UKRAINE: Children and teenagers from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine attend preparatory military training camp in Ukraine's Crimean region to learn Cossack fighting techniques

Record ID: 346120

  • Title: UKRAINE: Children and teenagers from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine attend preparatory military training camp in Ukraine's Crimean region to learn Cossack fighting techniques
  • Date: 19th August 2011
  • Summary: SIMFEROPOL, CRIMEA, UKRAINE (RECENT) (REUTERS) VIEW OF VALLEY ROCK FACE BOY RIDING HORSE ALONG PATH PLANTS WAVING IN WIND ENTRANCE TO ESKI-KERMEN GORGE TENT CAMP AT GORGE BOY STANDING BENEATH TARPAULIN SHADE
  • Embargoed: 3rd September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine, Ukraine
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Education,Politics,Education
  • Reuters ID: LVACYNGC9Z5Z63591Z05SDSATCYB
  • Story Text: About a hundred young boys from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine attended a Cossack training camp in Ukraine's Crimea region this summer to learn mountaineering, martial arts and survival techniques.
    The camp is part of a local Cossack education programme, designed to prepare the boys for military service in their national armies.
    The boys aged from five to 16 years slept in tents and washed in cold water every day - in preparation for a later career in the army, the organisers of the camp said.
    "We prepare the guys to handle service in the army. Today the state pays little attention to camps like this one which teach young guys - these young lads - to protect their home, to protect their country, to protect their land. And as a result, when a young guy leaves here he's already ready to handle service in the army," the camp organiser Sergei Yurchenko says.
    The camp, which hosts hundreds of young people every summer, runs on military discipline: boys sleep, eat and fight together, with each group reporting to a commanding officer, who could be only ten years old. They learn horseback riding, hand to hand fighting and shooting from various weapons.
    "I want to learn to ride a horse, to fight with my fists, be with my (army) platoon for ever," said one of the camp trainees, Alexander Klimenko, who came to the camp from Russian town of Taganrog.
    Sergei Yurchenko, known for his pro-Russian nationalist views, says the main goal of the camp, which the Cossacks have been running for eight years, is to prepare the boys for grown-up life.
    However observers have noted that the camp regime combines military training with the conservative and religious Cossack ethos.
    Cossacks have traditionally regarded themselves as brave and warlike and ready to defend their land and their religious faith.
    Cossacks have lived in villages across southern Russian and Ukraine for centuries, fighting in many of the wars fought by the Russian Empire and later the USSR. In recent years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    In southern Ukraine Cossacks have had sporadic conflicts with Tatars, who consider the country's southern Crimea peninsula their native land.
    Antagonism between the two communities has flared in recent months over religious symbols and when Cossacks tried to put up an Orthodox cross near the Crimean city of Feodosiya in July, riot police were deployed to disperse the crowds.
    The Cossacks' action offended members of the Majlis (National Assembly) of the Crimean Tatars and the Religious Board of the Muslims of the Crimea, who blamed them for 'inciting ethnic and religious hatred'.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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