After February 24, 2022, citizenship education in Russia changed a lot – the state narrative changed and became much more noticeable, giving more opportunities to government and pro-government organizations, while civil society turned out to be pressed against the wall with various kinds of restrictions – most often administrative (including the status of a foreign agent), but not only. Now civil society seems to be “undesirable” in Russia.
This material is written on the basis of an online meeting of civil society representatives from Russia and Ukraine.The names of the participants changed, the meeting took place at the end of August 2022.
KATYA: In the first month (of the war), most organizations and people were frozen no matter what they had been doing before – ecology, urban projects, etc. There was a feeling that while there was a war going it was somehow not right to continue with these topics. So they just did nothing at all at that time, and just thought about how to live with it.
LISA: Now the huge opportunities that were in front of me (as of a representative of civil society) have narrowed to a tiny size. There was a breakdown in communication with some acquaintances and colleagues with whom we worked, while connections that have been preserved, became very valuable. Even within our Network (EENCE) I feel kind of disconnect, and there is a request from me to talk about it. There are many Russian colleagues in the working groups, but few Ukrainian ones.
VERA Now we clearly see that we are not very desirable in Russia. There is also a disconnect with our European colleagues. All this is very painful for us.
LISA Our organization has been engaged in citizenship education for many years, now it is on pause. I personally have now gone more into methodological work.
VERA Many experts and facilitators left the country – this is a difficult situation for civil society.
RITA: Now we are going to make a media literacy camp in Georgia (organization relocated to another country). Our organization survives here, we invite our teachers (participants of previous projects from Russia) here, because now it is even more difficult for them now to function in Russia.
KATYA Now people are slowly coming back to these topics (city development, etc.), I see initiatives. Hopefully, something will be achieved through these topics. Trainers and facilitators are looking for ways to work with citizenship education including the question on how to talk about war. I see and hear discussions in different circles.
VALERY I was invited to September 1st celebration to the local college to give a lecture on bullyng prevention, then they called and said that the topic is now irrelevant and there will be something patriotic.
KATYA Now with all these statuses (status of a foreign agent and other administrative remarks) we cannot work with teenagers.
Also, in some regions, when choosing freelance trainers to work at forums, the FSB checks for “something wrong” in their background. If the FSB finds something they don’t like, the trainers will not be allowed to work. In other regions there is no such thing.
Our organization has now broken up into independent projects. An informal project team is responsible for a particular project. We are moving away from institutionalization.
VALERIA Some organizations simply verboosted on military-patriotic education, for these ideas they fundraised loads of money.
II was told by our regional government “this year we will give you a grant, because we need our report look presentable. If next year you do not switch to military-patriotic education, there will be no more grants”.
VERA We are members of an international coalition of organizations and work in the border zone. We were recognized as foreign agents and currently we have a very short planning horizon.
My organization should be doing environmental protection and environmental education, but what we actually do is trying to survive. It takes a lot of energy. Now we feel that our own country doesn’t need us, and we do not know about our foreign colleagues attitude to this situation. On the one hand, we have lost Russian grants, on the other hand, there are restrictions on European ones.
After the outbreak of war, we decided to be as less affiliated with state organizations as possible. That was our decision. Recently we have become more careful about topics and formats. We hold events in paid premises, on the street. Previously we used to organize a multi-stakeholder dialogue, we invited Water Utility and other government agencies. Now we have refocused and support activists who want to work on the ground. We move away from environmental education to a wider audience and focus now on activists, who can be trusted, and who do not have the letter Z on their social networks profiles. We identify their needs and how we can strengthen each other in topics such as public monitoring, appeal to institutions that are still working, allocation of resources, exchange of experience.
We are afraid that the upcoming changes in the law on personal data will greatly affect our work, our teachers may be in danger due to cooperation with us. These changes will bring new restrictions.
For Russia, everything seems to be just beginning, difficult times await Russia.
RITA We were engaged in citizenship education long before the war. There were restrictions due to the fact that the name of the organization had the word “school” in it. We had restrictions when working with schools and we renamed our organization.
We thought it would solve some problems, but no.
On the first day of the war, our organization relocated to Georgia because there were a lot of connections with local schools, teachers, organizations.
Many civil activists and educators were here (in Georgia) in complete confusion and depression, we thought that the war was about to end any time soon. Now, six months later, we understand that this is going to last. People left Russia because they had to, but they planned to return anyway. Many people want to go back, but there are concerns.
Before the war we managed to create a pool of teachers – participants of our projects. We are trying to continue our work from here and invite them to come to participate in projects. And many come. We don’t publish photos or reports because of safety reasons.
On the one hand, we are glad that we think the same way with them about what is happening in Russia. On the other hand, we are very worried about them, because they still have to come back after the projects here are over.
RITA It is forbidden to use zoom at schools, so we don’t have an understanding on how to sort the technical difficulties (organization relocated to another country). We wait to see how to organise projects so that it is not dangerous for the participants.
Teachers write to us that many manuals and orders regarding patriotic education came to schools. In state schools patriotic education is obligatory, in private schools it should be easier. Around 10 persent of our teachers had to resign because principals would say “there’s going to be a lot of problems with you, we receive complaints about you.”
It looks like the providers of citizenship education in Russia will change.
VERA Previously, we promoted civil science, worked a lot with teachers and schoolchildren. Since we work with foreign partners, we cannot interact with educational institutions anymore, since they are considered state-owned.
As foreign agents, we had a lot of technical difficulties – to remove logos from everywhere, change the wording on everything, we had to write to every teacher with whom we had collaborated to ask to delete information about us from social networks and websites. There was a lot of work, but no one refused to work with us. We gather the same number of people for events, because over the years a network of teachers as individuals has been built.
LISA We have a project for three countries about historical memory. In March, history teachers were looking for ways to conduct lessons which are part of their participation in the project..
Now everything is so twisted that there is a choice to be made – a participation in a project or keeping a teacher job. Previously, this project was perceived very positively, now our participants teachers ‘re told they were doing terrible things.
There are delations.
IGOR: Now it makes sense to work with teachers and multipliers. It is too late to promote media literacy among young people now.
VERA We now have a lot of self-censorship, we always think twice before saying, writing, publishing. Everything can be interpreted ambiguously.
RITA We do not have paranoia – we just know what the consequences are – fines are huge, teachers are forced to quit – and sometimes these are the mildest consequences. People write delations on teachers, some are complete nonsense. We thought this would not affect teachers, because they are just teachers, not civil activists. But it does affect them.
KATYA My son and his group mates went against patriotic meetings at their university in March. Now no one can afford it. The mouths were forced to shut, a lot of people are now under some kind of warnings or administrative violations. At the beginning of March there was a chance to speak up, now there is no. Now it is getting more difficult to speak out.
LISA On the one hand, here we are in the meeting, discussing all the restrictions. On the other hand nothing regarding big youth forums, organized by government, has changed at all. At the huge forums they discuss the same as previous years: creative industries, creative economy, business, environment protection, sustainable development, inclusion of young people. Speakers are talking about moving forward and progress.
So, Government and pro-government citizenship education is doing great, ours – not.
I also noticed that now there are less and less cooperations and interactions between civil society and the state.
RITA Speakers at those forums are not from civil society. Government now restricts civil organizations in their work. The state changes the narrative of citizenship education, they have money for it.
It is clear that NGOs that previously were financed with grants cannot work now. There is no money and people are afraid to participate in their projects.
Government and pro-government organizations in St. Petersburg now are rolling in money, organizing different forums and festivals. It is not clear if these people are properly trained for citizenship education, but they do something and change the narrative.
VERA Government changes the narrative. I see that eco-organizations have been restricted in Russia for a while – they often don’t agree with government projects, they protest. Some time ago, pro-government structures such as eco-organizations with their own narrative began to appear. These are pseudo-civil organizations that work with such topics as conscious consumption, separate waste collection, supervision, clean-ups. These are great topics, but they don’t fight with what causes the problems. Such organizations can be massive, cool, and do a lot of good things. But they will never oppose the construction of a huge landfill or protect a forest plot if it contradicts the state agenda.
Replacing civil organizations with pseudo-civil ones is very dangerous.
LISA Volunteering is boosting now, more than before. At the same time, I observe that in volunteering manuals authors avoid such words as “actions and activism”. Instead they use words “volunteering events”.
VICTORIA My colleagues sent Russian participants to Erasmus + projects for many years. After the war outbreak in Ukraine they stopped doing this, because National agencies sent letters with recommendations better not to bring participants from Russia on projects.
IGOR With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Europe wanted to exclude Russian citizens from academic exchanges and internships, including Erasmus +. Internships for scientists and researchers were canceled as well. Now this tendency has come down.At the end of August, a non-formal meeting of the EU countries was held in Prague – this issue was widely discussed there.
Civil education actors from Russia who are not going to leave can still find international financing – but how to get it on Russian accounts? The simplest way is crypt, but there is no way authorities will like it.
Germany and France are planning to do media literacy courses for Russians. However, It is not clear how this will be organized.
LISA Currently many international meetings are held at a high level with the CIS countries, Egypt, the Middle East countries. Various youth forums are held by the National Council of Youth and Children’s Associations of Russia – this is the state youth body that works with international youth cooperation.
And so far it looks good, or at least it is meant to look good.
Now there are way less small-scale non-formal youth international projects, organized by civil society organizations.
KATYA Now we are planning two Erasmus + projects with pre-war funding. One is Russian-Ukrainian-German, it will be held in Georgia. The second one will be held in Portugal and there will be fewer Russian participants and only those who live in Europe.
We are currently negotiating with our main German partner for international exchanges to hold them in third countries – Georgia, for example. We can’t hold them In Russia, and there is a big chance there will be difficulties with German visas for Russian participants to go to Germany. For getting visas now we need a lot of money, especially to make them for participants from remote regions.
As for our partners reaction to the war and their attitude to us – there was no disconnect. From the beginning there was a very adequate attitude and there was an understanding that at some point it would be necessary to continue. Some partners showed even more interest. However, many things and projects are on pause or stopped.
There are many obstacles such as visas and several times more expensive flights. For small organizations it is difficult.
There is a chance that international youth exchange will be completely, or to some extent, monopolized by government and will be continued on the official line mostly.
LISA I know about letters from some national agencies with recommendations concerning Russian participants. But it was only in February and March, everyone was very confused that time. I do not see it affecting those (European) organizations that had long-term partnerships with Russia. No one refused to cooperate.
Our organization has worked with EVS for a long time, and currently volunteers continue leaving to Europe to their projects. This means that foreign organizations accept volunteers from Russia. National agencies also have no problems with funding participation of Russian citizens in ESC projects. Now there are problems with visas, but this does not scare receiving organizations.There are smaller diplomatic missions in some countries now, and visa preparation lasts a very long time. Although in other countries everything is still quick.
In February after the war outbreak I wrote to those who were already on projects abroad. The attitude towards our volunteers has not changed, all organizations were very supportive.
There were no cases with Russian volunteers being refused and sent out.
We now receive letters from Polish partners with new cooperation proposals. There was an interesting story with this organization: our participant was supposed to go there in March, we realized that she could not go, because the organization refocused to helping refugees.
For refugee children her participation as a Russian would be traumatic. So, this Polish organization sent a list of other organizations, and she was accepted into another organization project.
All depends on previous partnership experience.
RITA When we were still in Russia (organization relocated to another country) we collaborated with one European organization, tried to receive project grants from them through third companies, and it was quite difficult. And now it’s almost impossible. This organization temporarily closed the department for work with Russia, now the department is coming back. But the war is going on, it is not clear when it will be over.
Now the simplified visa system to European countries has gone and it is difficult for Russian citizens to go anywhere. Also it is almost impossible for foreign experts to go to Russia – they simply cannot get visas. As for our teachers and civic activists, it is difficult for them to travel from Russia due to administrative problems.
We are now in Georgia and cooperate with Belarus, conduct projects in Kazakhstan, Armenia and Georgia. Soon a German-Kazakh exchange comes to Georgia. There are a lot of immigrants (from Russia) in these countries and these are visa-free countries.
We are ready to cooperate while we still can be here – we do not know how long there will be a visa-free regime for Russians in Georgia. From time to time there are pro-Russian provocations taking place here. They cause unrest among Georgians.
But people from Russia need to be pulled out from Russia from time to time. After all, earlier in Russia we felt support in the environment of soulmates, supported each other, discussed the situation and did not feel “crazy” They’re missing it now.
VERA Our donors are not gone, they stayed with us. We have another problem – how to receive grant money, how to pay for expert’s work in Russia.
Our big donor is in Sweden, and Sweden has suspended transactions for individuals and legal entities altogether, so for every $100 we have to find a way.
Now we are going to open an account in Georgia or Kazakhstan, but it is not clear how we will explain this to the auditors.
However, all partner organizations were ready to solve these technical difficulties. Once our teachers needed to get money for activities, and every employee of the Swedish organization sent money to them abroad from their personal accounts.
We are part of the Baltic coalition and since the war outbreak they started meetings with a psychologist, we gathered online and talked things out. It was valuable to hear Ukrainian colleagues and talk about our pain. There are 27 organizations in this coalition, people there are also very different. These meetings helped to tell what is happening in Russia, in Ukraine, and what we can do about it. I see that a lot of organizations in the civil sector understand and support us, rather than impose restrictions.
VADIM As for Russian Representation in the Council of Europe Youth Department everything is on pause, nothing is happening. As I understand, they are looking for the approaches to work with the Russian Federation/Belarus. Previously it was stated that “there is a need of support for civil society and activists”. It is not clear what kind of support it will be.I think that they do not know yet, therefore, there is almost no information”.
VERA It is important to talk publicly that a visa is not only about tourism, but also about civil activities. By restricting tourist visas, we limit the opportunities for communication and interaction between people. We restrict dissemination of European humanitarian values.
IGOR We, as representatives of the EU-Russia Civic Forum, sent a request to the European Commission on this topic last week. There are many articles and opinions from specialists on this matter – the biggest discussion is whether to issue or not to issue visas. When someone is against, and someone is in favor, there is going to be a compromise.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Since September 12, nine European countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands) have stopped accepting documents for tourist visas from Russians.
Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Hungary and Cyprus continue, among others, to accept documents for national visas (not Schengen) for tourist trips.
IGOR In a year there will be nothing good. In 5 years, topics such as media literacy and critical thinking will be relevant.
KATYA The topics of dialogue, reconciliation, peace building, non-violent communication will be relevant. In Russia, dialogue topics and methodics are not developed.
The situation will improve only after a complete change in the state system.I don’t see an option for positive scenarios or soft transitions, to be honest.