Aluhut as the "helmet of the fatherland" Artist tricks Russian teachers

Russian teachers praise the "helmet of the fatherland" - the aluminum hat. They believe they are serving a good cause - but they have been tricked by an artist from Belarus. He wants to demonstrate blind obedience.

There are five female teachers, all holding a Russian flag. The absurdity lies in the aluminum hats on their heads. The white-blue-red flag is also emblazoned on them.

Then one of the ladies spits. She says to the camera: "Making our aluminum hats is not only a creative but also a patriotic activity. These hats symbolize the protection of our homeland from the enemy. They are a symbol of unity and resilience in the face of external challenges to our country."

The teachers are serious. They believe they are only following an official order. This called on them to make the aluminum hats as a "helmet of the fatherland" to "protect them against foreign enemies". They were supposed to prove what they had done with videos and pictures.

This is what these women from the Voronezh oblast are doing: "Let the helmet you make with your own hands become a means of protecting our wonderful country against foreign enemies," one teacher is quoted as saying. She does not know that she has fallen for a prank.

Umberto Eco's "primal fascism" as a guideline

It was not Moscow that called on the schools to carry out this strange action, but an activist and artist from Belarus. Vladislav Bochan made his hoax public on his Telegram channel on November 9: seven schools responded to his call. Two of them involved children in making aluminum hats.

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This is not the first time Bochan has deceived Russia in this way. The exile has an agenda: he wants to use his campaign to show how far fascism has progressed in Russia. Bochan's approach is based on Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Urfascism", which assigns 14 characteristics to this phenomenon.

Rejection of modernity, fear of difference and irrationalism are three of the factors that fit here. At the very least, adherence to the false aluhut order testifies to a certain bondage in Russian society. The Belarusian repeatedly takes aim at this: in 2022, he is making himself the subject of discussion at schools in Smolensk.

How Bochan goes about it

Bochan writes to school principals about being awarded the title "Hero of the Russian Federation": children have to make signs with his portrait and slogans such as "Vladislav is our hero!" and "Vladislav is our pride!".

In June 2022, the activist has teachers and pupils collect garbage in a Moscow suburb - and the posters with the slogans "Work makes you free" and "One people, one nation, one ruler", which were invented by the Nazis. In August 2023, Bochan ensured that a religious procession took place in Kursk under the slogans "Everything for Russia", "We are Russians" and "God is with us!".

The procedure is always similar: Bochan poses as an institution. In the latter case, he wrote to the schools as a regional representative of Putin's United Russia party. An initial letter was ignored, the activist reports.

Escaped from Belarus in July 2021

In a second letter, he threatened that the schools that did not participate would have to explain themselves to the governor. Teachers from three village schools then took part in his campaign.

The Belarusian had to leave his home country three years ago. "In July 2021, I was arrested for taking part in a protest rally and sent home to await my trial, which was due to take place the next day," he tells Radio France. "But I didn't want to take the risk of a prison sentence."

Because he had previously taken part in demonstrations against Lukashenko, he was threatened with a long prison sentence. Bochan fled to Poland with his ex-wife and their two children via Russia and Ukraine.

That's why the artist has no sympathy

"The system ensures that people don't think, but only do one thing: execute. Execute with joy and good humor," explains the artist, recalling a campaign in October 2023 when he asked Russian schools to film themselves with quotes for Putin's birthday. However, these did not come from Russian patriots, but from the hated Ukrainian Stepan Bandera.

"This shows that their ideas, their bellicose slogans, are just hot air," says Bochan. "They don't even know what the enemy they are supposedly fighting looks like." He has no sympathy for his victims. "You have to understand that in Russia and Belarus, school is not part of the education system, but part of a propaganda system."

Bochan wants to point out the mechanisms of authoritarianism - but he has given up hope that his home country of Belarus will emerge from the dictatorship that holds it in its grip.