‘The development of Russian identity’ Inside a St. Petersburg holiday camp designed to sell Ukrainian children on a future in Mother Russia
After the Ukrainian city of Mariupol fell under Russian occupation following a brutal siege that killed thousands of civilians and left hundreds of thousands trapped without basic necessities, the Russian authorities quickly set about cleaning up signs of the destruction and Russifying the city. Beyond their efforts to reshape life in Mariupol itself, they’ve also been organizing trips for children from occupied territories to camps inside Russia, designed to foster “the development of Russian identity.” For the St. Petersburg outlet Bumaga, the Kidmapping project, which tracks information about children deported from occupied territories, spoke with counselors from one of these camps to learn more about what happens there. Meduza shares a summary of their reporting.
Fifteen-year-old Marina lived through the entire siege of Mariupol, from March to May 2022. On June 1, shortly after the city fell under Russian control, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov visited the occupied city and promised local schoolchildren that he would “do everything possible to return their carefree and happy childhood.”
Soon after, Marina — whose Ukrainian passport had already been replaced with a Russian one — was offered a trip to St. Petersburg during the school holidays. “I didn’t even have time to tell my parents; I immediately said, ‘I’ll go,’” Marina recalls.
She and other students were taken by bus to Taganrog, in Russia, where they boarded a train to Zelenogorsk, just outside St. Petersburg. When they arrived, they were greeted by women in traditional Russian folk costumes.
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In the two and a half years since then, these holiday trips to St. Petersburg for children from Mariupol have become routine. In summer and winter, children stay at the Druzhnykh (“Friendship”) camp in Zelenogorsk; during other seasons, they’re sent to a camp of the same name in nearby Molodyozhnoye. Over the nearly three years of full-scale war, 6,500 schoolchildren from Mariupol and hundreds more from other occupied Ukrainian territories have attended these two camps. In 2025, according to Beglov, another 2,500 Ukrainian children will be brought on trips to St. Petersburg.
According to the Druzhnykh camp’s 2023 program, the trips are meant to foster “the development of Russian identity” through “familiarization with the culture and educational system of St. Petersburg.” More specifically, this includes “assistance in professional self-determination” (encouraging the children to attend college in St. Petersburg and start careers there), “familiarization with the history and culture of St. Petersburg,” and the “formation of basic national values.” The latter entails special classes and meetings with government officials, aimed at encouraging “young citizens” to adopt Russian national values as personal guiding principles.
Druzhnykh is hardly the only “Russification” initiative targeting Ukrainian children from occupied territories. However, counselors at Druzhnykh believe there’s less ideological pressure at this camp than in many similar programs. “I expected more propaganda,” says Irina, a child psychologist who worked at the camp, “but it seems they spared the children’s mental health. Sure, there were patriotic songs, but it was subtle — like ‘Russia, We’re Together.’”
“We tried to avoid raising the topic [of war],” says Anton, a counselor at Druzhnykh from 2022 to 2023. “For us, the children were more important, so we tried not to overdo it or push patriotism too hard.” But even if children aren’t openly forced to express hate for Ukraine, they’re constantly surrounded by pro-Russian messaging and encouraged to tie their future to St. Petersburg.
Children spent most of their time on excursions around the city and the surrounding region and visiting colleges. Yet even counselors admit that the shadow of war was ever-present. “When we took the kids to a military parade [in 2022], they dropped to the ground because they thought they were being bombed. Even though they knew there was no war here and nothing was happening, their reflexes kicked in,” Anton recalls.
After that incident, military events were removed from the program. In 2024, activities included sports matches, quizzes organized by the St. Petersburg government, and a visit to the propaganda-heavy Russia–My History exhibition complex.
Some children at the camp openly criticized the war against Ukraine, but counselors say they never took it seriously. “Some kids supported Ukraine,” Anton says. “But it was rare and usually came from a lack of understanding [about the war]. We didn’t argue with them; no one got involved in politics. Sometimes they made jokes about dead Russian soldiers, but that was just to get attention.”
Druzhnykh claims to focus on helping children from Mariupol heal from the trauma of war. According to program documents from 2022, the camp worked with children displaying signs of post-traumatic stress disorder — many of whom had witnessed mass deaths, including those of their loved ones, and endured hunger and freezing temperatures during Russia’s siege of the city.
Organizers described their mission as “stabilizing the children’s psychological state” through “positive experiences” intended to “displace” memories of the war. Counselors and psychologists say they observed clear signs of trauma in the children: nightmares, flashbacks, and re-enactments of violence during play.
Irina, who worked at the camp in 2023, says she used creative exercises to try to help the children process their experiences. She asked them to draw a person and invent a backstory. “Every drawing reflects how the child sees themselves,” Irina explains. “Only now do I realize how many of those paper figures were maimed or broken.” Some children drew people without faces.
Fifteen-year-old Marina, who lived through the siege, recalls being haunted by thoughts of her father, who stayed behind in their village while she and her mother fled to the city, thinking it would be safer. “Every day, I thought about how much I didn’t want to die because I didn’t want [my father] to be left alone,” she says.
She adds that counselors at the camp tried to avoid discussing the war “to prevent conflicts or to stop the kids from reliving those memories.” But the topic was impossible to avoid.
“One evening, we sat with the kids for a candlelight talk,” recalls Alina, a counselor at the camp in 2023. “I asked them to share something personal, something unrelated [to the war]. But they couldn’t help it — they talked about the people they missed, the ones who were gone. Some decided to share their stories with everyone. By the end of the night, the whole group was in tears.”
Marina says the war transformed Mariupol into “something unbearable to look at.” During her trip to St. Petersburg, she decided she wants to leave Mariupol after finishing school and enroll in college there. She says she dreams of becoming a writer.