The official Pora website hasn’t been updated in months, so I’ve been really wondering what they’ve been up to since the Orange Revolution. Since then, they’ve created the Red Pora youth organization, which seeks to immitate its Ukrainian civic campaign in Russia. There still isn’t much, but according to this article, Pora has backed Mikhail Kasyanov for president in 2008.

A political youth group has said it will support former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov in his bid for the presidency in 2008.

The group, called Pora! (High Time), has the same name as the youth group in Ukraine that supported the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko who finally became president.

Andrei Sidelnikov, the organization coordinator and former spokesman of the fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, said the oligarch has no connection to Pora!, the Gazeta newspaper wrote.

Some political analysts see the move as a bid by the secret services to discredit Kasyanov and frighten Russians with the prospect of another ???????Orange Revolution??????? like the one in Ukraine.

The Russian Pora! group describes itself a successor of the Serbian Otpor and Georgian Kmara! groups that helped the revolutions in their countries. The Russian version was organized in December 2004.

On Thursday, Sidelnikov said the movement will support Kasyanov. The organization stated earlier that ???????there is no other politician in Russia who could bring the country back to democracy???????. The statement appeared on the organization????????s Web site in February after Kasyanov said he did not rule out his participation in the presidential race.

Kasyanov was sacked as prime minister in February 2004. Later, he criticized Russia for backing away from its course towards democracy. “The general conclusion is that the country is going in the wrong direction,” he said.

Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlinhas also has put his financial support behind Kasyanov.

Another article written in the Washington Post talks about the youth movements in Russia, in this case Nasha, a rabidly pro-Putin group.

This spring fever has largely centered on the potential of the country’s young people, who until now have been noticeable only for their political apathy. Both the Kremlin and the opposition have been creating youth groups to either foment or forestall unrest. In recent months, besides Pora!, groups with names such as Defense and Walking Without Putin have been formed to fight what they describe as an emerging dictatorship. Pro-establishment forces have formed organizations called Nashi and Eurasian Youth Union, the latter promising to “stand as human shields in the face of the Orange bulldozer.”

The deputy head of Putin’s administration, Vladislav Surkov, met last month with some of the country’s leading rock musicians, ostensibly to discuss the state of the industry.

But the meeting spurred speculation that the Kremlin wanted to cultivate the loyalty of the music industry, which played a critical role in sustaining the crowds on Independence Square in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

Surkov, one of the Kremlin’s gray eminences and himself a onetime lyricist for the group Agata Kristi, discussed the state of Russian rock, from CD pirating to the dominance of happy-clappy pop on state television, according to reports here and interviews with music insiders who later spoke with some of the participants. The musicians agreed not to discuss the meeting with reporters, and the Kremlin has declined to comment.

“It was a very dull meeting,” said Alexander Kushnir, a music writer and promoter who has worked with some of the invited musicians and communicated with them about it afterward. “At the start of the meeting, Surkov said he was not trying to put them under Putin’s banner. For the Kremlin, it was like a sputnik over enemy terrain to take some photographs and help them do some analysis.”

The same week, another government official met with a select group of movie, media and theater luminaries to discuss youth culture.

“The Kremlin became concerned, even a little hysterical, after the events in Ukraine,” said Alexander Tarasov, co-director of the New Sociology and Practical Politics Center in Moscow, where he studies youth movements. “They were afraid they didn’t have any plan in case such events happen in Russia.”

Surkov is also believed to be behind the creation of the new youth organization Nashi, or Ours, which will have a founding congress in Moscow this month. Members of the group, which emerged shortly after Walking Without Putin appeared early this year, say they plan to create a new elite to govern Russia while preventing any attempt to overthrow the existing order.

“In my opinion, everything that happened in Ukraine shook Russia,” Ivan Mostovich, 25, Nashi’s press secretary, said in an interview. “Young people began to discuss and think about Russia’s direction. The main goals of our movement are modernization, democracy and patriotism.”

But Tarasov and young activists such as Sidelnikov say they believe Nashi will contain a vanguard of hooligans who are prepared to engage in street clashes with other youth organizations.

“To withstand young radical organizations like Pora!, besides police force, you need youth groups who are just as radical but pro-government,” Tarasov said. “Nashi has a clear goal. They know they must fight against those who are going to change the political regime formed under Putin. Their ideology is that everyone who is against the regime are enemies of the Motherland — they must be fought against using force.”

Nashi organizers insist they are nonviolent, but some of their rhetoric seems in conflict with such assurances.

“It is necessary to make short work of traitors,” Vasily Yakemenko, one of the founders of Nashi, said in an interview with the newspaper Kommersant after the formation of Walking Without Putin.

Idiots.

Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlinhas has put his financial support behind Kasyanov. This shouldn’t be too surprising, as Kasyanov comes from a background of alignment with the oligarch families of Russia. That tends to raise suspicions about misplaced interests.

Maybe it’s premature to be picking candidates so early on, but I have a lot of confidence in Pora and the people who work with them. We certainly saw some of the oligarchs “go Orange” in Ukraine once they saw Kuchma’s regime go down. Kasyanov has been outspoken against Putin, perhaps he is a democrat who can take Russia to freer markets and freer peoples.