Salon

This Saturday will mark a nostalgic anniversary for many Russians; it will be 85 years since the founding of the Pioneer movement. Pioneers were the children's wing of the Communist establishment. Initially the do-gooders described in Arkady Gaidar's 1940 novella "Timur and His Team," by the late Soviet era they had deteriorated into a bureaucratic necessity. I remember the acute feeling of time pointlessly lost during the Pioneer meetings of my childhood.

But there was a brighter side. Many clubs flourished under the auspices of the Pioneers where kids pursued hobbies ranging from photography to architecture to creative writing.

One such club was Caravella, organized by journalist Vladislav Krapivin. Under his leadership, children developed skills in journalism, fencing and seamanship. The Pioneers' flagship magazine, unimaginatively called "Pioneer," sponsored Krapivin's team, which in turn served as the magazine's staff. Krapivin wrote several books of fiction about his experiences with the kids; one of them, "The Lullaby for the Brother," was made into a film and enjoyed wide success in the 1980s.

Such groups, usually run by a charismatic leader, tended to lay the ground for future friendships and life-changing decisions. What kids did wasn't actually that important; after all, building sailboats was rather impractical (rich people with private yachts were something from bourgeois fiction back then). But the ties held. Caravella exists to this day, run by Krapivin's proteges, and if the Russian blogging community is any indication, Krapivin's books and ideas remain very popular.

A distinct streak of Pioneer "shop talk" can also be found in Nikolai Nosov's novellas. Perhaps best known for his stories about Neznaika, Nosov also wrote for a somewhat older audience. Two books stand out: "A Merry Family," where kids build a chicken hatchery, and the more ambitious "Vitya Maleyev at School and at Home," where Pioneers build an apiary from scratch. The book went into detail about the technical processes involved, including some rather complex experiments performed by the characters.

Many Pioneer-sponsored clubs fell apart after the demise of the Soviet Union. But some live on, run by enthusiasts; after all, there will always be people who love working with kids. Recently, I saw a bunch of high-schoolers fencing with heavy imitation swords in the courtyard of a local school, an institution that has kept some of the best Pioneer traditions. When the principal spotted them, he told them to stop. "It's dangerous," he said. "You know what? There are helmets and balaclavas in the school storage room. Take them and fight with them. It would be safer."