Word: russias
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According to his paperwork, "Dmitri" spent several weeks in a psychiatric institution in the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia and, soon after, he was finally diagnosed with a mild mental illness. He won't say what the diagnosis actually is; the important thing for him is that the general finding is stamped across his identification papers. It prevents him from ever getting a job in the Russian government. But more importantly for Dmitri, that medical certification prevents him from being drafted into the army...
...just one of thousands of young Russians who have gotten out of military service (or are trying to) as the country comes up to the April 1 beginning of its biggest peacetime draft in history, one that hopes to enlist 305,000 new soldiers. (See pictures of Russia's evocation of Soviet military glory...
...Russia considers itself a nation of patriots, but when it comes to defending the motherland, men over the age of 18 aren't quite ready to lay it on the line. This age cohort was born in 1991, the year Communism collapsed and the Soviet Union became moribund, and may not be as indoctrinated into the old patriotism as previous generations. The year 1991 also had a particularly low birth rate, which makes a huge peacetime draft even more of a challenge. The young men are also entering employment and working age - and families in the middle of Russia...
...childhood meningitis," he says. "It's valid until I turn 27." He didn't have to pay a thing. But he says he knows friends in Moscow that paid $10,000 for similar papers. "Draft-dodging is a national pastime," says Alexander Golts an independent military analyst. "In Russia it's a million-dollar industry." (See 10 things to do in Moscow...
Boris Titov, a human-rights activist, told radio station Ekho Moskva that young Russians who can afford to should be allowed to pay their way out of service - provided that the money goes towards improving army conditions in Russia, which are notoriously low. Others, however, point out that may only exacerbate class divisions and affect the quality of the country's soldiery. "The army is already made up of Russia's poor," says Kuznetsova. "With this kind of system, it will be full of alcoholics and invalids...