On February 18, 2025, Ukraine marked three years since the crime of genocide, a massive deportation of Russia, according to the International Criminal Court’s Roman law. This date is important, and it preceded the beginning of a full-scale invasion, reminding us that before February 24, 2022, Russia had already occupied Ukrainian territory for eight years.
It also highlights the fact that large-scale deportation of Ukrainian children in Russia is an organisational effort that involves multiple state actors and well-thinked logistics. To achieve that, Russia relies on developed infrastructure, including an expanded network of summer camps and childcare facilities that Russia and Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union. For those unfamiliar with the way Soviet authorities understand the role of summer camps in raising children, the changes in space that are usually associated with nature, innocence and playfulness into the de facto prison system for minors seem like a leap of imagination. Even for Soviet childhood scholars like me, the replication of the Soviet agenda by the Russian ideologue is surprising. Again, the Russian leader has not invented anything new. Instead, they have managed to expand Soviet oppressive practices into the 21st century.
The Soviet Union did not just use summer camps to educate children. For example, in the late 19th century, summer camp development was driven by anxiety over the possibility that American boys might decline by being raised primarily by women. Concerned citizens believed that boys needed to spend more time outdoors under male guidance to suit current ideas of masculinity. This attitude changed over time, but it never completely disappeared.
From the beginning of the Soviet state, its authorities were also concerned about children, studying the American experience. However, there was a huge difference between the specific concerns that states were trying to address and how they approached summer camp design. Supporters of the American summer camp movement worried about middle-class children, and the answer to the “exclusion” issue of the early 20th century was a racist imitation of the “savage” Native American lifestyle. Meanwhile, the Soviets were dealing with major demographic crises. After World War I, the Red Army continued to war, regaining the old territory of the collapsed Russian Empire, unable to kill millions of parents or care for their descendants. By the 1920s, the Soviet Union, which had established itself as a country caring about the welfare of its workers, was unable to find the resources to take out seven million children from the streets, where criminal activity and sex work were a common means of survival. Soviet children were already running wild in a way, but authorities wanted their children’s discipline, control, safety and better health. Although summer camps were initially envisioned as comfortable places with exemplary modern facilities, it took the Soviet Union decades to achieve this goal.
In the 1920s, Soviet ideologues began to believe that children who could be molded into the model of Soviet citizens should be under consistent state leadership. Given the high risk that children will slip into the world of petty crime, authorities have made them the strongest and most disciplined category of the Soviet people. Summer camps were developed to ensure that when children are not in school they are still under state supervision. According to Soviet authorities, summer camps were educational and not recreational facilities as if the children were not working, they didn’t need to rest. The camp was to follow an intensive agenda aimed at transforming children into good Soviet citizens. Typical days in Soviet summer camps included three to five meals, morning flag ceremony, work in various hobby groups, newspapers, political discussion, counselors, sports, evening concerts, dance, music lessons, and sometimes military training and activities. Until the late 1950s, children were supposed to spend several hours of free time every day. However, the state’s demands for what children had to learn in summer camps became more intense over time, and in fact the day was met with prescribed activities.
The first agenda of Soviet summer camps was devised under the rules of Joseph Stalin, and its development can be roughly divided into three periods. Under Stalin, summer camps were rare and the approach to organizing daily tasks was somewhat flexible. The state had not yet developed a funding scheme that would allow for the large-scale construction of these agencies. Furthermore, the Soviet Union did not have enough educators to lead all the activities that summer camps were supposed to offer. Things changed when Nikita Khrushchev came to power. Under Khrushchev, state businesses and other organizations (hospitals, schools, research institutes, etc.) have taken charge of summer camps, accelerating the growth of the camp network. Khrushchev also believed in introducing children, especially young people, to manual and agricultural workers while still in school. So the children in summer camps had to spend a certain amount of time, mainly on collective farms. The final change to the Summer Camp agenda was introduced by Leonid Brezhnev, who prioritized military training for Soviet youth. Under his control, summer camp activities had to include military exercises and paramilitary games. Zarnica (Russian for “hot lightning”), Soviet analogues of the Americans capture the flag.
For those who have not grown in the Soviet system, these camps can look like disciplinary institutions far from what we normally understand in the term “recreation.” And certainly, children’s experiences in Soviet summer camps included various types of disciplinary violence and bullying. However, the people I interviewed, who grew up in the Soviet Union often remembered as a space in which they were connected to nature, making new friends, exploring romantic relationships, and generally living a rather carefree life. Over the past three years of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the occupation authorities of the Ukrainian territory held by Russian troops, used these positive memories to persuade parents to send their children from the frontline to further summer camps, promising rest and protection from wartime circumstances.
However, meeting Ukrainian children in these Russian summer camps has nothing to do with safety. Children are often sent to camps with aged facilities through the Russian Federation and parts of Ukraine, which is currently occupied by Russia. Conservative estimates based on Yale University School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab As of 2023, 43 summer camp facilities around the Black Sea, Moscow, Kazan and Yekaterinberg hosted at least 6,000 Ukrainian children. These include children with parents, children in detention at Ukrainian state agencies, children who have become orphans, and children who cannot determine custody rights. Occupational authorities often require parents to sign a document releasing their children. In some casesthey even tell their children that they can build a signature for their parents. When children attend camps, they learn that staff often interfere with communication with relatives. Going home can be a complicated and dangerous effort. Children returning to Ukraine Talk about his experiences at summer camps in Russia It is characterized by forced labor, interrogation, assault, imprisonment, poor food quality, food shortages, and various forms of emotional violence aimed at eliminating the child’s Ukrainian identity.
At the foundations of Soviet summer camps as an educational institution, Russia created an inherently robust incarceration system. Inmates in this system – Ukrainian children are deprived of their rights and can be exposed to all forms of violence, including forced militarization, which has attracted international attention. In addition to summer camps, young Ukrainians are also sent to specialized military facilities where they are trained to become Russian soldiers. This includes developing the skills necessary for military service and intense indoctrination. Russia regularly forces people on occupied Ukrainian territory, so it’s only a matter of time before young Ukrainians are forced to fight their fellow citizens.
The stories of Ukrainian children about their time in Russian camps remind historians of dark pages of Soviet history related to another camp system that has never affected romantic memories. Contrary to Russia’s claims, beyond the full-scale invasion of over three years, Russia has not saved Ukrainian children. They have punished them for being Ukrainians by being exposed to the full potential of Russia’s oppressive forces. It is the accomplices of Russian citizens in this process that raise special concerns in this regard. My archives and oral history studies of everyday life in Soviet summer camps show that people remember them fondly, not because the Soviet state prioritized the happiness and joy of children. Just like Russia, the Soviet Union wanted to punish them without entertaining them. What made the difference was that many Soviet adults working in camps saw the Soviet system as being too oppressive to children and resisted. Taking advantage of the geographical segregation of summer camps, they created their own version of children’s recreation. Conversely, Russian camps that addicted Ukrainian children are placed with people willing to align with institutionalized policies of violence.
It is often believed that the treatment of children is an indication of how humane society is. Our knowledge of how Russia organizes summer camps in massive deportation and reeducation suggests a harsh assessment of Russian society today.
This article was first published London Ukraine Review, June 2025, No. 4.
Source: Eurozine – www.eurozine.com
