Putin suggested thinking about the name “pioneers” for the children’s organization

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the participants of the children’s and youth organization created last year under the auspices of the state to “think” about returning to the name “pioneers”. He expressed his recommendation on April 19 in a video chat with Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Holikova.

The organization was created in December last year. At the congress, it was called “Movement of the First”. The name was voted for several times, but each time the majority supported this option; “pioneers” took only fourth place.

In her report to Putin, Golykova mentioned the “Movement of the First”. Putin asked her: “The first thing is what? These are pioneers, right?”

“You can say yes in the old fashioned way,” Golykova agreed. “In the old way, in the new way – as it was, so it is, but this is not going anywhere,” Putin said. He noted that the word “pioneers” is devoid of ideological connotations, and called to “think about it.” In response to Golikova’s words that the congress delegates chose the new name, Putin said that it was necessary to “just think and consult with the guys.”

• Members of the All-Union Pioneer Organization, created in the USSR in the early 1920s on the model of the Boy Scout movement, but with the introduction of communist ideology, were called pioneers. At first she bore the name of Spartak, then – Vladimir Lenin. Pioneers accepted the vast majority of children aged 10-14, the work of the organization was managed by Komsomol – a youth communist organization. The mass pioneer organization existed until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
• “Meduza” with reference to sources close to the presidential administration, claims that earlier in the Kremlin they decided “not to connect the new movement with the past, with the Soviet one.” “But the president likes this past one, and he never managed to come up with a second memorable name,” said one of Meduza’s interlocutors. “Movement of the first” is, in fact, a synonym for the movement of pioneers, since the word “pioneer” itself is borrowed into Russian from English, where it has several meanings, including “pioneer” (American pioneers were the colonists who developed new lands attached to USA in the XVIII-XIX centuries).
• In July last year, the State Duma adopted a bill on the creation of a state organization for children and adolescents. It is assumed that she will educate young people and form them “value orientations” and a worldview based on “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values”. Participation in the organization, as stated, will be voluntary.