A youth camp based on the annual Kremlin-backed youth retreat held at Lake Seliger will be built near Kislovodsk, in the Stavropol region.
The camp, called Caucasus Home, will host 2,000 people over 20 days and is aimed at improving the image of the region ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The 50 million ruble ($1.6 million) camp will be organized by the administration of the North Caucasus Federal District and the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs.
Mikhail Markelov, a department head at the federal district administration, said the total cost of the project will be 50 million rubles, of which 10 million ($323,000) will be grants to finance various projects by the participants.
This is cheaper than the annual summer camp on Lake Seliger, organized by the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi together with the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, which will cost 90 million rubles ($2.9 million) this year.
The organizers of Caucasus Home will learn from the Seliger experience, and some have even attended the camp, but Nashi will not be involved in the new project, Markelov said, adding that the organizers “have attempted to remove the hard-line political component.”
Kristina Potupchik, the spokeswoman for both Nashi and the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, refused to comment, saying she will have information on the Kislovodsk camp at an unspecified later date.
The rector of the Higher School of Management, Alexei Volokhov, as well as the head of the Youth Policy 2020 foundation — two organizations contracted to work on “Seliger-2010” — have confirmed that they will not apply for the Kislovodsk camp tender.
The tender description said the tasks of the Caucasus Home include developing a positive image of the North Caucasus region ahead of the Sochi Olympics.
Invited to the camp are young businessmen, social leaders, athletes, journalists, bloggers, teachers and local historians. Half of the participants will be from Dagestan and the Stavropol region, 20 people are expected to come from Abkhazia and 20 more from South Ossetia.
The 40 million rubles assigned for the camp will be invested in road repairs required for water supplies, tick extermination, establishing an Internet hall and purchasing the necessary equipment, including 80 mountain bikes.
Markelov said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Khloponin, also presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, will definitely visit the camp, and President Dmitry Medvedev and Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov are likely to appear there as well.
Medvedev doesn't care for the notorious Nashi youth group, and the movement itself only served the ambitions of its leaders, who achieved their goals after Vasily Yakemenko, head of Nashi, was appointed head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, said Ilya Ponomaryov, a Duma deputy with the A Just Russia party.