Partisans (ongoing)
Every weekend they travel thought entire
region for a group of abandoned buildings on the West of Moscow. This group of
buildings is an unfinished military facility which should have been used by
Strategic Forces back in Soviet times. Collapse of Soviet Union put an end on
a big number of military construction projects, and this place is one of such
examples. It became abandoned.
Now this base, the same as many similar abandoned places, is used by
people, who sometimes call themselves as Partisans. They voluntarily purchase
real military equipment, study military affairs, train how to use all the equipment properly. They learn how to behave in real battle, how squad behaves in offense
or retreat. They learn how to place minefields and how to deal with enemy ones.
They learn how to dig trenches and how to reinforce them. These people are not
real soldiers. They are just regular civilians, sometimes even schoolboys. But
they all think, that they have to be ready to defend themselves and their
beloved ones. They do not want to participate in war, but they want to be ready
in case they have no other choice. They say: “It is better to be able to and
not need, than to need and not be able to”