oscow Cossack Center
For Children
And Teenagers

One of the most important goals of the current Cossack movement is the revival of traditional Cossack culture. And the best means to this goal is through giving children an education in traditional Cossack culture. To this end, enthusiasts are creating Sunday schools, Cossack Lyceums and Cossack military schools. In the summer (July),young Cossacks (age 14-17) live for a month in a Cossack camp. (And there are young cossacks not only from former USSR. There were already visitors-descendants of Cossacks living now abroad, who want to know traditions of their ancestors).

In the camp the teenagers get new Cossack uniforms, and keep those afterwords.

At the Cossack Camp on the Don the participants learn:
Traditional Cossack Martial Arts (Russian fist fighting, work with shasqua/saber, kinjal, lance).
Horseback riding.
How to handle fire-arms.
Traditional Cossack "valiant games" (games developing dexterity and sharpness).
River crossing.
Traditional Cossack songs (17-19th centuries), not stylization and arrangements, but in their authentic sound.
Russian Orthodox traditions.
Cossack and Russian history.
Cossack ethics/traditions (including Cossack costume traditions).

There are also excursions to historical places such as famous battlefields of the Civil War.

The whole atmosphere is designed to be as close as possible to that of the Cossack camps of pre-soviet Russia (which means Cossack discipline, retreat, reveille, life by camp regulations and daily schedule). The instructors do everything they can to help teenagers feel that they are real Cossacks.

Location: stanitsa (large Cossack village) Golubinskaya, on the banks of the river Don (famous Cossack ataman Nekrasov was originally from there).

And here are some paragraphs from the "Cadet Code":
If you are being taught - learn. There is no unnecessary (superfluous) knowledge, everything will be of use for the Motherland’s benefit.
Don’t whimper! If it’s hard for you, it’s hard for everybody. Be merry, when it’s tough.
Do not fuss. In order to do something fast, one has to do it calmly.
Know the regulations. In them is experience, the sweat and blood of your grandfathers.
Be polite with older people, whoever they are. If you feel you are right - argue your point calmly. Do not quarrel or wrangle with anybody - it debases you.
The life of your friend is always more valuable than your own. You can die yourself, but rescue your friend.

(Based on an interview with pod’esaul (lieutenant-esaul) Ivan Valentinovich Stul’nev, commanding officer of the Moscow division of the 4th Don Cossack regiment named after count Platov, and on an article in the newspaper "Narodnaya Zashchita" by the correspondent Viktor Saharov).

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