. Artem was interviewed in 2006 as part of the parallel case study (see Chapter 1). He was not part of the skinhead group at the centre of this book but did express xenophobic views in the course of the interview. For this reason he is not included in the list of respondents in Appendix 2 but is cited in the course of the book where his narrative is pertinent to the general experience of living in Vorkuta or the articulation and reproduction of everyday racism. Otmorozhennoe literally means ‘frost-bitten’, but in criminal slang it also means ‘hardened’, as in ‘hardened criminal’. Here Lida uses the term to imply the impact on young people of growing up in the harsh climate and culture of the city. Respondents often referred to this as priroda, which is more literally translated as ‘nature’ or ‘the countryside’. I use the terms ‘natural environment’ and ‘natural landscape’ to capture the sense of a space in which nature and humankind are in constant interaction (see Meinig 1979: 2). There is no single city team, but a number of district (poselok) and factory-based teams play each other and other teams in Komi Republic. A little more than £100 at the time. Iurii ‘Khoi’ Klinskikh was the lead singer of the Russian band Sektor Gaza, who died in July 2000 at the age of 35. Summer house, often with a small plot of land where flowers and vegetables are grown. Pasha – a 22-year-old male student in full-time education – was a respondent from the parallel case study of drug users and had no contact with the skinhead group at the centre of this book and did not share their views or participate in practices of violence. This quotation (and the one below) is included because it concerns the general experience of living in Vorkuta and vividly articulates how cultural constraints are experienced by young people in a profoundly physical way. Slava, for example, had said back in 2002 that he intended to stay in Vorkuta only until he finished college and then leave, probably for Tula, St Petersburg or Tol’iatti (all places where he had friends or relatives). As of writing in summer 2009, he is still in Vorkuta. Around £800 per month at the time of interview. Pink (2001: 96) argues for the importance of exploring the relationship between visual and verbal data in the ethnographic process, though emphasises the significance of comparing ‘stories’ told by different media rather than seeking to learn from bringing those stories into tension with one another.

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3 ‘At home I was a nobody’: The roots (and limits) of skinhead solidarity 1 Of course experiences varied widely; here only a few common factors, important for understanding the solidarities formed within the group, are highlighted. 2 When we returned to Vorkuta in 2009, Valera had returned to full-time study, was living once more with his mother and had good relations both with her and with his father. 3 By 2009, his relationship with his mother had improved; although their paths in the flat still crossed relatively infrequently, when they did, they talked openly. 4 The question of ‘everyday’ xenophobia and racism and the distinction respondents make between such ‘kitchen racism’ and their own views is discussed in Chapter 6. 5 The term khachik is used widely in everyday racist speech to refer to those of Armenian or of undefined ethnic origin but presumed to be ‘from the Caucasus’ region. Etymologically it derives from an Armenian first name, Khachatur. 6 A plural form of the term khachik; see note 5. 7 In fact Valera wasn’t taken on at the mine after all but found employment with a construction company, where he was quickly promoted. In 2007 he was working for the company in Moscow. 8 A similar view is embedded in Russian state discourse, as became evident during parliamentary discussion in June 2008 of the ‘Draft state policy on spiritual and moral education of children in the Russian Federation and the protection of their morality’ (see http://state-religion.ru/moral/concept/17-koncepcija-gosudarstven nojj-politiki-v-oblasti.html). The policy, in the drafting of which the parliamentary committees on ‘youth’, ‘culture’ and ‘the family, women and children’ participated, starts out from the position that ‘Russian society, including its young citizens, remains in a state of systemic moral crisis’ and claims that today in Russia a generation of children is growing up with ‘blurred socio-moral and value orientations, with antisocial attitudes’. This, they claim in apocalyptic terms, will inevitably lead to the loss, by a significant proportion of society, of the moral bases of culture and of legal and civic patriotic consciousness and to the moral degeneration of the nation, which constitutes a direct threat to the preservation of the Russian Federation as an independent state.

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For a more detailed analysis of state discourse and policy, see Omel’chenko (2009). Belikov (2009a: 231) outlines this document, which sets out the ideology of Naziskins and their rules of behaviour. It was originally written in April 2000 by a Moscow neo-Nazi known by the nickname Salazar but thereafter was edited a number of times, and thus no single version currently exists. The text was distributed both in printed form and via the Internet, but many of the sites through which it was accessed have been shut down as part of the government’s campaign against neo-Nazism. Al’bina Garifzianova was present as the conflict developed. However, when the argument dissolved into a physical fight, at the request of one of the protagonists, she left the gym. Thus details of what subsequently transpired are reconstructed through the accounts of the fight by its participants. The importance of the gym to group practices is discussed in Chapter 4. The term used here is otmorozki, from otmorozhennii, meaning, in slang usage, ‘die-hard’ or ‘hardened criminal’ (see also Chapter 2, note 9). It is used widely in Vorkuta to describe the mass of youth from whom respondents sought to differentiate themselves. The word palevo stems from the verb zapalit’, meaning literally ‘to set on fire’ or ‘burn’, but in a metaphorical sense ‘to reveal’, ‘open’, ‘betray’ or ‘report’ to the

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police or other authorities. The word is used mainly within criminal circles, but it can be found in everyday talk. Of course it is impossible to know with certainty whether Andrei really thought they had an informer or whether this was another of his ‘tests’ – an attempt to flush us out or scare us off. The term used here is kidat, widely used among young respondents to refer to ways in which people are set up, cheated or exploited. For a more detailed discussion, see Pilkington and Sharifullina (2009: 257–9). Throughout the fieldwork in 2006–7 Andrei lived with his girlfriend, and they had a joint household budget. In 2008 he followed her to live in Moscow. This crisis was perceived to emanate from the diminishing subcultural capital of the movement in the face of increasing everyday xenophobia, the appropriation of the skinhead image by semi-criminal youth, and a rapid growth in both the ‘red’ skinhead and the anti-fascist movement.

4 ‘Upgrading’: Cultural interests and strategies 1 As discussed in Chapter 9, such an approach was important not only to us but also to the young people with whom we worked. 2 The term ‘progressive’ is used here not normatively but with reference to the notion of a ‘progressive’ (or ‘alternative’) cultural strategy, which stemmed from the self-labelling of those involved in the dance scene of the late 1990s in Russia as ‘progressives’, to differentiate themselves from mainstream youth (Pilkington et al. 2002: 116). The term was extended by Pilkington et al. (ibid.: 130) to describe a wider ‘progressive strategy’ that had its roots in the alternative scenes (tusovki) of the late and immediate post-Soviet period and which was embodied in practices of individual style creation (rather than following fashion), the acquisition of cultural capital by distinguishing between ‘authentic’ and commercial music, and the use of music and style to align oneself as information-seeking, outwardlooking and ‘progressive’ (ibid.: 131). 3 The term neformaly (‘non-formals’ or ‘informals’) was originally used by Soviet academia and media in the perestroika period to describe various subcultural groupings – young people acting outside the officially recognised spaces and institutions of youth leisure – that were becoming increasingly visible in late Soviet society. It was quickly reappropriated by those on the youth cultural scene and by the late 1980s had gained considerable authenticity. Since the term effectively expressed only these young subculturalists’ relation to official state structures (the Komsomol, the CPSU), when those institutions imploded at the beginning of the 1990s, neformaly identity also lost much of its significance. The term continues to be used, however, as a broad-brush signifier of ‘alternative’ (non-mainstream) identity. For a more detailed discussion, see Pilkington (1994); Pilkington et al. (2002: 102–7). 4 Gopnik is a term in youth slang used to describe young people who hung out around their courtyard (dvor), on the streets or in the entrance ways of housing blocks and are aggressively oriented to ‘subcultural’ youth. It is pejorative in tone and not used as a term of self-identification (Pilkington et al. 2002: 123). 5 Named after the SS division of the same name, although often spelled Tottenkopf in Russian publications. 6 The use of racist terminology, in both skinhead and wider public contexts, is discussed in Chapter 6. 7 Estatic Fear is an Austrian band playing symphonic, Gothic doom and black metal music. The second album was released as a solo work following the departure of other band members. 8 Literally ‘fighting without rules’, but referred to in English variously as ‘ultimate

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fighting’, ‘extreme fighting’, ‘kaged kombat’ or ‘superbrawls’. Both this term and ‘pankration’ are used in Russia and Ukraine for modes of extreme fighting which are becoming increasingly popular as both spectator and underground sports. Figures 4.4 and 4.5 indicate the physical change in the gym over the year of our absence. Figure 4.4 shows how that part of the zal where the group had been photographed hanging out in 2006 (Figure 4.5) had been transformed by 2007. By our return to Vorkuta in 2009, the social networking site vkontakte.ru had become a common form of communication, connecting, in particular, those who had left the city. Andrei, Lera, Lida, Valera, Roman and Viktor, among others, communicate regularly via the site. Slava, however, although registered, had not updated his page and rarely used it to communicate. Vint is a methamphetamine solution that became popular on the Russian youth cultural scene in the 1980s. Its active precursor, ephedrine, is extracted from the ephedra shrub and is part of many over-the-counter and prescription medications such as cough syrups. This is either ‘brewed’ at home or sold in ampules or ‘ready to go’ syringes. The respondents discussed here bought it already prepared in a single syringe and then poured out half the liquid into a second syringe. A herb with psychoactive properties that can be chewed or smoked and is reputed to produce intense albeit brief periods of altered states of consciousness. A mode of smoking cannabis in a large joint with a filter tip, common in the Netherlands. See Chapter 3 for a description of the drinking practices associated with the ‘table’. The XXX nightclub, usually referred to by respondents as ‘the Xs’. Drug use was not only a personal pleasure but also a means of making money on the side. The lads often bought weed, mixed one part with dill and resold it to their acquaintances; this practice effectively financed their own drug use. Cannabis was sometimes used during the working week, however, to wind down and, reportedly, even at work (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 18 September 2007). The Russian word rod is most literally translated as ‘kin’. It is also used in a more biological sense to denote ‘genus’, and in this sense carries also the notion of ‘race’, which, given the respondent’s ideological views (discussed in Chapter 5), makes this the most appropriate translation here.

5 ‘Skinhead is a movement of action’: Ideology and political engagement 1 Since the purpose of this chapter is to trace ideological elements within the narratives of the group studied here and locate them within a range of external political discourses, no a priori definition of the political ideology to which they ‘belong’ is given and a range of terms are used to describe the political spaces they inhabit (for example, ‘ultranationalism’, ‘(neo-)fascism’, ‘right-wing extremism’, ‘racism’, ‘white supremacism’, ‘neo-Nazism’). As a shorthand, however, the term ‘neo-fascist’ might be adopted if employed, following Back et al. (1998: 75), in a loose sense, to denote a worldview characterised by a rhetoric of racial or national uniqueness and common destiny; ideas of racial supremacy and superiority; conceptions of racial Otherness; and a utopian revolutionary philosophy that seeks the overthrow of the existing order. 2 See Appendix 1 for further information on cited political organisations. Where acronyms are used, it is, as is the convention, their Russian acronyms (e.g. RNE, DPNI) that are employed. 3 Historical scholarship suggests that the mobilisation of this Aryan myth is not necessarily wholly borrowed from Nazi ideology, since it was widely disseminated in Russia in the nineteenth century, when it was employed to forge a sense of

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Russian superiority that was not wholly European as well as to justify the reconquering of Central Asia and Siberia from the Turkic nomads (Morrison 2009; Laruelle 2005). Dugin’s credentials as an Aryanist, however, are not universally recognised on the radical nationalist political scene, since his theories do not rest on the canonical Book of Vles (Laruelle 2008: 142). Rock (2001: 65) estimates that almost half of the Russian population hold strongly anti-Semitic views. In fact the mayor of Vorkuta at the time of this interview – Igor’ Shpektor – was extremely popular in the city and made a point of engaging with young people and encouraging their active participation in civic life. Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG) is used to refer to institutions perceived to be under the control of Zionist forces (the media, law enforcement agencies, legislative and administrative bodies, cultural and intellectual institutions). The term ZOG emanated in the United States and appeared in European racist and antiSemitic circles in the late 1980s but differs little in substance from earlier notions of the ‘Jewish world conspiracy’ (Lööw 1998: 129). This is the name given to a high-rise residential building in the city infamous for being inhabited, according to respondents, by ‘drug addicts’ and ‘blacks’ and having been the site of a number of murders. The ‘14 words’ – ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children’ – emanate from the American white supremacist and separatist David Lane and are widely circulated within racist skinhead circles. The ‘88’ referred to here probably simply signifies the salute ‘Heil Hitler’ (H being the eighth letter of the alphabet), although Lane also authored a document entitled ‘88 Precepts’ which elaborates on the principles of a future white society. There was no expressly radical socialist rhetoric in the group, although the dominance of motifs of equality over ethnic purity in his reasoning led Denis (who had a poster of Che Guevara hanging in his flat) to be labelled ‘a red’ by Sasha following an argument about the fate of a group of skinheads in St Petersburg (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006). This combination of socialist economics and right-wing politics is not untypical of the Russian scene and is evident, for example, in the thinking of Aleksandr Dugin, the National Bolshevik Party and the political bloc Rodina (Laruelle 2008: 132). A frequently cited case of where this had happened – and how, to their mind, Russians had resisted it – is that of the 2006 pogrom in Kondopoga, Karelia (see Chapter 1). Russkaia volia was first published in 1999 as an independent Nazi-skinhead zine and ran to a total of ten issues (the last one in February 2007) before its closure. Its editor, Maksim Bazylev, was arrested on suspicion of murder on 20 March 2009 and committed suicide a few days later. My thanks to Anton Shekhovtsov for providing this information (see also Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova 2009: 401). See Chapter 4, note 8. Britogolovie idut is the title of a skinhead magazine published by the Hard Rock Corporation (Korportatsiia tiazhelogo roka) – an association of metal and punk groups directed by Sergei Troitskii – as well as of a series of video and music compilations recorded at studios owned by the corporation (Likhachev 2002: 114). The kolovrat is ostensibly a Slavic pagan symbol dedicated to Svarog, the sun god, but for all practical purposes presented itself as a left-handed version of the Nazi swastika. Back (2002) estimates that there are at least 200 white supremacist websites – possibly as many as 600 (ibid.: 111) – and that between 5,000 and 10,000 white racists are regularly involved in the Internet globally (ibid.: 125).

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17 Nashi was founded in 2005 and led, as was its forerunner Idushchie vmeste founded five years earlier, by Vasilii Yakemenko. It is a pro-government youth organisation that aims to mobilise large sections of young people both in support of the Putin government and as a ‘reserve’ force to be called on to defend the regime against any grassroots-led oppositional coup (‘coloured revolution’) (Omel’chenko and Pilkington 2006: 547; Sperling 2009: 249). 18 Verkhovsky (2009: 93) notes that strong regional differences continue to divide the skinhead movement and that attempts to organise marches like that held in Moscow in 2005 (attended by up to 3,000 people) in other cities failed. However, by 2007 similar marches on 4 November were reported to have been held in 22 regions of Russia. 19 On our return to the city in 2007, the photo of Shpektor on the wall in the gym had been replaced by a poster promoting Rodina. 20 To get a flavour of these pronouncements in English, see the archive of Limonov’s column written for the expat zine The eXile, which ceased publication in June 2008 (http://exile.ru/authors/detail.php?ID = 2311). 21 Perun is one of the highest deities in the Slavic pantheon and is said to have been locked in mythic battle with Veles (the god of the underworld, commerce and cattle). For more detailed discussion, see Pilkington and Popov (2009). 22 The translation of deistviia and dela here as ‘action’ should be distinguished from the ‘actions’ (aktsiia) described above and in Chapter 6; the latter refer to specific examples of ‘direct action’ (usually violent attacks on individuals or groups of people of an ethnic minority background) undertaken by the group. 23 Griffin defines such groupuscules as engaging in three primary activities: ideological elaboration and dissemination; coordination and linkage with other rightwing parties, organisations and groupuscules; and planning and carrying out acts of protest or subversion against the system or of aggression against ideological enemies (Griffin 2003: 42). 6 ‘Any skinhead likes to fight’: Ritual, racist and symbolic violence 1 ‘Symbolic violence’, as developed by Pierre Bourdieu, explains the process by which systems of symbolism and meaning are imposed upon social groups in such a way as to be experienced by them as legitimate (Jenkins 2002: 104). 2 Moore’s study is of a ‘Trad’ skin group closely modelled on its members’ perceptions of the cultural practices of ‘English’ skinheads. In the ethnographic material he presents, ethnically targeted violence appears insignificant in comparison to skinhead versus skinhead fighting and violence between skinheads and other subcultural scene members (1994: 68). 3 The physical fight between Andrei and Slava discussed in Chapter 3 and which precipitated an irreconcilable split in the group was of a different order to this routine skin on skin violence. 4 This refers to the Olympic sports centre, which was a major tusovka site in the city centre. 5 Used here to denote people from the Caucasus region. See Chapter 3, note 5. 6 Statistics gathered by the Sova Center that break down race hatred crimes by city (2004–7) do not mention any incidents in Vorkuta. However, most of the events described in this chapter had been carried out before 2004, and Sova itself recognises that it is able to capture only a fraction of actual hate crimes through its information networks. Local press archives also proved unhelpful; as Mitrokhin (2003) notes, the media in provincial cities carry reports of skinhead violence much less frequently than the media in Moscow, not necessarily because there is less of it, but because regional authorities find it more convenient to record crimes committed by skinheads as ‘hooliganism’.

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7 Homeless people are often the targets of Nazi-skinhead violence in Russia, although, given the difficulty of ascertaining the motive for such attacks, these incidents are excluded, for example, from the Sova Center’s catalogue of racist violence. Nonetheless, in 2008 alone Sova reported awareness of at least seven murders and one case of assault on homeless people in which a motive of hatred was suspected (Kozhevnikova 2009). 8 This is taken from a summary of the untaped section of interview recorded immediately afterwards by Elena Omel’chenko. For ethical reasons the respondent is not identified even by pseudonym. 9 This is not only a symbolic act of ‘toughness’ but a pragmatic response; respondents explained that, since involvement in ‘group related violence’ incurred significantly higher jail sentences, it made sense for one person to take the blame. 10 Lera reported that skinheads earned the right to wear ‘white laces’ in their boots once they had participated in the murder of an ‘enemy’ and claimed that two other members of the group in Vorkuta also had this status. This presumably relates to Gans and Giria (see above). 11 Since the events did not involve other members of the group and had taken place in Moscow, however, recounting the story to us put only herself at risk. 12 See Chapter 4, note 4. 13 This disagreement might explain why there was a great deal of ambivalence towards these two individuals, about whom it was noted: ‘Everybody says they are going to send them [a parcel], but they never do’ (Sasha, cited in Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 22 October 2006). Andrei’s position, however, sits uneasily with his apparent mercilessness to other vulnerable people (see below and Chapter 8). 14 Fangen (1998: 220), in contrast, reports that activists from the racist subculture in Norway distanced themselves from the principle of ‘the right of the strongest’ and emphasised the importance of a welfare state that protected vulnerable sections of society. 15 More detailed discussion of the respondent’s logic can be found in Chapter 8. 16 Although Dugin was never mentioned by name by any of the respondents, Andrei had read Limonov’s Other Russia (see Chapter 5). 17 See Chapter 5, note 15, and Figure 7.7. 18 In 2006 Slava explained the group’s use of the Nazi salute – which had been frequent in 2003, although it had become infrequent by the time of the research in 2006–7 – as both a ‘skinhead’ sign and a pagan ‘salute to the sun’. 19 It is worth noting here that research into the punk scene in Vorkuta in 2009 revealed significant commonalities in racist language and practices of ritual violence between the skinhead and punk scenes. 20 However, Gudkov notes that, in regions of ethnic conflict, levels of enmity towards particular ethnic groups could rise temporarily to more than 90 per cent of the population. 21 Together these two groups account for about two-thirds of expressions of antipathy or phobia towards particular ethnic groups (Gudkov 2004: 183). 22 These data were gathered by VTsIOM until autumn 2003 and subsequently by the Levada Centre. 23 Leonova’s figures relate to what she determines ‘openly xenophobic’ sentiments. In addition, she says, 34 per cent of the population in 2002 and 26 per cent in 2006 were ‘moderately xenophobic’. Her estimates thus confirm Verkhovsky’s claim that ‘more than 50 per cent’ of the population demonstrate ethno-xenophobic sentiments. 24 See Chapter 1, note 28, for details of this research. 25 Categories such as inorodtsy or chuzherodny (‘foreigners’, ‘aliens’), which were used widely by respondents from parallel case studies in the broader project, were

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not used by skinheads in Vorkuta. This is explained by the fact that the city was constituted entirely by more or less recent ‘incomers’ and because their antinomy – ‘native’ (korennoi) – could not be used to distinguish oneself from incoming foreigners since it was pre-ascribed to local, ‘indigenous’ ethnic others (the Nentsy and Komi peoples). A pejorative term used primarily in relation to ethnic minorities of former Soviet Central Asia. The context of this was an expressed frustration that the group’s preferred football team, CSKA, had bought a number of expensive Brazilian players when, it was argued, there were plenty of Russian players in the provinces who would be as good and would play for the team for nothing. By learning the language of the ‘enemy’, Lera argued, you would always know if people on the street were insulting you. Materials such as computer ‘wallpapers’ had been downloaded from websites such as www.slavrus.net, while videos and still images of football hooligan activity and mass fights hade been accessed via sources such as www.rus-hool, narod.ru or www.zbook.ru. Of course it is important to note here that these materials were gathered on an opportunistic rather than a sampled basis; the database of images consists of materials shared with us by individual respondents and thus does not capture all those used, let alone viewed, by respondents and treats all images as if they are equally valued, circulated and deployed for propaganda purposes by the group. This term, literally meaning ‘black arsed’, is not a product of the recent rise in racist language; Scholmer (1954: 73) reports its usage in the Vorkuta camps in the immediate post-war period to refer to Georgian prisoners and to indicate not only their ethnicity but also their homosexuality. What was given to us was an audio file, and it is not clear whether the full video was ever completed or disseminated outside the group.

7 No longer ‘on parade’: Style and the performance of skinhead 1 Tarasov (2004a: 12) and Likhachev (2002: 112) detail this style as consisting of cheap, thick black jeans, upon which it was difficult to see dirt and blood; thicksoled, heavy, laced army boots, which were comfortable for running and usable as weapons in a fight; short ‘bomber’ jackets without a collar, so that an opponent has nothing to grab hold of; Russian army belts that can be employed as weapons; and shaved or closely clipped hair. 2 Of course Phil Cohen, and others, had also stressed that ‘style’ was constituted not in the display of visual commodities alone but in the process of symbolic construction through a range of ‘modes’ (ritual, argot and music as well as dress) (Clarke et al. 1993: 54). 3 Two of the informants in Nayak’s study, for example, were of mixed race (Nayak 2005: 151). 4 Of course there was significant variation in hairstyles even in the first-wave skinhead movement, including ‘suedehead’ styles, where hair was an inch and a half long or longer (Knight 1982: 13). 5 Although Andrei also wore Grinders and, on one occasion, boasted to Valera that his jeans ‘were expensive’ (Al’bina Garifzianova’s diary, 13 October 2006). 6 The exception to this rule were two respondents – Denis and Sasha – encountered during research in 2006. Sasha, who at 19 was younger than other members of the group, still had a completely shaven head and wore Russian flag-coloured braces with his jeans (see Figure 6.2). 7 These practices are ‘homosocial’ in as much as they constitute social bonds between persons of the same sex. The question of whether they are ‘homosocial’ in

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the sense that they contain the element of desire that re-establishes a continuum between male homosociality and homosexuality (Sedgwick 1985: 1) is considered further in Chapter 8. 8 However, ethnographic observation revealed that the intimacy of the tattooing process could generate tension and jealousy when it was other than man on man. 9 None of Nayak’s respondents were actually in employment. 8 In search of intimacy: Homosociality, masculinity and the body 1 ‘Purity’ here signifies not only the physiologically and hygienically clean body but also its differentiation from ‘impure’ (‘black’, ‘dirty’) ‘others’, primarily ‘other’ men. Reproductive ‘purity’ is related to the anti-miscegenation principles discussed in Chapter 5. 2 Although at the time of research there were a small number of active female members of the group, this chapter focuses primarily on the body practices engaged in by male respondents. Gender relations within the group and the position of both ‘skingirls’ and ‘girlfriends’ are discussed in Chapter 3. 3 References to such (often imaginary) friendship – said to be rooted in selfless support and special bonds of trust – continue to be used as evidence of the moral and spiritual superiority of men. 4 The impact of our – female – incursions into this semi-closed male space is discussed in Chapter 9. 5 The Olympic sports centre, which was a major tusovka site in the city centre. 6 This refers to a different respondent than the ‘Pasha’ cited in Chapter 2 from the parallel case study. 7 In deducing homosexuality from homosociality, we lose any sense of the biological factors and individual differences predisposing any individual to same-sex love, while the reduction of homosociality to homosexuality ignores the evidence of the ‘non-sexuality’ of many male (and female) ties and friendships and the multiple meanings of the term homosociality itself, as well as being characterised by the general explanatory weakness of reductionism and monocausality (Kon 2000). 8 See, for example, the recent film Russia 88 (Rossiia 88), directed by Pavel Bardin (2009), which intercuts the dramatic representation of the life of a group of skinheads with documentary interviews. Although awarded a prize at the Berlin film festival in 2009, it is banned in Russia. While the documentary base to the film gives it a generally realistic feel, one particular scene, when the main hero attempts to rape one of the girls in his own group, suggests a version of ‘hard’ masculinity very different from that found within the group at the centre of our study. 9 During our fieldwork in 2007 Egor was effectively living at Slava’s, and the two often pooled money for household expenses. At the time of this conversation we were gathered in the researchers’ flat and Egor was about to return to Slava’s to get changed himself. 10 Favourite subjects of Nazi art were male fighting camaraderie – marching, military parades, life in the trenches, and the bare-legged Hitlerjugend. A detailed discussion of the changes in the canons of male beauty and body aesthetics in historical perspective can be found in Kon (2003). 11 Here it is worth reiterating that the researcher in question was not the main fieldworker working with the group but El’vira Sharifullina, who was conducting a parallel case study in the city and, although acquainted with the group, was not wholly embedded in their routines and practices (see Chapters 10 and 11). 12 Expressions of homophobic sentiments were characteristic only for the male members of the group; female skingirls were more tolerant or neutral. This reflects wider tendencies in contemporary Russian society.

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13 Sokolov (2006: 142–3), for example, suggests that around 70 per cent of men in the mid-1990s had sympathy with the LDPR, the NBP, the RNE and other extremist parties. 14 Connell defines patriarchal dividends as gains received by men from the institutionalisation of power, material and status inequality between men and women in society. 15 Particular venom is vented towards ‘other’ men who were materially better off despite being, in the opinion of respondents, not as strong, clever or beautiful as them. The possession by ‘others’ of attributes of a ‘real’ man which they themselves did not have was thus experienced as a particular injustice. 16 In this part of the dialogue the respondent outlines his wish to serve in the Russian army. 9 No right to remain silent?: In search of equality in the field 1 The term ‘bitch’ (suka) had become used widely in youth slang at this time following its appropriation by Vadim Galygin in his sketches for the popular television series Comedy Club. In an interview during our visit to Vorkuta in 2009, Slava said he regretted having used the term in this context; indeed persistent swearing was no longer part of his general communicative practice. 2 Region is the research centre in Ul’ianovsk where the Russian team of researchers was based. 3 How this attention had affected his status at work is noted in Chapter 3. 4 The term used in Russian is such’iu, from suka (‘bitch’), which it is difficult to convey in this context in English. Given the discussion above, however, it is important to note how ‘bitch’, and related terms, were used in contexts other than in reference to the researchers. 5 As is clear from all three chapters in this part of the book, ongoing contact with respondents, return trips to the city for other research projects and the reliving of, and reflection on, experiences in the field problematise the notion that empirical research is ever ‘finished’. 10 Research emotions: The view from the other side 1 The dominant view within Russian academic circles remains that the objectivity of information is best guaranteed by maintaining a distance between the researcher and respondent and that, in this way, the main weaknesses of the ethnographic approach – subjectivism, or the researcher’s loss of ability to evaluate the situation objectively – can be avoided (Puzanova et al. 2007: 209). Recently, there has been some recognition that ‘objectivity’ is a contested and relative term and that the possibility of subjective knowledge should not be completely rejected. According to Shteinberg et al., for example, complete objectivity is in any case impossible, for it is whittled away gradually and unnoticed by the researcher, who is unable to withdraw from the human relations formed in the field in a timely fashion (Shteinberg et al. 2009: 78). 2 This is a position that is supported by Fontana and Frey’s (1994: 367) claim that the formation of close relations between the researcher and informants can lead the sociologist to lose their distance and objectivity and begin to reidentify themselves in relation to the group observed and thereby abandon their academic task. 3 The consequences of this are discussed further in the following chapter. 4 For an exception to this rule, see the editorial introduction to the journal Antropologicheskii forum (2 [2004]: 3), in which the positionality of the researcher is recognised and research is envisaged as a dialogue between researcher and informants.

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5 Shortly after the incident, Andrei clarified that he had used the term ‘virtually’ (uslovno) to differentiate me from simply ‘blacks’ and thus give tacit approval to my presence in the group. Later, in the course of our correspondence, he explained the incident also as his attempt to remind me of my original aim in coming to Vorkuta – that is, not to make friends with, but to study, xenophobic groups. 6 In Russian the word ‘friend’ has two forms – a male friend is rendered by the word drug while a female friend or girlfriend is rendered by podruga. 7 In actual fact, my colleagues were not only tactful but emotionally supportive, and some of them were drawn into the events that followed. 11 Does it have to end in tears?: Reflexivity and team-based ethnography 1 Iulia Andreeva was also part of the team during 2007, since she travelled with us to participate in a separate research project in the city and also became acquainted with respondents. 2 One example of this was articulated by Slava (2007), who said he wanted to ‘protect’ Al’bina from discussion of his drug use but was keen to talk about it to other members of the team. 3 In fact Elia was never directly called ‘virtually black’ by any of the respondents, but the team-based nature of the research meant that she was privy to interviews in which this label was applied to her and to the exchange between Andrei and Al’bina in which she was implicated. 4 The decision that two young researchers would conduct the main fieldwork with Elena Omel’chenko and myself coming for two weeks each time seemed a reasonable compromise that would ensure sufficient immersion for the project leaders but avoid ‘crowding’ the field for the main researchers. 12 Conclusion: Solidarity in action 1 Literally meaning ‘the shaven-headed ones’. 2 This lexical shift – from ‘skinheads’ to ‘the movement’ – occurred either when respondents referred to ideological beliefs rather than other elements of their cultural practice or when implying connection with a body of people that extended beyond their own particular group. 3 The Russian term used was otmorozok; see Chapter 3, note 12. 4 It is not clear why Valera uses the term rossiiane here, denoting citizens of Russia rather than ethnic Russians. It may be unconscious or, alternatively, suggest that his understanding of the Russian nation, like Zhenia’s for example, is based on the idea of a multi-ethnic Eurasian empire (see Chapter 5). 5 See Chapter 4, note 18, for an explanation of this translation of the term rod. Appendix 1: Parties and extra-parliamentary groupings 1 The first march in 2005 was called the Right March (Pravii marsh) and thereafter became known as the Russian March. For a detailed discussion of the complex, and disputed, history of the march and the groups involved in its organisation, see Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova (2009: 87–105). In 2005 the march was officially organised by the Eurasian Youth Union (ESM). 2 Dugin went on to establish himself as a ‘one-man think tank’ (Laruelle 2008: 109) for a range of key players on the Russian national political scene and, following Putin’s election as president in March 2000, formed the pro-government Eurasia movement (Evraziia). After a failed attempt in 2003 to ally with Rodina and secure

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election to the state Duma, he re-established the Eurasia movement as an international organisation, set up the Eurasian Union of Youth (Evraziiskii soiuz molodezhi), led by Pavel Zarifullin, and returned to the prioritisation of his advisory and academic roles. In 2003, when the KRO joined the electoral bloc Rodina, it had ceased to function as an independent organisation.

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Index

Note: page numbers in bold refer to illustrations.

‘14 words’ 105, 237 Abashin, S. 201 Abbott, A. 47 ABC of Slavic skinheads 61 absent fathers 51 aesthetics of intimacy 170–9 aesthetics of violence 129 agitprop 138–41 Aksenov, Sergei 238 Allensworth, W. 113 Amatory 82 ancient warrior ideologies 128 Andreeva 103 Anpilov, Viktor 238 anti-capitalism 115 anti-communism 103, 104 anti-fascism 103 anti-immigrant sentiments 131 anti-racist movements 3, 8 anti-Semitism 103–4 anti-system attitudes 114 Appadurai, A. 26, 99 Applebaum, A. 27, 28 Armenians 134 army life, collective practices of 175–6 atheism 117 Atkinson, P. 213 Atoll Nerat 82 Aull Davies, C. 211, 213 ‘aura’ 26, 28, 30, 46, 47–8 Australia, skinhead movement 121–2, 146

Aut club, hanging out at 131 authenticity 224–7 authorities, engagement with 114 authority: challenges to 72–4; in ethnographic research 220–1 authority figures 61–2 Autumn 82 azery 134 Back, L. 2, 4, 21, 47, 106, 111, 212, 213–14, 221 Bacon, E. 27, 31 Banerjee, S. 180 Baranov, D. 201 Barkashov, Aleksandr 243–4 Barkun, M. 117 Barter, C. 201 Basmanov, Vladimir 236, 237 Beck, U. 25, 47 Becker, H. S. 10, 13 Beliaev, Iurii 235 Belie Bul’dogi 6, 81 Belikov, S. V. 59, 61, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81 Bell, D. 147 Belov, Aleksandr 236, 237, 241 Bennett, A. 11, 151–2, 232 betrayal 66–7 Bezverkhy, Viktor 244 ‘Biker Club’ 82; gig at 83 biographical characteristics, respondents 245–7 Bird, S. 180 Birmingham, racists 147–8

Index black metal 81 Black, D. 4 Blackman, S. 200–2, 206, 209 Blood and Honour group 2, 6, 101, 110 Bluher, H. 167 Bobretsova, A. 201 bodies: aesthetics and ethics of intimacy 170–9; beautiful bodies 171–5; creating space for bonding 166–70; healthy 171–5; masculinities 179–85 bodily aesthetics 172 body politics 152 Bolshevism 103–4, 138 Boltanski, L. 68 bonding see male bonding book structure 14–16 boots and braces 148, 149, 150–1 Bourdieu, P. 201, 213 Bowman, G. 213 boxing lesson 206 brands 150–1 Brannen, J. 204 Brown, T. 1, 2, 81, 148, 164, 231 Burdi, G. 4 Burt, V. 5 Butler, J. 146–8 Butterfly Temple 82 camera lens, telling tale through 30–7 Caucasians: hatred for 138–41; negative attitudes towards 5, 131 ‘cement’ settlement 33 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) 9–12, 59, 144–6, 153, 231 Chaif 82 chernie 134 Chicago School 10 Chikadze, E. 202 Chinese Wall 104 Christianity 109, 116, 127–8 Chuprov, V. I. 59 Clarke, J. 3, 9–10, 12, 121, 144, 145, 153, 157 class: role of 11; and style 144–8; see also working class class identity 161–3 classmates 60–1, 68

Clifford, J. 47, 212 closed communities 166–7 code of honour 62, 68, 124 Coffey, A. 201 Cohen, P. 3, 10, 13, 144 collaborative research practice 211–23 collective bodily practices 170–9 collectivism 67–8 collectivity, music as marker of 81–5 Collinson, D. 180 combat sports 86–7 common origins, identifying 214 communal showering 176–7, 179 communalism 145–6 communication, equality in 189–210 communicative strategies 87–94 concerts 84–5 Condee, N. 161 conflict and its aftermath 62–3 conformity, tokens of 114 Congress of Russian Communities (KRO) 241 Connell, R. W. 167, 180 conspiracy, regime of 66–7 consumer deprivation 37–9 contemporary modernity, critique of 117 contemporary skinhead culture 9–14 cooperative story making 213 Corrigan, P. 12–13 Criminal Code 124 criminal credibility 36 criminal gangs, protection from 66 critical realism 213 cultural capital 94 cultural deprivation 37–9 cultural interests 81–7 cultural strategies 13, 75–8; communicative strategies 87–94; contradictions between 94–5; upgrading 78–81 culture 9–14 cyber culture 111–12 David, M. 156 Dawson, A. 148 DDT 82 deindustrialisation 31–3, 103

275

276

Index

Dellinger, K. 179 Demushkin, Dmitrii 239, 244 designer style 150, 151 deviance 13; history of 27–30, 36 Devizion 81 diary writing 202–3, 212 difference, naturalisation of 147–8 direct action: female exclusion from 157–8; female support for 130 disability 181–2 divorce 50, 52, 53 Dobroshtan, Ol’ga 20, 214; photos 123, 131,149, 152 Doc Martens 151 Dolgopolova, S, 5, 6, 7 Domrin, A. 5 Donaldson, Ian Stuart 2, 101, 110 dressing up 174–5 drinking: practices of 88–9, 92–3; researchers as drinking pals 193–6; traditions of 57 drugs: Dutch cones 91; smoking weed 91; supply of 58; syringes with vint 92; use of 90–4 Dugin, Aleksandr 100, 103, 119, 128, 129–30, 237, 238, 239 education, commitments to 153–4 educational work 138–41 Edwards, E. 47 Elias, N. 67 embodied communication 13 EMO groups 82 emotional interactions 199 emotional labour of fieldwork 215 emotions: researchers 200–9; and sociological knowledge 200–2; unpredictable emotions 208 Enloe, C. 180 epistemic reflexivity 213 equal dialogue 198–9 equality, in research 189–210 erotic bodies 177–9 ethical concerns 20–2 ethical norms 126 ethics of intimacy 170–9 ethnic cleansing 5, 105 ethnic others 133, 134–7 ethnicity, and style 144–8

ethnographic research: analysis of 18–19; authority and power in 220–1; as collaborative research practice 214–16; contextualising 16–19; emotions in 200–10; equality in the field 189–210; ethical concerns 20–2; as gendered conversation 192–3; impact on respondents 197–8; methodology 18; presentation of 21–2; and reflexivity 202–5; reflexivity and team-based ethnography 211–23; relations with respondents 193–6; returning to 205–9; reviewing film footage with respondents 218; revisiting theory 9–14; team working 203 Eurasian Youth Union (ESM) 239 Europe, skinheads 110–11 everyday racism 74, 130–7 exposure, fear of 154–6 external environment, changes in 154–6 extortion 27–8, 80 extremism, campaign against 66 extra-parliamentary groupings 234–44 family: absent fathers and unforgiven mothers 50–3; commitments to 153–4; everyday life 55–8; family life to subcultural life 58–9; violence in 50–1; and xenophobia 53–5 Fangen, K. 103, 107–8, 110 Farin, K. 2, 3, 4 fascism 100–3, 105, 115–16; centrality of organised violence 128 fathers, absence of 50–3 fears, and visual style 152–6 Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity 7–8 female researchers in male field 192–3 feminine ‘reproductive’ labour 163 feminine logic 182–3 femininity 158 field diaries 18 fighting practices 122–4 fighting without rules 82, 86–7, 90, 109 fighting: nostalgic reminiscences of 63–4; as raw deal 157–9; staged fight 123; and the vulnerable body 175–7 Filatov, Fyodor 8

Index football 37–8 football-related violence 121, 125–6 foreigners: learning contempt for 53–5; requirement to show aggression 61 formal political organisations, engagement with 112–15 Format-18 7–8, 113, 240 fragility, researchers 216–17 fraternity 166–70 Freedom Party (PS) 101, 235 friends forever 60 friends, fighting amongst 122–4 friendship 67–9; best friends 69; between males 69–72; between researchers and respondents 193–6; people you are close to 195; and solidarity 60–74; work-based 56–7 Frith, S. 13, 81, 82 frost-bitten, young people as 36 gangster jackets 29 Garber, J. 11 Garifzianova, Albina 18, 20, 75–95, 200–10, 214, 220–1; diary 27, 63–4, 73, 79, 82, 87, 88–9, 90, 91, 103, 104, 111, 115, 124, 203–4, 216–17, 218–19; photos 51, 60, 69, 78, 83–4, 86, 91–2, 129, 150, 16–2, 169, 172, 178, 184, 191 gays, adoption of skinhead style 3–4, 147–8 Geertz, C. 212 gender differences 179–85 gender: and communication 88; and group membership 69–72; and music 83–4; and performative style 156–63; in research 191–3; and sport 87; and style 144–8; and tattooing 161; and violence 130 German skinhead movement 2, 3 Giddens, A. 25, 67 gig at the ‘Biker Club’ 83 Gilmore, D. 167 girlfriends: and performative style 154; treatment of 71 global white power and Russian national symbols 140 globalisation 25–6 goods containers at the railway station 45

277

graffiti 138 Great Russia Party 237, 242 Griffin C. 59 Griffin R. 2, 99, 100, 101, 103, 105, 111, 115-16, 119, 128, 230 Grinders 150 Grishin, A. 9 Gromov, D. V. 85 group dynamics, research team 214–15 group gatherings 60–74 group values and style 144–5, 151 group, splits in 62–3, 73–5, 94–5 ‘groupuscular right’ 108–15 groupuscules 101–2 Gudrov, L. 131, 132 gulag construction brigades 26, 41 gym (zal): access to 76–7; common room 169; as contentious issue 62–3, 68 74; hanging out in 89; as male space 167–8, 169; meetings in 88–91; physical training at 85; training room in 78 gypsies, negative attitudes towards 131 hairstyles 150 Hall, S. 10 Hammerskins–Russia 6 Hammersley, M. 213 hanging out at a respondent’s flat 154 hanging out at the Aut club 131 hanging out in the zal 89 hate crimes 125–6 hate, learning to 53–5 ‘hatecore’ 81 Healy, M. 4, 147 Hearn, J. 180 Hebidge, D. 3, 144–5, 147, 148, 164 Hesmondhalgh, D. 81 heterosexuality, parodying of 147–8 hierarchically structured gangs 79–80 hierarchy: maintenance through power 62; team-based ethnography 217–20 history, silent pull of 27–30 Hitler, Adolf 102–3, 109, 138, 228, 244 holiday employment 55 homoerotica 169–70, 177–9 homophobia 168–70, 177–9 homosexuality 158–9; imitation of 168–70; unarticulated 167; see also gays

278

Index

homosociality 158–9, 166–70 House of Culture 84 House of Miners 84 Hubbard, G. 200, 202, 210 ‘hunting rappers’ 122 iconography 117 identity: crisis of 132–3; focus on 198; rethinking 226; and style 144–8 ideological awakening 111–12 ideological development 51–2 ideology: difference/indifference 107–8; meaning of 115–18; piecing together 102–8; sources of 108–12; ultra-nationalism and right-wing extremism 99–102 Il’in, V. I. 79, 201, 202, 205 imagination: of outsiders 34–6; recognition of 25–6 imagined futures 41–6 imprisonment, threat of 156 inauthentic skinheads 225, 229–30 incitement, penalty for 124–5 independence of thought and action 108 independent living 50 individual bodily practices 170–9 individuality, music as marker of 81–5 informal income generation 57–8 information: deprivation 77–8; exchange of 138; ideological sources of 108–12 informers 66–7 injustice, sense of 52 instinctive attraction 167 instruments of torture 191 Internet 60–1, 90, 94, 108–9, 110, 111–12 interviews 18; negotiating 218–20 intimacy, aesthetics and ethics of 170–9 intimidation 130–41 Istarkhov, V. 109–10 Ivanov-Sukharevskii, Aleksandr 6, 240–1 Jefferson, T. 3, 10 Jenkins, R. 138 Jewish religion 109–10 Jews 103–4, 116, 134 jokes 88–9

Kas’ianov, Mikail 237 Kasimovskii, Konstantin 242 Kasparov, Gary 238 Kassin, Oleg 243 Kavkaztsy 135 Kehily, M. J. 156 khachiki 135 Kharkhordin, O. 67, 68 khokhly 135 Kimmel, M. 167, 168 Kitaitsy 135 ‘kitchen racists’ 118, 131, 230 kitten 44 Kjeldgaard, D. 38 Knight, N. 1, 2, 3, 150 Kolovrat 81, 110, 130, 160 Komi 136 Komsomol mine 33 Kon, I. S. 67, 167, 177 Korol’ i shut 81, 82 Korotkikh, Sergi 240 Korpus 109 Korroziia metalla 81 Kovaleva, A. 68 Kozhevnikova, G. 7, 8, 86, 100, 235, 240 Kozlov, A. 104 Ku Klux Klan 3 Kürti, L. 9, 100 labour heritage 50, 55–6, 233–4 labour identity 162–3 Lalochkin brothers 243, 244 landscape, physical weight of 37–41 Laruelle, M. 100, 103, 106, 119, 128, 244 law, enforcement of 155–6 Lazarenko, Il’ia 6, 240 Le Pen, Jean-Marie 5 leaders, conflict amongst 62–3 leadership: crisis of 72–4; right of 63–4 leaflets 138–41 Lefortovskii Front 6 left-wing movements 3, 8 legislation 7–8, 66, 124, 155 legitimate closeness 169 Leonova, A. 131, 132–3 Levikova, S. I. 59 Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) 7, 100, 112, 236

Index life, meaning of 229–30 lifelong commitment 226–7 Likhachev, V. 5, 6, 9, 76, 81, 100, 111, 114, 119, 121, 142, 143, 148, 240, 241, 242, 243 Limonka (newspaper) 237 Limonov, Eduard 114–15, 129–30, 237, 238 Linderman, Vladimir 238 lives, rethinking 231–4 Lloyd, M. 147 local boundaries, negotiating 111 local factors, cultural strategies 76–8 logic, females 182–3 Lonsdale sweatshirts 150–1 Lööw, H. 2, 13, 128 Lutz, C. 209 Lysenko, Nikolai 235 Lysenko, Vladimir 238 McRobbie, A. 11 Maffesoli, M. 25, 26, 28, 37, 47–8, 232 mainstream youth cultures 11–12 Malbon, B. 11 male bonding: creating space for 166–70; and performative style 156–63, 231–2 male bonds, shifts in 232–3 male field, female researchers in 192–3 male friendship 69–72 male rationality 182–5 ‘March of those who don’t agree’ 238 marches 7 Marcus, G. 47 marginal masculinities 185 Martsinkevich, Maksim (Tesak) 7–8, 240 masculine fantasies 156–63 masculinity: and bonding 166–70; dominant 179–85; enactment of hard 157–8; happiness in freedom 184; identification with 121–2; images and realities 179–85; re-envisaging of 117; the right of the strong 183; self-confidence in 168–70 masochism 229 mass actions 6–7; move away from 118 Massey, D. 25, 26, 34, 41, 47 Mathyl, M. 114

279

Mazut 82 media interest 8, 88–90, 224–5 media representation 155 meeting places 76–7; see also gym Mein Kampf (Hitler) 102–3, 108, 138, 228 membership 8–9, 11–12; females 69–72 Messerschmidt, J. 179 methodological questions, debating 198–9 migrant workers: contact with 55; hatred for 140–1; sexual behaviour 180–1 migration 41–6, 50 military bases, employment in 57–8 military style 148–50 miners’ graveyard 32 mines 27, 31; employment in 55–6 mining as hard labour 163 money and friendship 68–9 Moore, David 2, 121–2, 126, 127, 143–4, 146–7, 150, 151, 152–3, 156, 157, 160 Moore, Jack 3, 106, 124, 146, 227 moral panics 59 moral support 68 morality: freezing out of 36; of murder 182; of violence 127–30 Moscow, trips to 37, 60–1 mothers, relationships with 50–3 Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) 7, 8, 36–7, 101, 112, 113, 131, 242 ‘movement of action’ 117–18 Muggleton, D. 11 murder 8, 70, 108, 124, 125, 126; morality of 182 music: as cultural interest 81–5; ideological messages in 110; influence of 2–3, 4; opportunities to hear 38; shared interest in 79; singing ‘the Skinheads are coming’ 84 Muslims 136 Mussolini, Benito 108 mutual exploitation 112–15 naked bodies 177–9 Narodno-sotsial’naia partia (NSP) 235 narrative data 18 Nashi 112

280

Index

National Bolshevik Front (NBF) 239 National Bolskevik Party (NBP) 6, 100, 114–15, 237–9 national boundaries, negotiating 111 national context, ultra-nationalism and right-wing extremism 99–103 National Front Party (PNF) 6, 240 National Front, UK 2 National Great Power Party of Russia (NDPR) 113, 239 National Patriotic Front (Pamiat) 236 national socialism 104–6 National Socialist black metal 81 National Socialist skinheads 110 National Unity Day 7, 113 National-Radical Party 237 National-Republican Party of Russia (NRPR) 6, 235 National-Socialist Association (NSO) 109, 113, 239–40 nationalism 99–102, 104–6; causes of 180; interpretations of 107–8 nationalist slogans 107 natural environment, constraints of 37–41 Nautilus Pompilius 82 Nayak, A. 4 , 26, 119, 147–8, 156, 158, 161, 162, 163, 231, 233 Nazi images 138–41 Nazi Party (NSDAP) 238 Nazi symbols 2, 7, 115, 130, 138, 139, 140–1, 151, 155, 159, 244 Nazi-rock 2 Nazi-skins 5, 110–11 Nazism 100, 102–4; cult of healthy body 171 negry 136 nelegaly 136 neo-Eurasianism 106, 119 neo-Nazism 8, 102–3 nerusskie 137 Nesterov, D. 54, 109, 138, 181 Nietzsche, Friedrich 102, 108, 119 night shift beings 43 Nordic symbols 171 Northern Olympic Games 77 Norway, skinheads 110 not a woman 72 nude bodies 177–9; routine nudity 178

Ob’edinennye Brigady 88 6 objectivity, research 201 Oi! music 2, 81 Omel’chenko, Elena 18, 49–74, 76, 103, 132, 166–86, 189–210, 214 ‘on parade’ 149, 151 openness, limits of 64–5 organisational development 61 Origami 82 Orthodox monarchism 116 Other Russia (Limonov) 114–15 Other Russia coalition 115, 238 othering, process of 233–4 outings, dressing up for 174–5 paganism 109, 116–17, 127–8 pain: fear of 183; management of 203–5; pleasure through 159–63; in tattooing/piercing 173–4 ‘Paki-bashing’ 121, 145 pankration 86–7 parents: relations with 50–3; xenophobia of 53–5 Park, R. E. 36 parodic display 147–8 Party of Russia’s Regions (PRR) 241 passer-by, North District 35 patriarchal gender regimes 192 Pearson, G. 145 people you are close to 195 People’s Democratic Union of Russia 238 People’s National Party (NNP) 6, 240–1 People’s Party of the Russian Federation (NPRF) 241 People’s Patriotic Union 241 performative style 146–7; redefining 156–63; versus visual style 151–2 personal meanings 227–31 philosophical development, importance of fathers 51–2 philosophy of violence 127–30 physical closeness 168–70 physical dimension of trust 64–5 physical labour 162–3 physical strength as power 127 physical support 68 physical toughness, identification with 121–2

Index physical training as cultural interest 85–7 piercing practices 161 piercings: experimenting with 173–4; pain and pleasure through 159–63 Pilkington, Hilary 1–22, 25–48, 56, 85, 99–120, 132, 143–65, 210, 211–23, 234; diary 109, 220; photos 29–35, 39–40, 43–6, 154, 159–60, 178, 194, 207, 215, 218 Pit Bull sweatshirts 150–1 place: challenges understanding 47–8; as movement 26; specificity of 34–6 play 55–8 play fighting 88–9 pleasure through pain 159–63 Pod nol’ (journal) 5, 6, 242 pogroms 106, 118 police: betrayal to 66–7; harassment by 155–6; killing of 125; perceptions of skinheads 224–5 political engagement 99–120 political ideology 115–18 political organizations 235–44; engagement with 112–15; recruitment by 5–6; use of xenophobic sentiments 7 political system, corruption of 116 Popov, A. 116 positivism 212 possession, narratives of 216 post-structuralism 212, 213 power stations, employment in 56–7 power: in ethnographic research 220–1; physical strength as 127; regimes of 61–2 Pratt, M. 212 prison camps 27 prison: collective practices 175–6; experiences of 52–3; learning about 58; likened to Vorkuta 41; sentences for racist violence 124–5; sexual violence in 228–9; tattoos acquired in 159, 160–1 privileged silence 198–9 professionalism: challenges to 220–1; of researchers 205 programmatic modernism 119, 230 progressive cultural strategy 80–1

281

propaganda 138–41 psychological burden of researchers 201 psychological consequences of isolation 38–41 public display of style 154–6 public opinion polls 131–3 public perceptions of skinheads 224–5 punk music 79, 81, 82, 83–4; see also punks punks 2–4, 8, 122, 146, 151, 221, 248n3, 257n18; see also punk music Pushchaev, I. 6, 241 Putin, Vladimir 116 ‘queer-bashing’ 121 racial superiority 102–3 racially mixed unions 107 racism 106–7, 213; interpretations of 107–8 racist language, scope and character of 133–7 racist movements, recruitment by 2–3 racist violence 124–7 railway 30–1; snow fences from train 39 RASH skinheads 8 Rasta 3, 145 rational thought: commitment to 128–9; of males 182–5 ‘real’ skinheads 164, 225–7, 229–30 realism 212–13 recording, objections to 65, 66 recruitment 5–6 Redhead, S. 11 reflexivity: and team-based ethnography 211–23; and research debut 201–5 reggae music 3 Reich, W. 175 reindeer herders 34 religion 109–10 religious ideology 115–18 Renold, E. 201 repetitive display 147–8 representation 224–7 Republican Party 238 researchers: authority and power of 220–1; debut of 202–5; fragility of 216–17; hierarchy and role 217–20; pain management 203–5; relations

282

Index

with respondents 189–210; return home 209; return to the field 42, 205–9; team-based 211–23; trust in 66–7 ‘reserve army’ 112–15 Resistance Records 4 resources, access to 114 respondents: acceptance by 20–2; biographical characteristics 245–7; impact of research 197–8; introduction to 19–20; relations with researchers 189–210; as researchers 205; views on sociology 196–7 Retribution-18 brigade 18, 19–20, 61 revenge actions 130 revolution 117–18 Right March 239 right-wing extremism 99–102 right-wing parties, recruitment 5–6 ritual violence 121–30 Riukhin, Aleksandr 244 road to nowhere 30 Robins, D. 3 Rock against Communism (RAC) movement 81 rock music 79, 82 Rodina (Homeland – Congress of Russian Communities (KRO) 7, 113–14, 131, 241–2 Rogozin, Dmitrii 241, 242 Rossomahaar 82 rude boy style 1–2, 148 rules 61, 64–5; of violence 126–7 Rumiantsev, Dmitrii 239–40 Russia: loss of great power status 132–3; skinheads in 4–9 Russian gods strike (Istarkhov) 109–10 Russian iconography 117 Russian March 113, 237, 244 Russian National Movement 237 Russian National Union (RNS) 6, 242–3 Russian National Unity (RNE) 5–6, 61, 100, 101, 112, 115, 243–4 Russian National-Socialist Party 243 Russian nationalism 100 Russian Nazi-skins 8 Russian Orthodox Church 238–9, 244 Russian sociology 201 Russkaia Tsel’ 6, 241 Russkaia volia 109

Russkie Devushki 6 Russkoe getto 81 Ryan, N. 13 Rysskie Kulak 6 Ryzhkov, Vladimir 238 safety, responsibility for 67 Salagaev, A. L. 59 Salvia 91 Savage, J. 2 Savel’ev, Andrei 241, 242 Scholmer, J. 27 science, primary of 117 Second World War 102–3 secrecy, rules of 64–5 Sedgwick, E. 158 self-confidence 168–70 self-worth 157 Semenova, V. 201 Sevast’ianov, Aleksandr 239 sexual behaviour, non-Russians 180–1 sexual bodies 177–9 sexual prowess 170 sexual violence 228–9 sexuality, and style 144–8 Sharapov, Oleg 235 shared interests/practices 78–81 Sharifullina, El’vira 163, 214; photos 195, 208 SHARP (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice) 3, 8 Shchepanskaia, T. 210 Shenfield, S. 100, 106, 114, 116, 119, 128, 130, 240, 242, 244 Shields, R. 34, 231 Shnaider, A. 76 Shnirel’man, V. 76, 107 Shpektor, I. 114 Shteinberg, I. 201 Shturm 81 Shturmovik (newspaper) 242 singing ‘the Skinheads are coming’ 84 ska 145 skin on skin fighting 122–3, 157 skinhead gathering 28 skinheads: culture of 9–14: description of 1–4; and the ‘groupuscular right’ 108–15; Russian scene 4–9 Skinlegion 6

Index Skins: Russia awakes (Nesterov) 54, 109, 138 Skrewdriver 2 slamming 84–5, 122, 157 Slavic Union (SS) 101, 112, 113, 239, 244 Slavs, racial superiority 102–3 slogans 107, 138–41 Smith, D. 203 smoking weed 91 social capital 94 social concerns, prioritising 227–8 social control system, church as 116 social Darwinism 106–7 social networking 60–1, 76–8, 90, 111 social populism 131 social status 59 socialism 104–6 socially constructed gender differences 179–85 Society and Lifestyle (SAL) project 17–18 socio-economic positioning 145 sociological debate, research emotions 200–2 sociological impact 194 sociology: debate on research emotions 200–2; impact of 197–8; myths and prejudices 196–7 Sokolov, M. 100, 115 Sokolovskii, S. 201 solidarity: in action 224–34; crisis of 62–4; crisis of leadership 72–4; friends forever 60–74; friendship 67–9; individuals, authority figures and power regimes 61–2; limits of 69–72; limits of openness 64–5; regime of conspiracy 66–7; roots and limits of 49–74; shifts in 232–3; struggle for trust 63–4 Solntsevorot 6 Solovetsky camp system 27 Sova Center 7, 8 Soviet Union: invasion of 102–3; nostalgia for regime of 103 sparring 123–4 sport: as cultural interest 85–7; promotion of 77 stickers 138–41 ‘storm troopers’ 108–15

283

street actions 87; moving on from 118 street-based groups 79–80 strong males, right to dominate 181–2 study 49–59 style: and identity 144–8; shifting meanings of 148–52; and West Indian culture 1–2; see also performative style; visual style subcultural approach, abandonment of 9 subcultural choices, contradictions in 94–5 subcultural life 58–9 subcultural origins 60–1 subcultural resources 75–8 subcultural risk groups 59 subcultural trajectories 78–81 subjectivity 211–14; vulnerability of 216–17 survival 41–6 swastika 130, 138, 139, 151, 159 symbolic violence 130–41; pedagogy of 138–41 symbols, use of 2, 7, 115, 130, 138–41, 159–60, 161, 244; law against 154–6; Nordic 171 ‘table’, ritual of 57 talk, dangers in 64–5 Tananin, Denis 235 Tarasov, A. 5, 6, 7, 8–9, 76, 81, 100–1, 110–11, 143, 156, 241 tattoos: acquired in prison 159, 160–1; experimenting with 173–4; ideological messages on 110; pain and pleasure through 159–63; problems of displaying 153 team-based ethnography 203, 211–23 technology, access to 77–8 Terekhov, Stanislav 239 territorial isolation 30–41 Terror 81 theory, revisiting 9–14 Thevenot, L. 68 ‘thick description’ 25 time, imprint of space on 37 TNF 81 Tokmakov, Semen 6, 241 Toporova, A. 114, 115, 238

284

Index

Totenkopf 5, 6, 81 training programmes 170–3 training room in the zal 78 translocal skinhead movement, emergence of 4 transnational context, ultra-nationalism and right-wing extremism 99–103 Trojan skinhead group 8 trouser turn-ups 148–50 trust: and conspiracy 66–7; and gender 69–72; and limits of openness 64–5; struggle for 63–4 Turks 137 Two-Tone music 2 Tyler, S. 212–13 UK: labour identity 161–3; racist movements 2, 145–6; skinhead style 150; skinheads 121 ultra-nationalism 99–102 Umland, A. 100, 115 Union of Veneds (SV) 6, 244 United Civic Front 238 United Russia 114 universal factors, cultural strategies 76 upgrading 80–1 USA: as ethnic other 137; racist movements 106; skinhead movement 3, 4, 5, 110–11, 146, 147–8 values: dominant 63; and style 144–5, 151 Vandal 81 Varga, M. 100, 101 Vasin, Iurii 243 verbal dimension of trust 64–5 Verkhovskii, A. 100, 131, 235, 242 Verkhovsky, A. 9, 101, 112, 113, 156, 237, 239 video project 219–20; instruments of torture 191; reviewing film footage with respondents 218 vint 91, 92 violence: aesthetics of 129; in families 50–1; female involvement in 70–2; intensification of 8; morality and philosophy of 127–30; new stage in 6–7; personal meanings of 228–9; ritual and symbolic 121–30 visual data 18

visual style 146–7; rationale for changes in 152–6; shifting meanings of 148–52; versus performative style 151–2 Vorkuta walk 29 Vorkuta welcomes you 31 Vorkuta: abandoned factory 32; ‘cement’ settlement 33; as constraining 37–41; as context 16–19; cultural legacy of 103; as extreme place 30–7; first snow 207; geographic location 17; Komsomol mine 33; movements to and from 41–6; opening in sky 46; passer-by, North District 35; pink sky 44; road to nowhere 30; silent pull of history 27–30; snow fences from train 39 Voronkov, V. 131 VTsIOM 131–3 vulnerable bodies 175–7 Wacquant, L. 201, 213 Watson, G. 2 Watson, P. 158 weak males, killing of 181–2 weekends 92–4 Weinberg, L. 4 West Indian culture 1–2, 145 Western Europe, skinhead movement 4, 5 White Aryan Resistance (WAR) movement 3, 106 White Patrol 235 White Power images/slogans 138, 139, 140–1 White Power movement 106, 143 White Power music 4 white supremacism 106–7, 118–19, 148–50 Whitehead, S, 180 whiteness, defensive retreat into 164 Williams, C. 59 Willis, P. 47, 59, 212 women, role and place of 179–81 work ethic 50 work: commitments to 153–4; experiences of 55–8; physical nature of 85–6; physical training at 172 working bodies 59, 174–5 working class communalism 145–6

Index working lives 56; parents 50–2 Working Russia 238 Wright Mills, C. 25 Writing culture (Clifford) 212 xenophobia 130–7; and family 53–5; growth of 131–3; political parties use of 7

yard-based groups 79–80 youth subculture, study of 9–14 Zapesotskii, A. S. 59 Zhirinovskii, Vladimir 99, 112, 236 Zionism 104, 116 Zubok, I. A. 59

285