Free Educational BarCamp

Online journal "7х7"

Free Educational BarCamp

"It blurs the boundaries — geographic, social, age, removes the masks, everything becomes clear without words"

About the annual informal conference "BarCamp"
in Syktyvkar

We want to support civic initiatives

For the fourth time, civil society activists and concerned people gather at BarCamp — a tent camp at the tourist facility "Гажа вöр", 57 km from Syktyvkar. It is an intellectual picnic in the country; participants listen to lectures, discussions, participate in workshops, and share their experience of small victories. Yet it is camping, swimming in the pond, horseback riding, fishing, evening concert and singing around the campfire.

The fourth BarCamp, which took place on 4 and 5 July, brought together about 350 participants. A common theme was the crisis — economic, political, "at the head". Scientists, entrepreneurs, journalists, bloggers, and social activists discussed what was happening in the country and looked for ways out of the crisis.

Syktyvkar human rights activists and bloggers had an idea to hold BarCamp in 2012. The organizers of the informal conference were Pavel Andreev, Leonid Zilberg, Vladimir Prokushev, Igor Sazhin, Dmitry Sakharov, Yuri Sedukhov.

Creating BarCamp activists wanted to find a new and interesting form of self-organization and unity of active citizens of the city, to create a platform to share experiences, find allies and volunteers. The slogan of the first forum was a quote "It is time to return our land" from an anti-war song of Boris Grebenshchikov.

"BarCamp is for those who are open to new ideas and alternative points of view", Pavel Andreev

So, the first camp was held in 2012: 25 people, including civil society activists and public figures from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kirov, Arkhangelsk, gave half-hour lectures. Creator of a social network "Zalivaet.SPb" Fyodor Gorozhanko and the municipal deputy of the Southern Tushino district in Moscow Vera Kichanova came to Syktyvkar; they spoke about how to use Twitter to become a deputy and what successes could be achieved in the legislative field.

The second BarCamp focused on the theme "Social mobility and how to come to success": social issues, environmental issues, urban transport, legal protection, protection of freedom of speech.

The theme of the third Syktyvkar BarCamp was manipulations in different manifestations. Speakers spoke about how we could protect ourselves from "the dark arts". Therefore, experts of a federal level took part at BarCamp. Head of Socio-Cultural Research "Levada Center" Alexei Levinson, a member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation Sergey Krivenko, chief editor of the online periodical "Caucasian Knot" Gregory Shvedov, and specialist of the community network "Dissernet" Andrei Rostovtsev.

In 2015, the theme of BarCamp came without a moment's thought. Crisis...

However, no pessimism. Theme sounded as "Crisis as an opportunity". As a starting point for growth. Some federal experts took invitation to speak at BarCamp with the support of the Committee of Civil Initiatives and Fund of Alexei Kudrin: journalist Nikolai Svanidze, scientist Alexander Rubtsov, economist Natalia Zubarevich, human rights activist Andrei Yurov, and political scientist Alexander Kynev.

Considerably due to the press, we formed some known to you ideologemes, namely the rejection and hatred of the West. Not as part of the world and not even as a geopolitical rival, but as a successful civilizational project. The second is the belief that the West imposes on us its values, its democratic institutions. Third, it is the fashion for revenge for the lost Cold War, for the collapse of the Soviet Union, of which the West was also accused. It is an ideology. Nevertheless, a very dangerous environment is created alongside with ideology, because it is militaristic, it lost the main components of the mentality of the Soviet people existed for many years, decades after the war, — fear of a major war.

Nikolai Svanidze

Member of the Committee of Civil Initiatives, member of the Council under the President of Russia on human rights, journalist

It is now clear that this crisis should be addressed seriously, not focusing on any petty operational decisions. However, it turned out that we have going on scrapping related to the model of society. A few years ago we had the keywords "modernization", "innovation", "human capital", and all these words were gone somewhere just in three years. Now the key words are "identity", "buckles", "genetic code", "traditional spiritual values". For me, as an analyst, it is a revolution. This is a completely different country. It is a country where the state put an end to the economy. We begin to gradually move toward what I call ideocracy — almost without quotes.

Alexander Rubtsov

Head of the Center for Philosophical Studies of Ideological Processes, deputy head of Axiology and philosophical anthropology of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Committee of Civil Initiatives, scientist

Russia received more rent from the sale of oil and gas. Where did the country spent it? Money poured crisis in 2009. Our annuity decreases, we will not live at a high rate on it. Get used to it, my dear. But if money is short, the question of where to send is the key. Under Yeltsin, there were geopolitical interests which dictated the distribution of rents. Now Caucasus receives 10%, the Far East — 12%, Crimea — 7%. These are the geopolitical priorities. Note that this crisis is not similar to any of the previous ones. This crisis began before Crimea and Ukraine. It started in December of 2012 with the stagnation. Crimea strengthened it. Moreover, the crisis will be long. This is a crisis of the institutional model. This crisis is insurmountable without repair institutions.

Natalia Zubarevich

Professor of Moscow State University, director of the regional program of the Independent Institute for Social Policy, economist

Today we get a system of regular high-end skewed, when the governor of the field is transformed into a new "kinglet". Perhaps someone hopes that the security forces can become a counterweight. But this is a purely intra-interest. In a crisis, the authorities will be forced to appeal to the people and somehow explain why people feel bad. The governor would not say it was his fault, and he made the wrong decision or that he made a mistake. Our government is never wrong. Someone from the outside is always guilty. You can not always blame America and say that it ruined our Kurgan Engineering Works. Today, a risk of destabilization is so high that things will turn out badly for the people and for the economy.

Alexander Kynev

Head of the regional programs of the Foundation for Information Policy Development, political scientist

Unfortunately, the world has no global civil society. We need global issues that would be asked to our politicians. Why did migration to the western countries increase nowadays? This is the general trend. Is there anything we need to do globally with it, not just build new walls and fortifications? Now there is such a policy — not to let anyone into the well-fed Europe. But it is not a global solution. We do realize that eventually billions of hungry will rush. And what about Europe? It has no answer. Europe is not looking for any answers, it still lives in 1950. It believes that everything will be resolved somehow. Not, it won't.

Andrei Yurov

Member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, the Council of Europe expert, leader of the Youth Human Rights Movement, human rights activist

You can read full transcripts of each speaker's presentation in the online journal "7x7"

Speech of a journalist Nikolai Svanidze

Speech of a scientist Alexander Rubtsov

Certainly, there were also civil society activists from the regions: the Republic of Komi, Kirov, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. Each of them shared the best successful practices in order they could be run in every city of the country.

For example, Gregory Kablis spoke on how to create an informal community, Anatoly Kurbatov shared with the projects of the public association "Beautiful Kirov", Marina Sedova presented a report on the buses in Syktyvkar; Nailya Ibragimova spoke on the work of the youth environmental movement in the Barents Region, Arkady Vinogradov — about the bicycle crisis in the city, and Alyona Zezegova told about how she and her friends ennobled an abandoned garden square.

BarCamp had more educational and informative events this year. For example, the first Evening of a pure sound, whose members listened to a sound art, podcasts, reports from different cities of the world. The morning of the second day began with a kind of advertising books. Everyone could go on stage and talk about his favorite book for three minutes to inspire others to read it.

In addition, there were workshops on public speaking, Chinese painting and classical drawing, oriental dance. Campers also had circle dances, practiced yoga; the youngest had an organized playground with games. There was a rock concert of the band "Guests of Harrison" that night.

Lying in the hay or sitting on the snag, you can talk to a philosopher of RAS Aleksander Rubtsov and professor of MSU Natalia Zubarevich on national archetypes, the Chinese model of modernization, the crisis in Russia... about anything! That's why I love Syktyvkar BarCamp: it blurs the boundaries — geographic, social, age, removes the masks, everything becomes clear without words.

Gulnara Golikova

Philosopher

For me the most important thing at BarCamp are lectures. It is difficult to imagine a situation when I find the strength and time for two days, without looking up, to arrange brainstorming sessions, to listen and talk about complicated things through the prism of social life in Syktyvkar. Many new ideas and thoughts were born. I don't want to lose the inspiration and the feeling that everything is real. Still I love BarCamp largely for the atmosphere, the feeling of inner freedom.

Alina Davletova

Schoolgirl

I liked the fact that there were no "left", those who are usually rounded up for any educational site. Everyone was engrossed in what was happening, I was struck by the quality of the audience, thanks to this we had a very productive dialogue. I came to the understanding of how to live. We must begin to roll up our sleeves and act.

Anatoly Kurbatov

Representative of the movement "Beautiful Kirov"

I went to BarCamp for knowledge, and I had plenty of it, for which many thanks to the organizers. I contributed many useful links for myself from the speeches of Andrei Stanislavsky and Denis Zhebov. We were pleased with the atmosphere at the Evening of a pure sound by Maxim Polyakov. Perhaps this evening "made" the whole atmosphere of BarCamp. Analyzing the performance of all the speakers (human rights defenders, social activists, journalists and others), I can conclude that the main message of the fourth BarCamp was "it's all in your hands"! You'll make it, you just need to start!

Yekaterina Veremyova

Student

To create alternative information platform where you can tell people about global and local problems, which, unfortunately, are not voiced by the federal state media. Perhaps it was the goal set by the organizers. I would like random people to present at such events, they may not be ready to hear thing voiced by human rights activists, economists, ecologists. Let the new information plunge into shock, let it be partly incomprehensible, break the mould, but the main thing is that it will be heard.

Vladimir Melkishev

Civil society activist

BarCamp in numbers:

57 kilometers from Syktyvkar
2 days of the program
350 participants
35 speeches
4 workshops
28 hours of communication

What will be the fifth Syktyvkar BarCamp?

You decide:

Become a participant or volunteer — join BarCamp groups in social networks

by Maxim Polyakov, Natalia Baranova
Photographs by Kirill Shuchalin
Published: July 23, 2015
Online journal "7х7"