MOSCOW - Tips for anxious mothers. One: Don't tell them your son is intelligent. Two: If your husband is working, divorce him.

Springtime in Russia means conscription, and for tens of thousands of young men and their mothers, that means the desperate search for a way of dodging the draft, AFP said.

Every Thursday, the Moscow branch of the Soldiers' Mothers Organization opens its doors to offer advice to the parents of youngsters who have received their call-up papers.

"Don't let on that your son wants to go to university, the army is on the lookout for bright people," an activist tells a 100-strong audience.

"If you are retired but your husband is working, get a divorce, your son can get an exemption as your family support," the activist continued, adding a rhetorical flourish -- "got that?" -- to each item of advice to make sure her listeners have understood.

Natalya, her brow furrowed with anxiety, is urgently seeking a further deferment for her 22-year-old son, currently a history student.

"He suffers from enuresis and has to keep going to the toilet, but the hospital official he saw to get his deferment renewed wasn't able to confirm it," she said.

The young man is prepared to desert if necessary, she warned. "He's afraid of dying, he doesn't want to go to Chechnya."

Her architect's salary is insufficient for her to be able to afford the bribe needed to buy her son's way out of military service.

Alexander, 18 next month, has done his research: "To get a deferment, you have to pay 500 dollars a year until you're 28, which is the cut-off date when you can't be called up any more. Or to have your dossier permanently 'mislaid' you can pay a one-off bribe of between 5,000 and 10,000 dollars."

Lacking the wherewithal, Alexander said he had come to "find out about the diseases that can get you off. I've got flat feet, it means I can't stand up straight for more than five minutes at a time, and it makes my kidneys hurt."

A soldiers' mothers militant advised him to apply for another medical check-up. "Go and see a urologist and tell him your kidneys hurt whenever you run. Or even when you sit down, or that it keeps you awake at night. You can get a certificate within a week."

Yury, a father -- and former Afghan veteran -- lost in a crowd of mothers, adds further advice: "If a doctor's certificate doesn't do the trick, you can apply to be a conscientious objector."

The more resolute of the would-be non-conscripts apply to ara, a pacifist organization open to the public every Friday.

Pavel, 23 and the father of a three-year-old child, filled out a declaration of conscientious objection.

If that doesn't work, he said, he's thinking of car theft -- a friend has volunteered his vehicle -- as a way of getting a suspended sentence that would keep him out of uniform for at least two years.

His greatest fear is of being rounded up by military police, a real risk until June 30 which is the completion date for the spring call-up.

More than 160,000 young people face spending the next two years (three years for naval recruits) in the Russian armed forces, notorious for their brutal initiation rites and routine violence.