As the once carefree summers of Ukrainian childhood and young adulthood are forever altered by war, traditional camps have taken on a more patriotic tone.
Megan Specia
Aug. 11, 2024
The New York Times
In a forest in western Ukraine, a few dozen young men and women stood at attention in two lines in the fading evening light. Some had fake guns slung over their shoulders.
Among them was Olesya Vdovych, who had spent the day with other members of the scouting organization Plast, hauling logs, running drills and learning about first aid as part of a two-week camp last August.
“I’m eager to be prepared,” Ms. Vdovych said at the time, her long blond hair tied in two braids under a forest green cap. With a number of her friends and family fighting in the war against Russia, she said she felt it was important to be ready for any situation.
For young Ukrainians like Ms. Vdovych, the once-carefree summers of childhood and young adulthood were forever altered by Russia’s invasion of the country more than two years ago. Since then, the war has ground on with little change in Ukraine’s fortunes, even as Ukrainian forces made a rare incursion into Russia last week, taking some territory, and engaging in furious fighting with Russian forces. Ukraine has struggled to hold back Russian forces in the east, and devastating airstrikes continue to bombard cities far from the front lines. In April, Ukraine lowered the draft age for young men, to 25 from 27.
Against this backdrop, scouting camps like the one run by Plast have taken on a new resonance. Traditions like hiking and campfires, intended to foster an appreciation for nature, have been supplemented by activities with a more patriotic tone. New camps have also sprung up, some intended to prepare youngsters for battle, with a focus on team-building, first-aid skills and military preparedness.
Some camps are run by the youth branches of right-wing groups with a distinctly nationalistic bent as they take on the mission of molding future Ukrainian soldiers. And some have intensive — sometimes punishing — physical challenges.
Those who cannot complete the camp’s strenuous tasks can ring a bell to signal their desire to leave the camp. They will then be escorted out.
This year, Ms. Vdovych will return to the Plast camp in the forest, this time as an instructor leading scouts ages 15 to 21 through the same exercises she did last year.
“There is no question of if I will go to war,” said Ms. Vdovych, 20, reflecting recently on the camp. “It’s not if, but when.”
“Everyone has to be involved and ready,” she added.
The group was officially banned for decades as Polish, German and Soviet forces controlled the area, said Olga Svinzinska, a historian and Plast member who is an authority on the group’s history. Still, it thrived within the Ukrainian diaspora and among those who pushed for an independent state. Plast was revived when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Ukrainian state was founded in 1991.
Interest in the group grew with a surge in patriotism after the 2014 Maidan uprising, which toppled a pro-Russian leader and led to the Russian-backed separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine. Dozens of former Plast scouts have volunteered in the struggle, according to the organization, and at least 58 have been killed since the fighting began.
Ksenia Dremliuzhenko, a chairman of the regional Plast council, said she had seen a noticeable shift in the mood of scouting camp participants in the past year, reflecting the challenges of the war with Russia.
“Everyone feels this fatigue, but there is an understanding of what we are fighting for,” she said. “We cannot give up when our friends have already died for our freedom.”
Many of the camps are rich with symbolism and infused with folk tradition.
At a Plast camp aimed for scouts ages 15 to 20, in the Lviv region, participants wear vyshyvankas — the intricately embroidered shirts of the country’s national dress — as they recreate Kupala Day, a Ukrainian folklore crowning ceremony.
These days, the camps have also taken on an additional role as war upends Ukraine’s educational system. Thousands of schools across the country have been damaged or destroyed, and many students have fled the country with their families. In schools where in-person classes have continued, ongoing airstrikes regularly send students scrambling for shelters.
“The war has a great impact on children,” said Ivan Svarnyk, a historian and educator, “when missiles are flying, when bombs are falling, when their friends are dying, and this is a huge test for the child’s psyche.”
For many, playtime has ended, Mr. Svarnyk added. Others are finding the war makes its way into their games.
Last summer, on the road to Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, three young children played checkpoint, mimicking blockades set up around the country by the military. During their summer break from school, they stood outside for hours, wearing camouflage and mock uniforms, carrying two knives, binoculars and a toy pistol, and proudly displaying the Ukrainian flag.
At the Hedgehog’s Camp for the youngest Plast members, children ages 3 to 6 spent a week last August in the forested mountains of the Lviv region. The camp took the children on a woodland
adventure through storytelling of Ukrainian folklore and mythology, woven with an appreciation of nature.
The adults running the camp wore costumes depicting characters from these ancient stories, while the children ran through the leafy mountain trails, far from the thoughts of air raid sirens and frontline fighting.
But the war is never really far. Some of the children had been displaced from their homes, forced to flee across the nearby border in Poland and return only sporadically. One of the campers, Marko, 5, attended the camp with his mother, Vira Ihorivna, 33. His father was a volunteer soldier and was killed fighting in the east.
“He understands, but probably as a child, that his father is dead,” Ms. Ihorivna said.
Older scouts must grapple with the idea that they may eventually take the lessons they learn at camp to the front lines.
“I understand that although many people hope that the war will end quickly — you need to believe in the best — but you need to be prepared for everything,” said Ms. Vdovych, the scout at the camp who will return as an instructor.
Out in the forest, where scouts can count only on themselves, she said that lesson on preparedness had been drilled home, along with the idea “We can only count on ourselves.”
“Learning how to build your little life in nature will make it easier in real life,” she said, adding: “There are always challenges. But you learn how to deal with storms and unexpected turns.”
Diego Ibarra Sanchez and Anna Ivanova contributed reporting.
Megan Specia reports on Britain, Ireland and the Ukraine war for The Times. She is based in London.