Outdoor Education in Russia |
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On a paddling trip to Siberia in 2000, I was fascinated to find an outdoor ed centre (they called it in English a "Centre for Young Tourists") which had photographs of children engaged in various initiative tasks that looked very much like single ropes course elements. I was wondering when Project Adventure had arrived in Russia, but the Russians I was with explained that these activities had been used since the Russian revolution as a way of working with young people to improve their morals! Their English wasn't great and my Russian is almost non-existent, but they explained that the activities were adapted from the techniques used to cross rivers. Since then I've talked to a few Russians and gathered a bit of information about outdoor education in Russia - but it's tricky, partly because, like everywhere, there's no one thing called outdoor education - there's a lot of separate things happening.
But one thing seems to be clear, and that is that
outdoor education has been offered to young people in Russia for almost
ninety years |