Syndicate: mailradek no. 20 (on hitch-hiking)

["Oleg Kireev" <kireev@glasnet.ru>]

"mailradek" project is a non-regular posting of subjective commentaries on political themes. <mailradek> texts have no
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English and Russian) can be found at the new <mailradek> site
  WWW.MAILRADEK.REMA.RU.
There are also many info about the latest events in radical culture and the regularly changing large texts on actual
themes. Now it's a Larisa Shiptsova's letter, which is to be replaced by an article on zAiBI group soon.
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text no. 82
                                                                        1.09.1999
                                                                                                        Pros and cons of
hitch hiking.
                                                                                                                   Roger
Waters
                                                                                    Everything is flying hither and
thither, my boy.

Kurt Wonnegut

You don't have to pay when you go hiking; if they ask you to pay, you just shut the door (from the outside). That is why
they are the part of the society, where sincerity and confidence exist, when a stranger's smile is not necessarily a
merchant's smile or bought politeness of city service. There's no surprise that hitch hiking only exists outside the
sity, and you have to walk a few miles along the road.
In hitch hiking there is no authority, there is only confidence: the driver who picks you up for absolutely nothing is
beforehand sure that you are in no way bound by contracts or obligations, and he is free to pick you up or not, and you
are as well free to stay on the road and choose the car you like. The driver and the hiker hardly ever exchange
addresses, for it's an instantaneous and free connection, and there's no use for meeting outside it anymore.

Those who pass by are excluded from these relations. Many drivers, whose car is filled up or those who leave the road
make apologetic gestures to the hiker, they're feeling sorry about their exclusiveness. Truck drivers pick up more
seldomly. When driving about Russia, they often have the hiker tell them stories to prevent from falling asleep. When
you cross the border together (the hiker must do that in a car, there's no way to do it on foot), you share the sweet
taste of illegality, for instance, when the driver himself is smuggling (and you can meet 90 per cent of those at
Belorussian-Polish border). The European frontier guard is looking at you suspiciousy or scornfully when you aren't as
respectable as that one in a fashioned car next to you, but we are to be proud of our misery. Neither the frontier guard
nor the man in an expensive car can feel the joy of hitch hiking. It's not you who were thrown away from the respectable
society, but they who never were inside the Culture. It's not shameful either to hike or to beg at German streets, or to
steal, or to refuse to pay, just the opposite, it's a matter of pride, it's the thing that grants us our uniqueness. In
our everyday life we must also reject any kinds of commodity-money relations, and not to lend, but to give, and if you
give something to the man of "your kind", he will give it back hundredfold.

Hitch hiking is a communism on the road fulfilled. It was created by the men of the sixties. But the regrettable end of
the sixties' revolution (common accusations of the bought generation) cannot discredit their achievements. We must win
back and restore all their achievements, including hitch hiking, drugs, sexual revolution, aggressive social
disobedience, and to treat them better than the people of the sixties used to.
                                                                 Grigory-the-Jumper

INFO: There was a terrorist action at the Manezh commercial centre, which caused some injuries to people present. A note
of revolutionary content signed by Dmitri Pimenov and The Union of revolutionary writers, was found at the site. Since
that moment the official media are full of messages about this hero of the day, though barely anyone suspects Pimenov of
being responsible for the explosion, and his actions are expected to be mere self-advertisement. Even if thus, the
social activities of the radical politics has now caused even more attention, and that's fine, isn't that?
Pimenov has recently called from Warsaw, then from Prague. His apartment had been searched and his computer was
confiscated, and he "fled". A case alike this one took place the other day - Vladimir Slivyak, director of the
Antinuclear campaign was arrested on the 6 of September when leaving his own house, and after examining his ID documents
and questioning him about Slivyak's work, ecological organizations and his ecological activities in general, 1st police
lieutenant of Section 6 of Moscow Criminal Investigation Office Kosterov A.S. announced that he is "leading the case of
the terrorists", including the investigation of Manezh square explosion. Right during the arrest Kosterov was
threatening the director with "discovering" a packet of marijuana in his bag if he fails to cooperate with the court.
The MCIO officers appeared to be looking for Jacov V. Kotchkarev, who, as they had found out after eavesdropping his
telephone talks, is about to appear soon. (Kotchkarev was a defending witness during the Krasnodar case). At the same
time the FSB officers called Alexei Kozlov (Voronezh) and said that "if Kotchkarev isn't found in the nearest time, he
can think himself arrested".
Another thing about the Krasnodar case: A. Shunko, who come from Moscow to support Larisa in the court, was arrested at
the end of august. He's still kept in the investigation cell, and he's charged with producing drugs.

The sixth signal issues of the legendary anarchic magazine "Grass and freedom>, its former publishers - the married
couple of Larisa Shiptsova and Ilya Romanov - are in jail now. The magazine was charged with <anticonstitutional
proclamations>. <Grass and freedom> used to be the best and the most non-compromising magazine amongst many radical
culture publications. Unlike many traditional fanzines, it's printed in offset (not on a xerox or a resograph), its
texts appears to be of high quality and the illustrations are exceptionally good. Everything begins with Nechaev's  <A
revolutionary's catechism>.  After it the <Krasnodar case> materials follow, and also the <Against all parties>
campaign, <The NSO theses> and various other materials,

An "Anti-nuclear campaign" ecological camp was taking place from august 17 to 27 at Novovoronezhskaya nuclear power
plant. The main demand was concerned about prohibition of use of MOX-fuel for feeding into atomic reactors and was
addressed to the authorities of Voronezhski region, the chairman of which is also the president of the Union of atomic
and nuclear plants of Russia. MOX-fuel is a most dangerous component of defunct nuclear warheads, the whole world is
looking for safe ways of  disposing it, and here they are trying to use it as fuel for nuclear power plants.
The camp activities included gathering signatures, street picketing, and ended in a not very successful action in front
of the regional administration building.

A protest camp took place at Czech-Polish-German border, at German side, as a part of the "Kein mensch ist illegal"
campaign. More that 500 people were participating, there were live shows of rock bands, theatrical groups, films, a
local pirate radio station was broadcasting. The proclaimed purpose of the campaign was to change the social attitude
towards illegal refugees from South and East, against whom the state exercises an extremely repressive policy. It has
been the largest initiative of the German leftist, antifascist, anarchist and intellectual groups in the last few years,
but its effectiveness is doubted. Rioting punks, who throw paint and tomatoes at chauvinist burgers, hardly seem able to
shake their hate towards refugees; we certainly support their actions, but we must look for more effective ways.



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