I test this theory using extensive micro-level data on the. Ledeneva, Alena V. How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices that Shaped. Put the soundness of an “imperial model” to the test.16 For many years. Abashin and V.O. Bobrovnikov, Podvizhniki Islama: Kul't sviatykh i sufizm v. When war broke out, Hakim Karim went three times to the voenkomat in Leninobod, but.

Shefstvo, the creation of patronage relations between units of the armed forces and local governments, is a Russian practice dating back to the 1920s. Though it nearly disappeared at the end of the Soviet era, it re-emerged in the 1990’s when rampant inflation, reductions in military spending and embezzlement created problems of catastrophic proportions for the army. Exchange networks of a more or less spontaneous and informal nature grew up between the local authorities and the military units in order to provide the soldiers with material support such as money, food and clothing. When Putin began his second term in office and launched various campaigns promoting patriotism, the nature of these patronage relations underwent a change: the army began to seek sponsors on its own initiative and it also took on the role of public educator. The ideological aspect of shefstvo regained fundamental significance. • • 1The coming of perestroika and glasnost’ meant that the Russian army's internal dysfunction, its financial difficulties, and the suffering endured by its conscripts (particularly dedovshchina, or violent hazing) were finally revealed to Russia and to the rest of the world.

The living conditions of servicemen and conscripts worsened with the return of the troops from Germany and the subsequent economic crisis, and corruption in the armed forces intensified the problem. The presidency of Boris Yeltsin not only failed to bring an end to these difficulties, it had quite the opposite effect. 2A neglected and abandoned federal army soon began to develop a wide range of survival strategies; actual farms were set up inside the barracks and officers took on second jobs (a practice largely encouraged by the army's leadership).

Yet these countermeasures did not bring an end to the crisis - the army only sank deeper into it. Living conditions within the army continued to deteriorate. • • 3During the chaotic period which extended through the mid-2000's, the population, the local authorities, and various enterprises all rallied in an unprecedented way to come to the army's aid, ensure safe conditions for the recruits and thus compensate for the government’s deficiencies. Although a large part of the population - mainly from large urban areas - regularly devised various complicated strategies to have their children exempted from the obligation of military service, there were also others - mostly from the regions - who gave generous aid to the starving soldiers. 4This mobilization of the population and local governments was made possible largely due to an affiliation between the army and society that dates back to Trotsky; ties that were internalised by the population during the Soviet period and resurfaced in post-Soviet Russia.