Russia's different reality
In a bit of woodland on the outskirts of Moscow, several dozen students are running around in combat fatigues, shooting one another with soft air-gun pellets.
The weekend paintballing trip has been organised by an opposition party. It all looks harmless enough. But in Russia, not everything is always as it seems.
"We offer a wide range of military-aligned subjects," Stepan Zotov tells me. He's the party activist running the event.
"It's knife combat, knife throwing. Also live ammunition, so we go to shooting ranges or sometimes to military encampments."
Mr Zotov's party, Rodina, which means Motherland, is part of what is known as the "loyal opposition", meaning that it supports the Kremlin.
And his activities are part of a government-supported programme of "military-patriotic education" for students.
I've come to see Mr Zotov because, watching Russian television in the past few weeks, you might think that the country was heading for a military confrontation with the West.
Earlier this month, one state-controlled news programme told its viewers to find their nearest nuclear bomb shelter before it's too late. Russia recently conducted nationwide exercises to prepare for just such an eventuality. Mr Zotov is taking this seriously.
"We are preparing for a confrontation with the West. But mostly this confrontation happens on the cultural, informational and value level. Russian civilisation is a culture of heroes and warriors."
Mr Zotov remembers the collapse of the Soviet Union not as a triumph of freedom but as a tragedy.
"Our great country dissolved without warfare, without open conflict. Because we started to love a different people and a different culture, not our own."
Stepan Zotov tells me he has fought as a volunteer alongside separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.
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