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Though their numbers have dwindled since the Soviet collapse, the government is working to revive the druzhiniki in part to help law enforcement agencies combat what officials fear will be a spike in crime and public disorder amid the growing unemployment and rising prices of the economic crisis. A group of lawmakers in Russia’s Parliament is pushing legislation that could enhance the authority of existing volunteer patrols.
Today, these volunteer groups appear little different from the civilian neighborhood watch organizations found in many countries. But in Russia they offer a rare example of volunteerism in a society that remains largely skeptical of civic groups after years of forced social activism in the Soviet Union, though some fear a return to the days of civilian informers.
But the groups’ proponents dismiss such fears. “When it comes to protecting children and driving teenaged hooligans from the playground, people will come together,” said Vasily I. Solmin, a former submariner in Russia’s Pacific Fleet, who now heads a group of druzhiniki in Moscow.
Druzhiniki all but disappeared after the Russian government withdrew its support with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but re-emerged in force in Moscow following terrorist attacks on two apartment buildings that killed hundreds in 1999, said Irina Svyatenko, a Moscow City Parliament member.
“At that time, people just decided to start patrolling their neighborhoods,” she said. “They did not ask anyone for permission, and there was no government initiative. People just decided that this was needed.”
There are now as many as 17,000 volunteers in Moscow and units in more than 40 other regions of Russia, said Vyacheslav I. Kharlamov, an assistant to the chief of the Moscow druzhiniki. In the capital, volunteers help the police with crowd control at major public events like concerts, sporting events, festivals and protests.
A favorite among the druzhiniki is working the annual Fourth of July reception put on by the American Embassy. “They even feed us and sometimes give us a bottle of beer,” Mr. Kazerzin said.
In Soviet days, he said, they could detain people on misdemeanor charges and write traffic tickets, and they were compensated if injured while on patrol. For the most part, today’s druzhiniki get little outside of free public transportation and the red armband.
“We should be working on those issues that the police simply don’t have time for, like small street crimes and crime prevention,” Mr. Kharlamov said.
The new legislation, which will probably come up for hearings in Russia’s Parliament this spring, would institute the druzhiniki on a federal level and allow them to impose fines for failure to obey their orders and provide compensation for injuries suffered while on patrol. Legislators have even debated the possibility of allowing the volunteers to carry weapons like batons or stun guns.
“We are now giving society a chance through this structure to fight against crime, help protect public order and, most importantly, to guarantee security in one’s own backyard,” said Vladimir A. Vasilyev, the head of the Security Committee in Russia’s Parliament.
