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Nikolai is a revolutionary. "I woke up one morning and realised I was born to be one," said the Moscow student as he walked along the elegantly crumbling balustrade encircling Moscow State University. "I realised that the only thing people can do in Russia if they want things to change, is to be brave enough to stand up and tell (President Vladimir) Putin: 'We disagree with you.'" Like many students in Moscow, he feels buoyed by the success of the Orange Revolution in neighbouring Ukraine, where a radical youth group called Pora was at the centre of last year's revolt that propelled a liberal, pro-Western president to power.
Like a true revolutionary, Nikolai owns a bright-red banner, a few crudely printed leaflets calling for a "nation-wide revolt" - and, of course, a Che Guevara T-shirt.
A son of well-to-do Moscow professionals in his early twenties, he listens to heavy rock on his futuristic headphones and attends "secret student meetings" in the city's most bohemian underground bars.
Young people rebel the world over. They do in Russia too. But the political environment in Putin's Russia has given a more serious twist to their actions.
Mass protests at the start of the year against Putin's social reform - which replaced Soviet-era benefits such as free public transport with tiny cash payments - have encouraged students to believe in their ability to bring about change.
But students admit that their new movement, fragmented and largely unserious, poses no threat to Putin's government.
Various student groups that have proliferated in Russia since early 2005 claim no more than a few thousands supporters. The demonstrations they organise in Moscow and elsewhere almost every weekend tend to go unnoticed by the wider public.
Even combined with Russia's biggest radical groups - the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) and the Vanguard of Red Youth - their numbers would still be painfully small.
Most political analysts, even the least sceptical, view the self-declared rebels with nothing more than parental condescension and expect their movement to amount to nothing.
"I have no illusions. I know revolution is impossible. But it's still kind of fun to be a revolutionary," Nikolai said.
WIND OF CHANGE: Politicians, commentators, people in the street all agree that a Ukrainian-style revolt is highly unlikely in Russia where the next presidential election is not due until 2008. But change is definitely in the wind.
The NBP, set up by flamboyant left-wing writer Eduard Limonov - with its no-nonsense slogans, radical paraphernalia and more than 10,000 activists across Russia - sees itself at the forefront of the new movement.
In a grubby Moscow basement, activists gather every day to debate ways of showing their discontent with Putin's policies. Decorated with black-and-red flags featuring a hammer and a sickle, the basement - its heavy doors always locked - is well concealed from the eyes of passers-by.
Vladimir Abel, one of the NBP's leaders in Moscow, says revolutionary romanticism among students like Nikolai has given a serious boost to their numbers since early 2005.
"But we are fully aware that we cannot achieve anything on our own," he said. "Russia's opposition movement is small and fragmented. It lacks charismatic leaders. It lacks organisation. That's our main weakness".
In December, NBP activists stormed a Putin administration office near the Kremlin, barricaded themselves in and put up a banner reading "Putin, resign". They were soon arrested and now face years in jail. They received little coverage in the press.
NBP activists, who say violence is not their way, agree that what they do is a far cry from the revolutionary zeal that shook Tsarist Russia in the 1900s, eventually sweeping the Bolsheviks to power and leading to mass repressions under Josef Stalin.
But the roots of the Russian revolution go deeper than the Bolshevik coup in 1917.
A political crisis in 1825 triggered a revolt by a group of liberal, pro-Western army officers known as the Decembrists in one of Russia's first - and most romanticised - uprisings against autocratic oppression.
WIRED FOR REVOLT:
The Internet has proved to be a good breeding ground for radical youth groups of all colours of the political spectrum.
Last month, dozens of students in St Petersburg defected from a pro-Putin youth group known as Walking Together, set up in 2001 to drum up student support.
The defectors organised an Internet-based group called Walking Without Putin, or noputin.com. Although marginal and small in numbers, they grabbed media attention for blatantly using Putin's name - usually not mentioned in public protests - in their campaign. Analysts pay them little attention.
"Today's political climate is so hard that these sparrows will freeze before they can make nests," said analyst Dmitry Oreshkin in remarks published in Kommersant daily.
Another group, the Russian version of Ukraine's Pora - which in both languages roughly translates as "the time has come" - was set up earlier this year.
Awash with the orange colour of Ukraine's uprising, pora.org.ru groups a community of eager supporters scattered from European Russia to the Pacific.
But Andrei Sidelnikov, one of its founders, says revolution cannot be a goal in itself.
"A Ukrainian-style revolt is not possible, and that is not our goal right now," he said. "But it seems that after years of post-Soviet hibernation people are beginning to wake up.
"Young people are learning that there is nothing wrong in saying no. It's a slow process. Russia is learning how to resist."

Copyright Reuters, 2005

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