MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on Sunday at a youth festival launched in the Soviet era, in his latest effort to appeal to young Russians ahead of the presidential election next year.

The World Festival of Youth and Students was initiated by the USSR and the Eastern Bloc after World War II and Russia is hosting the 19th festival in Sochi’s Olympic park on the Black Sea, following a Soviet-style parade in Moscow on Saturday that boasted 10,000 foreign guests.

Putin, who is widely expected to run for re-election next year though has not formally announced his participation, visited the opening in Sochi along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other officials.

The forum, which uses guerrilla icon Che Guevara as a symbol, has the motto “For Peace, Solidarity and Social Justice, we Struggle Against Imperialism.” The event’s website says organisers expect 20,000 guests in Sochi from 150 different countries.

Russia’s embassy in Pyongyang said North Korea will also send a delegation of “Komsomol” - the Soviet youth movement.

The World Youth Festival first took place in Czechoslovakia in 1949 and was hosted by Communist states around the world in the second half of the 20th century. Six events have been held since 1989, with North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela among the host nations.

The USSR hosted the event twice: once in 1985 shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader and most famously in 1957, when thousands of foreigners descended on Moscow for the first time during Khrushchev’s political thaw.

Sixty years later, this year’s student parade in Moscow echoed the 1957 festival which Russians remember as marking the beginning of a new, more open USSR.

On Saturday, students walked through central Moscow with flags of different countries.

The rainy weather kept some people away and the spectators consisted mainly of people over 50, some teary-eyed with nostalgia.

“I finally have the chance to see this as I lived in the Far East and didn’t have the chance to see it in Moscow,” said 71-year-old Valentina Rogova watching the parade. “All nations should be friends. We used to have more events like this in Soviet times.” The 1957 festival “was a breakthrough for the West and for the East,” according to Russian historian Alexander Shubin.

“The West saw that normal people live in the USSR while Soviet citizens saw what foreigners look like for the first time.”

This year’s festival will have a different vibe. While hosting an exhibition on the lessons of the 1917 October Revolution, the leftist festival’s programme also includes workshops on how to set up a business and a display of Dutch tulips.

“It’s a borscht of contrary ideas,” political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said. “Che Guevara does not fit in with the protectionism of the conservative government.” Putin, is expected to use the platform to get young Russians on his side ahead of next year’s vote.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2017