ABSTRACT
Nastia, a civic activist from Tver0, sent me an e-mail in November 2004. She had set up an art club with her friends that received financial support from
the regional governmental committee of youth affairs. The club published a
journal and had recently prepared an issue on nationalism in Russia. This
issue was, however, censored by the committee with the words ‘‘now is no
time to write about nationalism’’. Nastia wrote to me saying:
Here everyone is afraid of (…) telling the truth. We tried [with our journal] but we were silenced. (…) Here in Russia everything is much
more complicated than it seems. People are not inactive, but they are
not allowed to be active, their mouths are shut, everything is decided by
those who have power!
