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Youth subcultures in the sphere of inter-ethnic relations. Part 1
Dmitry Gromov, PhD, the member of the Institute of Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Speaking about ethnic conflicts, especially in Moscow, people most often mention skinheads.
I'd like to show that some common beliefs are well-promoted myths.
First of all, I should say that this subculture really does exist, however, after flourishing at the beginning of the decade, it's now decaying.
The reason is that fashion has changed and that law-enforcement agencies increased pressure on skinheads.
If several years ago skinheads were not prosecuted, nowadays a person belonging to this subcultures risks a lot, especially if he commits a crime.
That's why a lot of skinheads detained by the police try to hide the fact that they belong to this subculture.
Now this subculture is declining. This fact is very interesting from a scientific point of view.
I should also underline that this subculture does not necessarily deal with nationalism.
Skinheads with no nationalistic beliefs would be offended if one called them nationalists.
The subculture of skinheads first appeared in the UK in the 60s, and it was not a nationalistic movement.
These guys were simply drinking beer, playing sports and sometimes fighting outdoors.
The movement became nationalistic only in the 80s, when the financial crisis was striking the UK, and the country was seeing more migrants, especially from Pakistan.
In Russia, skinheads appeared as a barely nationalistic subculture. Traditional skinheads appeared only a few years ago.
In spite of this, they are now more numerous than Nazi skinheads. At the same time, those who remained Nazis became even more nationalistic.
If at the beginning of the decade skinheads didn't usually carry weapons, now their gangs are armed bands.
Each of those sentenced for hate crimes committed from 10 to 20 murders. However, these gangs are far from traditional skinhead culture.
That is why the media often accuses this subculture of being a nationalistic and extremist movement without firm grounds.
It's very hard to estimate the exact number of skinheads.
Of course there is no official record.
Now it's not as fashionable to be a skinhead than it was at the start of the century, when crowds of girls and boys were celebrating Hitler's birthday.
Now there is a certain section of youth expressing nationalistic beliefs, but mainly they have nothing in common with skinhead culture itself.
Speaking about migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia living in Moscow, I should mention that they mainly do not belong to any subculture.
This phenomenon should be studied. For instance, in Buryatia the majority of the representatives of all youth subcultures is formed by Russians, not by the natives.
The reason is that the Slavonic population is mostly Western-oriented, and the representativeness of other ethnic groups are different.
For example, the antifa movement is believed to be full of Caucasians, but that's mainly untrue.
The only culture interesting for the Caucasians is sport culture. Caucasian youth, being strong and muscular, are often good at sports.
I'd like to say that the danger of migrant extremism is overestimated. The common opinion that Moscow is full of Caucasian and Central Asian gangs is often groundless.
There is only one such band, the Black Hawks. This band is a Nazi skinhead group with a strong Islamic undertone.
However, such bands are rare and the law-enforcement agencies are struggling with them.