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‘At least my dad’s alive’ The state-funded summer camps where Russian soldiers’ children ride mini tanks and learn about Chinese culture

Source: Novaya Vkladka

One of the financial perks the Russian government offers soldiers fighting in Ukraine is summer camp vouchers for their children. The camp facilities themselves range from rustic to resort-like, but even in the Moscow region, where psychologists are onsite to offer emotional support, the experience often provides little relief to kids who miss their fathers. Camp activities generally have a patriotic bent, romanticizing the war and framing it to children as a heroic and defensive endeavor. Lola Romanova, a journalist for the independent outlet Novaya Vkladka, spoke to counselors from one of these camps and parents of children who attended it. Meduza shares an abridged translation of her report.

‘Don’t mention his father’

“My mom doesn’t want to talk to me. She won’t pick up the phone, and she told me not to call her again,” Alina, a counselor at Litvinovo summer camp in the Moscow region, recalls a girl from the camp’s 11–14 age group saying.

The girl’s father was deployed in Ukraine at the time, so she was rarely able to reach him. Meanwhile, nearly every conversation with her mother ended in a fight, and by the time she gave her phone back to the counselors after her allotted calls home, she was usually “hysterical,” another counselor says.

The children attending the camp often talked about their fathers, the counselors say, but for some campers, any mention of the topic was painful. Maria, another counselor, recalls one time when she heard Artur, a boy from the same age group with exceptionally poor behavior, “throwing a fit and sobbing.” When she finally managed to calm him down, he told her that the other campers had “insulted his father.”

Another time, when the campers were drawing pictures of their biggest wishes, Artur drew his father in an army uniform and wrote that his wish was for his dad to come home. According to Maria, about a quarter of the kids in his group drew similar pictures.

Litvinovo accepts children ages 7–15. Originally opened in 1955 as a Young Pioneer camp, it underwent renovations starting in the early 2000s, and it now includes golf, bowling, and roller skating facilities as well as two indoor pools and other amenities. Last year, Russian media named it one of the country’s 10 best summer camps.

The Russian government started providing vouchers for soldiers’ children to attend Litvinovo in 2023. According to the Moscow Regional Social Development Ministry, the state funded about 3,000 kids’ spots in the summer of 2024. Counselors told Novaya Vkladka that most attendees this summer had fathers in the army.

‘What the world needs is peace’

Every day at Litvinovo began with the Russian national anthem and the raising of the Russian flag. According to Maria, this was the first year that camp counselors were told to sing along with the the anthem.

In the mornings, children would rotate between activities such as sculpting, drawing, soap-making, and Chinese art class. “Since Russia has very good relations with China, we decided to do an activity where the students learn about the country, its traditions, and its national art, and to have the students make crafts,” a counselor named Kristina tells Novaya Vkladka.

The camp even hosted some children from China; their mothers accompanied them to Russia, but the children lived and did activities with the Russian campers. At the end of each camp session, the Russian and Chinese children wrote letters to each other in the future, and the Chinese kids’ mothers gave short speeches in Mandarin that were translated by an interpreter. A quote from one woman’s speech stuck in Kristina’s memory: “What the world needs is peace — countries should be friends with one another. Come to China, we’ll be waiting for you!”

In early August, a group of campers went on an excursion to Moscow’s Patriot Park military theme park, where they listened to lectures about World War II and modern Russia’s military equipment. The Litvinovo camp itself even featured a closed track where children could drive around a miniature version of a T-34 tank; according to Kristina, the campers were “thrilled” by this.

“Children’s brains aren’t able to comprehend the idea that someone close to them is doing bad things,” Ekaterina, a psychologist from the organization Without Prejudice, tells Novaya Vkladka. Portraying the war to them in a romantic light, she says, can affect their perception of it.

“You can say whatever you want about it — that the children have fallen prey to propaganda or what have you. But many of them sincerely believe their parents are doing something good,” she explains.

At a meeting before the opening of the Litvinovo’s 2024 season, counselors were given a list of singers whose music was not to be played at the camp. It consisted primarily of artists who have spoken out against the war in Ukraine.

At the same time, the music of some Ukrainian artists was permitted at camp dances. “[Singer] Kirill Bledny, despite being Ukrainian, supports the annexation of the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics, so he’s allowed,” Maria explains. According to her, the songs that elicited the strongest reactions from campers were “I’m Russian” by the pro-war pop singer Shaman, and “Mother” by folk singer Tatyana Kurtukova. The counselors generally saved these for the end of each dance, and the children would jump up and down and sing along at the top of their lungs.

But not all campers enjoyed the “patriotic” music, according to Alina. Occasionally, kids would have panic attacks and have to be removed from the dance hall. “They would start shaking and having trouble breathing. We would call the psychologists, but sometimes they were busy, and we’d have to calm the kids down ourselves. Some of them said they were just scared by the loud music; others said the patriotic songs reminded them of their dads, and that they missed them,” Alina says.

‘The governor came to see me!’

“My group had several girls who weren’t from military families,” Alina tells Novaya Vkladka. “One of them was very calm and quiet, and at the end of her session, I learned that she hadn’t quite been comfortable. She didn’t understand why so many [soldiers’] children were trying so hard to draw attention to themselves.”

Giving every child the attention they deserved was difficult, Alina admits: despite sanitary regulations capping the number of children in each group at 30, her groups contained about 50 kids on average.

“My parents don’t pay me any attention, and nobody here does either. The only way to get it is to behave badly,” Alina recalls one child telling her through tears. She describes the child, whose father is a soldier, as an “uncontrollable hurricane.”

Natalia Ryltsova, a mother whose daughter received a state-funded spot at the camp, tells Novaya Vkladka that she was pleased with the camp’s activities. She says her daughter was particularly impressed when Moscow Governor Andrey Vorobyov paid the children a visit: “The children were given T-shirts and fed ice cream and strawberries. She called me afterwards and said: ‘The governor came to see me!’”

According to Maria, the campers spent a long time talking to Vorobyov, telling him about their relatives and their worries. One boy complained to the governor that his grandmother “lives in poverty” and started crying; another asked Vorobyov to bring his father home from the war. Vorobyov told him that wasn’t possible, but later added: “We’ll see.”

Sometimes campers would learn about their fathers getting injured on the battlefield during the camp. Kristina describes how one boy reacted to the news of his dad getting wounded: “He came to us, seemingly unfazed, and said his father had been hit by a bomb and sustained a head injury. […] His mom came and picked him up to visit his dad, who was in the hospital. Then [the boy] came back to camp.”

The camp employed nine psychologists, one for every two groups, to provide emotional support to the soldiers’ children. These psychologists held training sessions for the camp counselors, and the counselors gave them lists of “high-risk” children after observing the campers’ behavior. Often, these children faced bullying from their peers.

“I had one girl whose father died just a month before her camp session. And sometimes [the other children] would bring it up directly, saying things like, ‘At least my dad’s still alive,” Alina said.

‘Pack your things and leave’

One camper, a 12-year-old girl named Lena, wore “baggy clothing and a baseball cap that covered her hair,” Maria says. Soon after her arrival, other kids began calling Lena a “hybrid” and a “man.” The counselors alerted the camp administration, and the camp psychologists spoke to the bullies about their behavior, but the harassment didn’t stop.

Eventually, Lena got into a fight with Natasha, one of the campers who had been bullying her; after that, the counselors began working with them each individually. Both girls had fathers fighting in the war.

“They asked us to listen to the children’s phone conversations with their parents,” Maria says. “First, Lena called her dad and told him she was being bullied. The phone was on speaker, so I heard her dad say, in an aggressive and commanding voice, ‘So here’s the deal: Pack your things and leave. Even if you have to climb the fence — just pack up and leave.’” Then she called her mom, who said, in the same aggressive voice, “Whoever’s bullying you, punch their face in.”

A few days later, the kids gathered for an event in the camp’s assembly hall. At one point, Lena set her cap down, and it fell between the seat and the backrest. When she realized it was missing, she assumed that Natasha, who was sitting behind her, had stolen it.

“Lena turned around, screamed ‘You bitch!’ and started walking through the seat rows towards Natasha. When she reached her, she took a swing at her, and I had to block her fist,” Maria recounts. “After I convinced Lena not to start a fight, she ran out of the assembly hall and headed towards the entrance. I thought she’d decided to take her father’s advice and run away, but instead, she started kicking the bushes, throwing her cap, and wailing.”

Lena spent the rest of the evening with the psychologist. Several days later, she got sick and was sent to the camp’s medical facility, where her parents came to pick her up.

According to Ekaterina, one of the psychologists, Litvinovo has always had problems with bullying, but it’s likely increased in recent years. “Children who have overwhelming anxiety about their loved ones, whether they’re aware of it or not, need to release it somehow,” she says. “This can manifest in various ways, including through irritability and anger.”