Hi! This is a short textual version of the fourth episode of the podcast “We’ll figure it out”, where we introduce you to people and projects that work for social change.
In this text, we introduce you to the “Prostranstvo Politika” project. This is an independent discussion project. The guys hold debates and discussions on issues that are topical for Russia in five cities – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. All of this takes place in an offline format, where people can openly express their opinions and discuss complex topics. Nikita Verzun, the organizer of the “Prostranstvo Politika”, tells us why and how this is still possible in modern Russia.
“I have a great idea, let’s do something about it”
Now we are presenting ourselves as a platform for civic initiatives. We are trying to accumulate people who want to do something, who want to change and influence what is happening in the country, in their region and city.
We try to live up to our own values. For example, one of them is to support grassroots initiatives. So any team member can come and say: guys, I have a great idea, let’s do something about it. And we will support any idea, any endeavor of our team. So, for example, we have “political walks”, where we talk about the city, about repression, about everything else. A year ago they appeared on the initiative of a couple of people in St. Petersburg, and now they have expanded to all five of our cities.
“People come and there are many lot of them”
Once a person joins our team, they automatically become a member and have the same status as people who have been on the team for 4 and 5 years. So, de facto we have no volunteers. I am very proud of our team. And the thing that amazes me the most is that people join, a lot of them, and we have to leave a lot of them out because we realize we don’t have enough resources to integrate them properly. And it’s just like, wow. Right now, if I remember correctly, we have 54 people on the team, and I don’t even know everybody personally. That’s a lot of us! I remember the stages of the project’s development when I knew everyone, even if they were in another city, but now I don’t know half of these people at all. And I’m surprised at how cool they are, how neat, and how lucky I am to work together with them.
Photo: personal archive
“We need to act, not to accept what is imposed on us”
Our branches in different cities are autonomous, so we don’t have a unified media strategy and representation of ourselves. But with all the horizontality, there is a conditional general line that can be clearly seen in everything we do everywhere.
We are about self-consciousness, about the need to act and not accept what is imposed on us.
When the full-scale invasion started, we took a short-term strategy of just keeping those who still remained with us, giving them safe space. And now we have realized that during this time we have been able to attract people for whom it is just an attempt to meet like-minded people, to listen to each other, to realize that you are not alone. And this is both psychologically very important and important for further action. At some point it’s very easy to get discouraged, because you feel like you’re alone, and you can’t really fight alone. Now it is clear that this is not the case.
We suffered actual raids from riot police (OMON)
Sure, we did encounter problems at our events, but I wouldn’t say it happens that often. Here you can immediately feel the difference between the region and the so-called big cities. In St. Petersburg and Moscow an employee of the center for extremism can come, listen, record something, but there will be no action taken. In the regions, everything is different and the law enforcers act quite differently.
Kazan, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg have all experienced political pressure.
It doesn’t happen very often. Sometimes someone will be sought out and torture our organizers with calls: please come and talk to us. Well, no, we won’t go. Or, let’s say, they come to the event, ask what’s going on here and leave. This is an element of intimidation. And sometimes there are raids with OMON. This is a specific story, although it has never resulted in any detentions.
But we are losing sites because of this. As soon as the venue owners see a lot of armed men in uniform, they refuse to collaborate with us. And there are not many venues that are ready to accept an organization that has “Political” in the title.
“People are trying to hear each other”
There’s no roadmap on how to do it right. We learn from our own mistakes because we don’t have other people’s mistakes. We have to constantly reinvent ourselves.
It is very difficult to remain “above-ideologies” and give the floor to everyone.
Our audience, I would say, is mostly left-wing. Now we have right-wingers in our discussions who do not support the war, because the right-wingers are also heterogeneous and not everyone supports it. Finally, there are those who do support it. Basically, they have learned to “not fight.” That is, supporters and opponents dislike each other, but at the same time, but they can also listen to opposing views during discussions.
Because a right-winger is not a different word for a maneater, you know. They support us because they are against violence in principle, but “I can’t be against my country, against my army”. And at the same time, this same person might say quite sensible things on the subject of slavery, for example. People are trying to hear each other. It’s a little easier for me to be in an observer’s position. But I think the guys are very cool, both our organizers and the audience. It’s hard for me to imagine myself in their shoes.
“There is an emerging demand to discuss the future.”
The topic of war is always present in the current discussions. But it is also obvious that its relevance is gradually decreasing.
There is a demand to discuss the future.
We need to reflect on the present in order to understand how we will fix it. It is important, because if we fixate on the present without thinking about the future, we will cease to understand why we even attend these events, educate ourselves, get new knowledge, why we are engaged in civil society at all? It is important to give space for the future.
Sometimes we take very simple, very understandable topics, for example about the city. In Ekaterinburg, we recently held a festival with several events about the subway. It seems that nowadays it’s disconnected from reality altogether. It’s the third year of the war, and we’re talking about a subway line. But in order to involve new people, including in the discussion of the war, you need to talk about something that bothers them here and now.
“We are trying to integrate people into civil society.”
It is very difficult to evaluate our work. We are trying to integrate people into civil society, maybe somehow influence their civic consciousness. But you can’t approach a person with a question: did you integrate into civil society because of us, or because you’re just that cool? 18,000 people visited our platform at least once. This is one quantitative indicator. Another is how many people passed through our team, where they went, what else they did. There are many projects that they then either created themselves or developed. “Politika became a bridge to activism for them, a platform where they gained some knowledge and skills.
You see, our goal is a long-term one, it cannot be really understood in the short term. What we are doing now is great, but it cannot be evaluated now, we will be able to evaluate it in a couple of years.
“Just a normal, democratic Russia of the future, where me and my friends will live.”
What does the ideal picture of the future look like for me, what am I working for? For me, it is just a normal, democratic Russia of the future, where human rights will be respected, where there will be free and fair elections, where I and my friends will live. This, of course, sounds unrealistic in 2024. But if you don’t think and dream, there will be no motivation to do anything. This is a story that moves you and makes you think of something new, adapt somehow, change something, and not just accept the reality that they try to impose on us every day.