In a small town outside St Petersburg, a group of children are being prepared for service in the Russian army. Arriving at 7pm, the class – all aged between five and 17 – will spend the evening learning how to fight and handle weapons.

This is St Spyridon the Triumphant Orthodox, a patriotic club aiming to “bring children to the church” through sport and military-style training, says their coach, Michael Lysovskiy.

Thousands of clubs like this exist across Russia, forming an integral part of a nation-wide initiative for the “military-patriotic education of the population”, regulated by the government through a significant programme of financial support.

With an upsurge in support for the armed forces because of the conflict in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, the government is assessing a new programme proposed by the Ministry of Education to significantly increase the budget for military education – and combat awareness – for children and young people.

It’s an ambitious project: its aim, according to a document released by the ministry in April, is to encourage young citizens to feel a responsibility for their country, prepare them to “defend the motherland”, spark interest in their past, and make Russians proud of their historical heroes.

The goals verge from realistic to surreal: the ministry says it hopes to see a 10% rise in “the number of young people called to serve in the armed forces of the Russian Federation” as well as an 8% increase by 2020 in “the number of Russians who are proud of their country”.

Stating that the new programme must engage children immediately after birth, infants between the ages one and six are supposed to be “help[ed] ... in forming the correct understanding of the greater and lesser motherland, as well as in forming a basic system of spiritual values of love, kindness, labour, friendship and honesty.”

If the proposal is approved, the Ministry of Education, the Federal Agency on Youth Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice, the Security Services and several other ministries will all be required to implement aspects of the plan.

A formation on the drill ground before dispatch to the military units, October 2010 in St Petersburg. Photograph: Alexandre Astafiev

‘Thunder’



With names such as Citadel, Thunder, Almaz and Grad (hailstone), most of the country’s clubs accept both girls and boys up until the age of 18, teaching them military exercises and taking them camping. Some offer special exercises using training versions of heavy military equipment.

But organisers say that they’re not simply preparing children for war: “The real warrior is not one who knows how to fight or aim a weapon but one who is ready to sacrifice themselves for defending their faith, their motherland or their loved ones,” said Sergey Evgeniev, the administrator of the Moscow-based club Citadel.

One graduates of the clubs, who asked to remain anonymous, said it was thanks to them that “life goes on and Holy Russia stands and will continue to stand”.

Vadim Masterskikh, who heads the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Military History Movement, said groups that host military historical recreations help “people to start connecting the dots. To make them realise that they can’t spend their whole life playing with Kinder Eggs or Pokemon,” he said.

Some clubs offer training in “ratoborchestvo”, a form of fighting thought to date back to ancient Slavic traditions. Fighters have to face each other wearing a blindfold; they learn to dodge bullets and knives, to cross difficult terrain, and to take cover from attacks.

The training also has a hint of the surreal: during group knife-fighting exercises, participants silently circle the room, bumping into one another and and stabbing where they guess their attackers are coming from. Some of these scenes can be seen in various videos patriotic groups release online.

Events in the east of Ukraine are given special attention during preparatory training, and Igor Strelkov, former defence minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, is an idol for many of the young members across Russia. In October 2014, the military society Styag held a meeting under the banner “Help Novorossiya!”, referring to territories in the east of Ukraine which pro-Russian separatists are fighting for.

A practice shooting range in a school in St Petersburg, 2010. Photograph: Alexandre Astafiev

The art of patriotic education

For the Ministry of Defence, initiatives like these aren’t new. Thanks to the help of the Voluntary Society of Cooperation with the Army, Air Force and Navy, more commonly known by its Russian acronym, Dosaaf, the defence services are thought by government to have mastered the art of “patriotic education”.



Headed by the former first deputy defence minister, Aleksandr Kolmakov, Dosaaf enjoys a broad presence in nearly all of Russia’s regions, with the number of local branch offices approaching 10,000.

Tasked with preparing high school students for the army, in the past year alone the organisation claims to have held 6,500 military patriotic events and 8,000 sporting events. More than 200,000 young people have taken the “Ready for Labour and Defence” test, the organisation says.

After undergoing the training, 18-year-old students can then enrol at the military recruiting office and undergo further tests in order to serve as specialists in the army.

Irina Dorokhova, a Dosaaf spokesperson, said in June that the organisation now plans to train officers, pilots and snipers too.



According to Dokhorova, the number of students wishing to take part has grown in recent years. Though its budget has never been revealed, Dosaaf’s former head, Sergei Mayev, said in December that in the last five years funding has increased by five billion roubles ($87m), amounting to a total of 14.7bn roubles.

This year there are 12 other large-scale patriotic programmes being funded through the federal budget, costing 168m roubles. And if the proposed Patriotic Education of Citizens of the Russian Federation: 2016-2020 programme is approved, funding will increase by 1.68bn roubles over the next two years. Clearly, patriotic education doesn’t come cheap.

All photographs by Alexandre Astafiev. See more images from the project ‘Peacetime: Militarization’

A version of this article first appeared on Meduza