Revived Scouting Troops Impart Life's Lessons
by Robin Munro, staff writer

It is dark and dripping wet in a forest clearing outside the Moscow-region city of Yegorevsk. But the scouts gathered around the campfire are in high spirits, refusing to let the absence of modern comforts get them down.

Later, they will split into small groups and venture out into the forest, building self-confidence while confronting their fear of the unknown.

"We try to give scouts and their leaders as much responsibility for making their own decisions as possible," said leader Pavel Zemskov. "They rise to the challenge and can learn lessons that will serve them for the rest of their lives."

In a country where nongovernmental organizations were not allowed to exist until recently, scouting has begun to make inroads. But the scouts -- or sledopyty, the Russian equivalent -- still operate on a small scale.

With more than 400 members, the Yegorevsk district has the biggest troop in the Moscow region. Formed in 1995, the troop welcomes both boys and girls -- about 25 percent of its members are female. The scouts go on parade, visit veterans, clean up the district's dilapidated churches, all while trying to live up to the scouting motto: Do a good deed every day.

Kirill Shkalikov, 12, said he learned the value of helping anyone in need. Recently, he helped a stranded friend, taking him into his home until the friend's parents arrived. "Of course, I would have done it anyway," Shkalikov said. "But now with the scouts I understand that people must help each other."

But it is the forest visits that Shkalikov likes most of all. "I can make a shalash [hut made of branches] in the forest even in winter," he said. "And I can make a campfire with one match even when it is raining."

Roughly half of Yegorevsk is covered in forest and is well-suited for the woodcraft, observation and nature tasks carried out by the scouts. Before scouting was established in Russia, no group taught these skills with regularity.

"Many parents are so occupied with the struggle for economic survival that spending time with their child is of secondary importance," Zemskov said. "Schools are much the same. They concentrate on teaching children, but don't have the resources to give them outdoor experiences. Scouting fills a gap for both the family and the school."

Scouting in Russia dates to the 1909 translation of the book "Scouting for Boys," written by the founder of the scout movement, Robert Baden-Powell. The first Russian scout was Tsarevich Alexei, and the movement grew rapidly among the middle class during World War I, with scout groups sprouting up in about 150 cities and towns by 1918.

After the Revolution, the nation's new masters had different plans for the apolitical movement.

In 1922, some scout groups were transformed into the ideologically driven Pioneers, which adapted many scouting symbols and codes, including an adaptation of the motto "Be Prepared." Pioneers were "vsegda gotov," or "always prepared."

Other scout branches left Russia with the Whites and continue to operate overseas to this day, in Australia, France, and Serbia. Other scouts went underground, only to be persecuted by the secret police. Some were murdered. All were rehabilitated in 1964.

A revival of the scouting movement began in the late 1980s, when the All Russia National Scout Organization, or ARNSO, was formed. ARNSO is now a member of the World Organization of the Scouting Movement.

Some member troops are peculiar to their region, such as those in Buryatia, Chuvashia and Ingushetia. Others affiliate themselves with religious groups, depending on whether members are Orthodox, Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim.

Another type is the so-called open scouts, who promise to "do our duty to God and our homeland." This group, which includes the Yegorevsk scouts among them, is nondenominational. "I see great possibilities for this movement," Zemskov said. "And I don't want any child to feel excluded."

The president of ARNSO, Sergei Sirotkin, said his organization has roughly 5,000 paying members. All told, Sirotkin estimates there are 10,000 scouts in Russia. These figures pale in comparison to the amount of registered scouts in the United States: 6 million.