NASHI GLAMYRIKI

The most gorgeous and glamorous young people of Moscow. Super trendy, groomed and chick. Super wealthy and super cool. Women in high boots and with long silky hair, men with traces of ‘metro-sexuality’ and aura of immense self-importance. Many local celebs are here too. Recent collagen jobs are evident here and there. I would say they were clones of the Beverly Hills crowd except there is something a little different here. Perhaps it is that they are not exactly clones but replicas. A replica of something that is already fake - is there a word for that?

The Russian fashion week is happening at Gostiny Dvor, minutes away from the Red Square and Kremlin. Designer Antonina Shapovalova, who is a member of Nashi youth movement, has her own slot. Her young, good-looking, trendy comrades are on hand for support. Their very obvious prosperity leads one to believe that there is no way these people might have a care in the world for anything or anyone. Especially not for the future of Russia and its jobless, smelly, teeth-missing poor. It is impossible to see how they might find enough time and desire to actually carry out their own analasys of what’s going on in the country or come to their own independent conclusions. They are patriots while everything they wear, eat, drink and drive is foreign. They don’t drive Ladas or wear Krasnyay Zarya perfume or go on a break to a hut village in Tambov province. And they will never produce a thing for this country, that’s for sure.
The young elite needed a group to belong to and now they do. Of course it had to be a group that would speak the language of the powerful, thus, as it works in Russia, the wealthy. And the language they think the ‘common person’ can understand and trust. The wealth of their families is a result of loyalty or even direct connection to Kremlin, so this is like coming home. And for Kremlin the idea of a unified youth supporting government’s position is always handy. It sure was in the Nazi Germany and the USSR. So I call them, lovingly, ‘Nashisti’. In Russian it sounds very much like ‘Facsisti’, Fascists. Sorry if it’s a bit harsh guys. The mirror is over there.