Putin Urges New Patriotism For Post-Soviet Russia

President Vladimir Putin has urged the creation of a new sense of patriotism to serve as the basis of Russia's future to replace the vacuum left by the fall of the ideologically driven USSR.

Putin -- who has made restoring Russia's great-power status a chief aim of his rule -- said the country had forgotten to construct a sense of national pride and lashed out at opponents who "pour shit" over its name.

"Patriotism is not just a nice word. Patriotism is above all serving the motherland, the country, Russia, the people," he said in a speech to a meeting on fostering nationalism, whose text was published by the Kremlin on Thursday.

"We must build our future on a solid foundation. And that foundation is patriotism," said Putin.

Without accusing specific rivals, he lashed out at opponents who he said thought it worthy to "pour shit over the fatherland" by criticising their own country.

"Many do this with pleasure and get told 'wow', 'great position' and 'you don't fear anything'. But there is nothing to fear," Putin said.

The meeting in the southern city of Krasnodar late Wednesday was attended by top members of the elite including the defence minister and minister of culture as well as leading Russian cultural and sporting figures.

Putin said that in imperial Tsarist Russia patriotism had been promoted by the Church and its priests across the country. In the Soviet Union, ideological departments of the Communist Party did the job, he added.

However modern Russia had neglected the task of creating a new nationalism, he said.

"No one promoted this for 20 years. Under the Soviet Union this largely focused on ideology. Nowadays we have no monopoly on ideology but we threw the baby out with the bath water. We stopped thinking of patriotism."

He said: "We need to use the best experience of education and explanation that we had in Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union," emphasising that modern Russia was not intending to idealise those epochs.

But Putin added: "We should not take myths and cliches from the past" and warned against creating a sense of "racial, nationalist or religious exclusivity".

"We need to find new forms of work to nurture patriotism and civic consciousness.... People are tired of stupid propaganda and they no longer trust it. It is important to be honest, open and effective."

Russia's population is overwhelmingly Christian Slav but it has large minorities notably including Muslims in the Caucasus and the Volga region as well as dozens of other peoples across its vast territory.

The state's main recent attempts at fostering patriotism have been largely focused around warfare, like the Soviet victory in World War II or the recent anniversary of the 1812 battle against Napoleon's invading forces.