RAJI: On Location in Rostov, Russia (Year 4)

That’s why I was surprised when we met Lyosha, a Russian Scout, at the piercing festival: with his piercings and slouchy clothes, he seemed like he would fit in better with East Village hipsters than with apple-cheeked boys building fires at camp. But after interviews with three local Rostov scouts, it seems as though it’s hip to be a scout here in in Russia.

According to ScoutBaseUK, Russian scouting was established in 1909, and went into hiding after 1917, kept alive by exiles and officially replaced by the Young Pioneers.

The rebirth of scouting in Rostov began in 2004 and membership is at about 80 people (people who have taken the scouting oath), according to the organization’s representative responsible for development, Dimitry Prokopenko. Scouting in Russia seems to differ from U.S. scouting in a few ways. The most obvious is that there is no distinction between boy and girl scouts - they all work together in one group. And Russian camps center around democracy-building, with role games like “Democratic Republic,” in which students set up elections, an administration, and then try to resolve problems through the system (reminded me a bit of Boys and Girls State in the U.S.).

From talking to these kids, my impression was the some of the hipper, more progressive kids in Rostov are involved in Scouting. Beyond the piercings and orange hair, they are idealistic and convinced that they can change their society - they strongly believe that the ideas and ideals that scouts learn in camp role play games and other activities can be translated into reality here in Rostov. According to Dimitry, “Russian people complain about things, but don’t do anything about them. During the Soviet Union, they were always waiting for a leader - Stalin, Brezhnev - to fix things for them. Now people who are scouts see new possibilities and attempt to act to change the ways things are around them.”