In 2004 "Day of defender of the fatherland", formerly "Day of the red army", got a status of an official holiday - this marked it as an anarchist day of protest if it had not already been before. States are celebrating many doubtful issues, but a state holiday in a day of ethnic an cleansing, that of Chechens and Ingushetians in 1944, was about too much.

This year deserter day festival around 23rd of February was organised first time outside Moscow - in city of Kirov North-East from Moscow. Up to 100 anarchists, good part of whom came from other cities such as St. Petersburg, Moscow, Izhevsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Ufa, Perm and Tyumen joined the events. Police was patrolling train station, illegally arresting and writing down details of many participators of the events - however due to succesful conspiracy good part of the events could be organised without police interference.

23rd of February workshops were organised, owner of premises where they were supposed to be organised refused due to pressure from side of the authorities, but eventually an alternative place was found which did not leaked to police prematurely. First local human rights activists from Vzyatski region children's association and Committee of Soldier's Mothers told about current reforms in military system, legal means to evade army service and usual legal mistakes which officials commit and which make evading service more easy.

After these lectures, there were talks on topics not directly related to the theme of the festival - short history of the student resistance in Russia since 1980's, and current issues which students are facing - such as commercialization of the higher education due to Bologna process. Another current issue is so called "autonomization" of schools and universities, which gives government a pretext to close those schools and universities which it considers not profitable enough. There have already been some succesful struggles against this process.
 
Two remaining workshops were about information security in internet and with mobile connections. In the evening, documentary "Workingman's Death" by Michael Glawogger was screened.

Next day there was a legal meeting at square of the Philharmony from 13:15 to 14:15, unfortunately organiser of the meeting with legal documents was in a car accident, so meeting was launched half an hour late. Dozens of police were monitoring the event, filming all the participators with video cameras. Eventually participators could unroll banners with texts "Peace is better than a commemoration" and "No to violence on the world", festival guests from Nizhniy Novgorod brought a banner commemorating a man who recently deceased during his service, with a text "Roman Rudakov 1986-2008 - who will be next?". Accompanied with drums, participators scanned "I do not want to serve, I want to live very much!", "Army is a school of slavery, we want to study and not to wage war!", "Nobody will return a year from our lives!", "We will struggle, our peace is not for sale!", "I was born in order to live, not in order to serve inthe army!", "Freedom, equality and anarcho-communism!", "Peace to the world, war against war, no to violence in Chechnya!" and "Our fatherland is the whole humanity".






After meeting, there was a spontaneous discussion about purpose of such actions and another one on relation between anarchism and punk/hardcore scene. A concert planned for the evening could not be organised due to interference of the authorities.

Actions in other cities:

Barnaul

In Barnaul, graffiti was made in night between 22nd and 23d of February, and a Food Not Bombs-action where anti-militarist leaflets were distributed was organised in 23rd.

Bryansk

In night between 22nd and 23rd of February anarchists and anti-war activists of Bryansk painted around 50 graffiti to various buildings, including local call-up center and military headquarters. Nobody was arrested.

Chita

Two call-up centres in the center of the city were painted during night between 22nd and 23rd. Slogans "Army is a school of violence and slavery", "Hunger of a soldier is cheaper than assault rifle" were painted, as a stencil "In army you pay your dues to the state - I wonder when I borrowed from it that much?".

Irkutsk

In Irkutsk, local group of Autonomous Action decided to organise a movie screening against military callup. Propaganda films made by Siberian military district against bullying and stealing in army and punishment for these crimes were shown, as they were great propaganda against army. After movie screening there was a discussion on theme of resisting call-up.

Kazan

In Kazan, anti-war stickers were distributed and a banner with text "Better to help people than to kill" was dropped from a local bridge.



Moscow

In Moscow, Deserter day-actions were organised 4th time already. Those who could not travel to Kirov organised actions in Moscow - first Food Not Bombs-action, then demonstration of some 30 people from metro station "Universitet" to metro station "Akademicheskaya" with banner "Food Not Bombs" and a red and black diagonal flag. Anti-militarist slogans, such as "You are just a cheap weapon for them!", "Deserter is a defender of humanity!", "Go to the streets - reclaim the city!", "All the states are concentration camps" and others  were scanned. Leaflets "No soldiers - no wars!" were given to passers by. Demonstratin passed by call up center of Gagarinskiy area, it was painted with graffiti with text "No to war". Nobody was arrested - traffic police spotted the demonstration and announced it to local police station, but as they could not foresee route of the action they could not stop it.






Short videos from Moscow actions:

http://ru.indymedia.org/usermedia/video/5/u_voenkomata.avi
http://ru.indymedia.org/usermedia/video/7/shestvie.avi

St. Petersburg

A meeting to commemorate deportation of Chechens and Ingushetians organised by Memorial human rights center gathered only some 30 people. Some 10 anarchists from Association of Libertarian Initiatives, a new coordinatory group between various anti-authoritarian groups of St. Petersburg joined action.

Vladivostok

During days in prior to deserter day, activists painted local universities with stencils with text "Fuck the Army".



 Booklets with recommendations to those going to protest actions were printed by emerging group of Anarchist Black Cross in Vladivostok and distributed amongst local activists. Local anarchist paper "Udar" made a special issue with theme "There is such a profession - a deserter", mocking a familiar military recruitment slogan. 

23rd was a very cold and windy day in Vladivostok. But some twenty people showed up in the action, with a banner "Head of a soldier is cheaper than an assault rifle" and black and red diagonal flags. Due to bad weather there were just few passers by, except in the very center of the city. Sea torches were lit, "Our fatherland is all humanity", "Be a human - defend the planet!" were scanned.

In contrary to exceptions, cops and boneheads did not interfer with the action so according to organisers, it ended up "a bit boring" action. 

24th of February a Food Not Bombs was organised.






For actions last year, check
http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=672