Young Pioneer camp (Russian: Пионерский лагерь) was the name for the vacation or summer camp of Young Pioneers. In the 20th century these camps existed in many socialist countries, particularly in the Soviet Union.
The Young Pioneer camps of the Soviet Union were the place of vacation for children from the Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union during summer and winter holidays. The first All-Union Young Pioneer camp, Artek was formed on June 16, 1925. The Young Pioneer camp phenomenon grew in popularity and in the USSR there existed approximately forty thousand Young Pioneer camps in 1973. Approximately 9,300,000 children had vacations in these camps that year. There were different types of camps: sanitation camps, sports camps, tourist camps, thematic camps (for young technicians, young naturalists, young geologists and children of other potential careers). Generally speaking if parents wanted their child or children to go to one of these Young Pioneer camps, they had to pay a fee to apply for accommodation in the camp. However, typically the state organization where the parent worked "sponsored" the child by allotting the worker's child a place in the camp free of charge to the parent or parents as an incident to the parent's employment.
The main Young Pioneer camps of the Soviet Union were All-Union Young Pioneer camp Artek (near Gurzuf), republican camps: Orlyonok (near Tuapse, Russian SFSR, opened in 1960), Okean (near Vladivostok, Russian SFSR, opened in 1983) Molodaya Gvardiya (near Odessa, Ukrainian SSR) and Zubryonok (in Minsk Oblast, Byelorussian SSR). It was very difficult to apply for accommodation to the main camps, especially to Artek, as they were very popular.
In 1977 a group of Canadian teens and pre-teens from across Canada were sent to the Soviet Young Pioneer camp, Orlyonok. The book Lost in Moscow by Kirsten Koza details their unusual escapades at this elite summer camp in the USSR.
In East Germany the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation built a pioneer camp (known as a "pioneer republic") in 1952 at Werbellinsee north-east of Berlin. It was based on the Artek. It was considered a privilege to be chosen to go to this camp.
Famous quotes containing the words young, pioneer and/or camp:
““Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?”
“I’ve been to seek a wife,
She’s the joy of my life,
She’s a young thing, and cannot leave her mother.””
—Unknown. Billy Boy (l. 1–5)
“The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son of earth and of Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize the God in him. It is the worshipers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subject for Christianity. The New Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or most of his days. He will rather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles, though they were fishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and never trolled for pickerel on inland streams.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)