“Everything is only getting worse. You can forget about Artek for now.” St. Petersburg children are taken from Crimea - home or to camps in the Krasnodar Territory

Shifts were canceled at Artek amid the fuel crisis and drone attacks. Children from St. Petersburg who were vacationing in Crimea were offered places in camps and sanatoriums in Kuban or a return home in return.

“Paper” found out how schoolchildren and their parents reacted to this, and talked with a St. Petersburg resident who worked as a counselor in Crimea.

Many children from Artek refuse the proposed holiday in Kuban

On the morning of June 22, the parents of St. Petersburg schoolchildren who went on vacation to Artek began to receive calls from the Regional Branch of the Children's Center in Anichkov Palace, the organization responsible for selecting and sending children to the camp. The families were informed that the children were being removed from the camp. The next day, the St. Petersburg Education Committee announced that participants in the seventh shift of Artek would be offered a vacation in the Kuban:

“In the near future, a small group of children who vacationed there under the regional quota and under the thematic change programs of Artek MDC partners will leave the location of the Artek MDC. Those who want to continue their vacation will be offered accommodation options in health camps in the Krasnodar Territory, while the rest will be able to return home. Issues regarding their return are being worked out.”

For the seventh shift, according to regional quotas, it was planned to send 70 children from St. Petersburg to Artek; in total, the city wanted to distribute 738 vouchers to the children’s center for the year. In addition to regional quotas, St. Petersburg residents go to thematic camps, which are distributed by partner organizations as part of general development programs, as well as on a commercial basis - a trip to Artek for 21 days in the summer costs from 175,000 rubles.

In the St. Petersburg children's chat group "Artek" they say that among the options that the organizers offered, in addition to the camps, there was a sanatorium. The Smena camp said that they had already accepted more than 500 children from Artek.

If parents send their child to Kuban, his trip to Artek will expire. The organizers promise that if he goes home instead, then using the same voucher he will be able to relax in a Crimean camp in the future.

“They just called me [from the Regional Office] and said that a ticket to another shift will automatically appear in our personal accounts [of Artek]. In response, I asked our entire delegation to prepare a letter of guarantee from the management of Artek about this. Words are one thing, but a document is another,” one St. Petersburg mother wrote on Sunday.

In the parent chat of the Lesnoy camp as part of Artek, many do not believe in the feasibility of transferring their vacation in Crimea to another shift.

“Do you think the war will end soon? Everything is only getting worse. You can forget about Artek for now,” wrote one of the mothers.

Children from the St. Petersburg chat room “Artek” are not sure that the situation in the Krasnodar Territory is much better

“It’s the same in Sochi,” “in Sirius now there are sirens every day,” they write.

Judging by the chat, the majority of St. Petersburg Artek residents refused to go to the sanatorium and preferred to return home.

"Paper" contacted the parents of St. Petersburg children who were being taken out of "Artek", but they refused to talk - some justified this on security grounds, one of the mothers said that she "had no questions about this situation for the camp management and other structures."

Most of the new shift did not have time to get to Artek

Back on Sunday, Artek hoped that the new shift, albeit in a truncated format, would take place.

“At the children's camp “Khrustalny” the first day of arrival of children for the “Art of Creating” shift is taking place. The guys received the Artek uniform, got to know the counselors and each other, walked around the camp, played games, learned the traditions of Artek and decorated the squad corner,” wrote on June 21 in the community of the Khrustalny camp as part of Artek.

Most of the children did not have time to get to Artek - on Sunday evening, a warning was distributed through the children's center chats to the camp administration that only those who managed to arrive at the camp before 6 pm on Sunday would take part in the new shift.

Groups of children who did not reach Crimea by evening “are required to return to their places of residence,” the notice said. The delegations that managed to cross the Crimean Bridge and were heading to the camp through the territory of the peninsula were promised to be placed in a temporary temporary detention facility, after which they were also obliged to return home.

According to the story of St. Petersburg student Vladimir, who from April to June worked as a counselor at the Lesnoy camp, children heading to a new shift were accommodated for the night in one of the Kerch colleges. Some parents considered this decision strange, because the southern coast of Crimea is considered safer than Kerch - drones attacked the Kerch Peninsula on the night of June 21, killing four people.

“Don’t you think that taking children out now is much more dangerous than leaving them in Artek? Drones fly into buses much more often than into the bomb shelter in Artek,” a St. Petersburg mother in a group at the Khrustalny camp asked the organizers.

In the chat of the Lesnoy counselors on the night of June 21-22, the main topic of discussion was the organization of a night game for children. Vladimir said that on Sunday afternoon many schoolchildren - eighteen groups - managed to reach Lesnoy. This, he said, is four more than in the previous shift.

Some children were unable to leave Crimea on the first try

After the order of the head of Crimea Sergei Aksenov, the upcoming shifts in the camp were completely canceled - the children who managed to move in were taken to Kuban.

“At least our guys saw Artek. My son will be eighteen in a month. They are already sitting there sour. The first ones are already gathering. Some spent three days on the road to their destination, spent the night at a temporary accommodation center in Simferopol and stood on the bridge for a long time. Now in “Smena” everyone has suffered,” wrote one of the mothers in the “Lesnoy” parent chat.

By Monday evening, the main topic of discussion in the camp counselors’ chat was the removal of children from Crimea. According to one of the mothers, on Tuesday morning there were still a small number of vacationers at Lesnoy.

St. Petersburg children said in the chat that the counselors, even after Aksenov’s order, urged them not to worry and denied the closure of the shift.

“They said: no, the shift is not closed, everything is fine, no one will be taken anywhere,” wrote one of the schoolgirls in the St. Petersburg Artek chat room.

“The counselors told us that 99 percent is that we will stay and no one will be taken away,” confirmed her peer.

Some St. Petersburg children who were taken from the camp on Monday afternoon were returned to Artek in the evening - according to their parents, they did not have time to cross the Crimean Bridge before the end of the day.

“They managed to take some away, but some children returned to the camp. Apparently they will go again in the morning. It looks like there's a queue on the bridge or it's been blocked, and it's too late. They probably returned it so they wouldn’t spend the night there,” one of the St. Petersburg mothers suggested in a chat.

“Children who left six hours ago are being returned to our camp,” the counselor wrote on the evening of June 22.

“They were taken, but it wasn’t safe there, so they brought them back! Why then take such a risk and organize mass exports?! Now staying in the camp is safer than driving through Taurida and standing in a traffic jam in front of the bridge!” they answered her.

Children who left last week and managed to visit Artek leave joyful messages in the St. Petersburg chat .

The state of bomb shelters was discussed in the Artek children's chat

Parents in the camp chat say that the organizers cited the fuel crisis as the reason for canceling the shift. Children from St. Petersburg in their chat are sure that the decision was made because of the attacks on the peninsula.

“Everyone is being turned around. Moscow was one of the last to arrive. They’re bombing,” one of the girls wrote.

“God, what a mess it is in Crimea. At least don’t go to Artek again,” added another schoolgirl.

On Monday evening, the camp’s organizers circulated an announcement in the camp’s chats about the ban on mentioning the routes and dates of children’s movements, as well as their locations, in general correspondence. For violation of these rules, they promised to remove Artek from all chats. Parents associate this with terrorist attacks that Ukraine may commit.

The missile danger has been worrying children in Artek since at least the beginning of this year. This especially affected the Sevastopol branch of the camp - the Korsun children's center. According to counselor Vladimir, in the spring, because of attacks on the city, the children there constantly went down to the basement. From the beginning of June they stopped transporting them to Sevastopol.

St. Petersburg children criticize the state of bomb shelters in the main part of Artek in Gurzuf in the chat:

“It was some kind of basement, covered with dust as if it were just from a brick. Our entire uniform, all our clothes were in it, and this dust could not be washed off later. Formally, at Belaya Dacha (a building within the Lazurny camp - note from Papers) there is a bomb shelter, but there was only water, which, of course, was not given to us. There was light, but no food,” said the schoolgirl.

In the same chat, another girl shared memories of her birthday in February of this year, which she spent at Artek and considers the most memorable in her life:

“I was congratulated at 0:00, and at 0:20 the missile danger began. The squad congratulated us and ran to the basement.”

Cover photo: Vladimir Smirnov/TASS

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