Russia’s Most Notorious Radical

Fascinating, we are not the only country with crazy right wing cranks,,,
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The first time I meet Leonid Simonovich-Nikshich, the white-bearded leader of Russia’s ultra-conservative Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers movement, he’s dressed in black paramilitary gear festooned with skulls and holding a chunky silver crucifix above his head.

The paunchy 60-something Russian Orthodox Christian activist is standing among thousands of far-right nationalists who have gathered in central Moscow. The purpose of the protest: to call for the expulsion of migrants from Central Asia and Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus region. “Darkies out!” masked youth chant, as riot police look on and a police helicopter hovers overhead.

Simonovich-Nikshich and his black-clad followers aren’t doing any chanting, but it still strikes me as an odd event for a Christian movement to attend. How exactly does this rabid racial hatred, I ask Simonovich-Nikshich, tie in with the biblical concept of tolerance?

“Tolerance?” Simonovich-Nikshich asks. He peers at me over his glasses. “Where does it say anything in the Bible about tolerance?”

This is the first time I’ve spoken to a member of the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers. But the movement is notorious. It traces its roots back to the chaotic years after the Soviet collapse, when a nation that had been cut off from the outside world for decades was suddenly confronted with a host of forbidden ideologies and beliefs, from Scientology to neo-Nazism. For many, it was too much, too soon, and they sought refuge in the potent mixture of religion, mysticism and ultra-nationalism offered by groups like the Banner Bearers. While the organization has around 50 hardcore members based in Moscow, they’ve attracted thousands to their religious processions in the Russian provinces.

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For many liberal Russians, the group’s appearance—they frequently wear black hooded capes in public—and unsettling slogans have made the Banner Bearers a symbol of the xenophobic, aggressive atmosphere at the core of Putin’s Russia.

“We have a bad reputation,” Miroshnichenko admits. “The liberal papers write that we kill and beat people up. That’s not true at all. We don’t attack anyone. Well, apart from gays when they try to hold their parades. But they really make us angry, and we can’t control ourselves.”

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The Banner Bearers’ leader turns out to be a chatty sort, and we quickly get down to a discussion of the essentials: Satanism, Pussy Riot, Putin and the imminent return of the czar.

Russia’s Most Notorious Radical