Artek

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Pioneer camp Artek

Artek

When asked by my friends and colleagues where I was going to spend my September holidays, I replied "Artek", waiting for the inevitable questions whether I planned to join the ranks of young pioneers and whether I had my red scarf ready. In fact, I was going to stay in the town of Gurzuf, not in the famous pioneer camp itself, but I could see the camp territory from my window and I did intend to explore it. Who could resist the chance to see the far-famed place on the Crimean coast – once the pride of the Soviet Union, where privileged pioneers spent their holidays?

Getting to Artek should be a piece of cake: A ride by a trolleybus operating on the Simferopol > Yalta route (which, with its 86 km, is the longest trolleybus line in the world) and getting out at a place marked by a huge sign "Artek", each letter a different colour of the rainbow. (The sign is complemented by giant concrete flames and everything flashes with colourful neon lights after sunset, looking like a sign for a disco club.) From there, it is supposed to be just a short ride by a "marshrutka". Although a "marshrutka" should stop and take you in wherever you stand and wave your hand at it – that’s why it is called a "route taxi" after all, and not a minibus, which would otherwise be a much more fitting name – theories often do not work in practice. After you watch the little bus merrily whizz by without even slowing down, you rather opt for a bit of a walking instead of waiting for half an hour and then trying your luck with another driver, hoping his level of politeness would be a bit higher.

Artek camp is fenced and the entrance is guarded by policemen on duty 24/7 (usually sitting in their little watchhouse, watching TV and looking utterly, desperately, endlessly bored). Entry is only with a pass issued by the camp authorities. Accomodation providers in Gurzuf can nonetheless obtain the precious passes for their lodgers, so spies do not have a very hard job to infiltrate the camp territory. Not to speak about "secret passages" that helpful landlors promise to show their clients in case there was a problem with their passes.

Artek was founded in 1925 as a camp for children suffering from tuberculosis, but gradually grew and became a holiday destination for the most prominent pioneers, the best of the best (and most loyal to their merry socialist nation). It was also a place where celebrities loved to show off in front of cameras – from Soviet leaders Khruschev and Brezhnev, to cosmonauts Gagarin and Tereshkova and foreign VIPs such as Fidel Castro and Indira Gandhi. What could be a beter promo than posing with a bunch of smiling young pioneers on the backdrop of Crimean mountains and the sparkling Black Sea...

Of course, everything is big in Ukraine, but the camp territory still amazes by its size. It’s larger than large – even if the expression "pioneer camp" does not evoke just a meadow with several rows of tents to you. According to its website, the camp covers 208 hectares. Kilometres of beaches and parkland – with lovely cypresses, pines, palm trees, laurels and other greenery – intervowen with roads and pathways and interspersed with buildings, playgrounds and swimming pools (and there is even a small artificial ruin). Lots of opportunities for endless walks and for getting lost.

The camp’s website claims that Artek – now called an international children’s centre, not a pioneer camp – hosts thousands of kids every year (35,000 of them in its "record year" 2010). In late September, when good kids are back to school, it resembles a ghost town. The houses are quiet, swimming pools calm like a mirror. An occasional worker emerges here and there. Sparse vacationers sunbathe on the beaches. A rare group of late campers (children happily avoiding school?) can be seen boarding a bus or kicking a ball at a stadium, but it’s just scarce needles in the huge haystack of the empty camp. A great place for misanthropes and lonely wolves.

Some of the camp buildings obviously remember times long gone, some would not look out of place in any modern resort. Perhaps the most picturesque ones – representatives of the first category – are shaped like giant casks and bear poetic names such as "Звездочка" (little star) and "солнышко" (little sun). Judging by their tiny size and by the shabby bare beds inside (and no other furniture), asceticism could be trained there or they could serve as a prison for disobedient kids.

Artek beaches are covered in pebbles, not obnoxious sand that has the unfortunate tendency to infiltrate shoes, clothing and generally everything you take to the beach. When they get wet with seawater and their true colours shine, the pebbles look like semi-precious stones. The sea is occupied by jellyfish (some with iridescent strips inside their translucent bodies), the beaches by seagulls and an occasional cormorant.

Ayu-Dag, or the Bear Mountain, is something of a symbol of Artek. Resembling a crouching bear (well, at least if you have a rich imagination), it raises up about 570 metres from the sea. According to legends, a giant bear somehow turned into a stone while drinking from the sea. According to scientists, it is not an unlucky bear but an unlucky volcano, which did not manage to spew hot magma and just raised a part of the earth, forming this bear-shaped lump. So in any case, something went wrong here a long, long time ago – but bore very picturesque fruit.

On the oposite side of the camp is another picturesque gem – two little islands, rocky twins peeping out of the salty water (swimming bear cubs?). If it was not for the destructive power of the sea, they could still be linked by rock to the mainland. Reportedly, there used to be a restaurant called "Venice" on one of them in the beginning of the 20th century (perhaps letting customers experience what it feels like to be stranded in a house by the Grand Canal, with no gondola in sight). However, it obviously fell victim to some kind of destruction too as no traces of it remain.

Overseeing Artek and making sure the campers behave themselves is no one else but revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself. To match the size of the camp, he’s larger than large himself, towering almost twenty metres tall. Despite his impressive proportions, he’s not visible from everywhere; the trees and hilly terrain screen him effectively from some parts of the camp. So you are walking through a peaceful parkland, and suddenly the Big Brother rises up in front of you in all his splendour. Built in 1985 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the camp’s founding, the collosal monument has decayed and crumbled for decades, the polished marble falling into pieces, brambles and weeds sprouting from the crevices. After all, Lenin’s empire has crumbled too.

Russian poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin once visited Gurzuf (long before the existence of Artek camp and young pioneers, of course) and drew inspiration from the area. In result, the place is over-Pushkin-ed now. Wherever you go, you stumble over a tribute to the great poet, may it be statues or place names (and vendors probably sell fridge magnets with his portrait too). But children deserve something nicer than a scowling bust, don’t they? (Although they can admire at least one in the camp, too.) In Pushkin’s poem Ruslan and Ludmila, the main hero encounters - and has a chat with - a giant head. Well, the one in Artek is not really chatty, but emerging from the cover of trees, lit by eerie greenish light in the evening, it can give a good scare to unsuspecting kids. Perhaps it’s an effective way to keep them indoors at night – or to make them read Pushkin’s opuses in the hope that he wrote horror stories.

(For a change, this giant head – not in Artek, but carved into a rock not far from Yalta – belongs to the master poet himself. As if it was not enough that his life ended in a duel, Pushkin got posthumously beheaded by a creative sculptor...)

Long live eclecticism! Just a few steps from the fairy-tale head, camp visitors can reenact Greek tragedies in a proper setting. Antigona or Oedipus in the unforgetable renditions of school children would surely be instant hits. Well, since there used to be ancient Greek colonies on the Crimean coast, why not pay this fitting tribute to them.

Artworks celebrating tirelessly cheery young pioneers and the friendship of nations are scattered around the camp. But sometimes they make you wonder. Don’t the guys in this one look like drinking straight from narrow bottles, while the girls do their best to impress them? Maybe it’s a lesson to be learnt from tender age – guys love to drink, no matter the colour of their skin. And not even pretty young girls can change their habits.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité... and work. We are talking about industrious Soviets, after all, not about lazy Frenchmen sprawled in a café, munching croissants and drinking champagne.

Gurzuf – the town of cats. They occupy streets, benches, balconies, hold councils on lawns and sometimes do not even budge from your way, making it obvious who is the master here. Cats of all shapes, colours and sizes. Solitary cats and cat families. And naturally they infiltrate the camp grounds too. This particular family occupying bushes in Artek, right next to a bus stop just beyond the fence, counted a mum and five kids (some of them having the bent to become bold explorers, some mighty warriors and some skilful acrobats). Only the dad was missing in action – or a divorcee.

More photos from Artek are HERE.

Photos from Gurzuf are HERE.