Expensive. Not childish.
Why have children's camp vouchers become as expensive as an airplane wing?
59000, 65000, and even 139000 rubles—that's the price of vouchers for children's country camps. Camps vary in focus: patriotic and sports, health and English-language, but even a trip to a typical municipal camp costs at least 30000 rubles. Not every family can afford such luxury. If grandparents don't live in the countryside, the child will spend the entire summer in the city. NeMoskva investigated what's happened to country camps and what's happening to prices.
Just statistics
Last summer, more than 5 million children spent their holidays in camps (according to onegiven to him, 5,2 million, пabout others (5,6 million). Is that a lot? There are 17,2 million schoolchildren aged 7 to 17 in Russia, but most country health camps (children's camps) are designed for children aged 7 to 15 inclusive. According to very rough estimates, of all the children who could have spent their vacation outside the city, about one-third actually attended camp. But there's a nuance here. The statistical figure of 5 million children also includes those who vacationed in school day camps—this type of vacation is offered by almost every secondary school (most of them are only available to children of working parents, with registration required upon presentation of employment certificates). Only 1,9 million children vacationed in country health camps. In 1990, this figure was 5,4 million.
The cost of travel packages can vary significantly, and official websites don't always provide accurate information. For example, according to inforations According to the Smolensk government, the average cost of a 14-day trip is approximately 13 rubles, and a 21-day trip is 19,4 rubles. However, last year, Smolensk residents inwere indignant This "hospital average" was considered a misnomer because it didn't even come close to the lower bound of the actual cost of the vouchers. A voucher to the "cheapest" camp, "Salut," cost 21 rubles for 21 days, while a voucher to "Fakel" camp for the same length of stay cost 74 rubles.
On increasing the cost of vouchers to children's recreation camps plotthieves At the beginning of this year, the Russian Union of Travel Industry warned of an average price increase of 5-12% and 20-30% for seaside vacations in Crimea or Kuban. The cost of a 21-day stay at camps in the Krasnodar Territory reaches up to 120,000 rubles. A year earlier, the average price of a vacation package ranged from 50,000 to 65,000 rubles, with the most expensive packages in Kuban costing around 100,000 rubles.
But that's not the limit. A child's ten-day stay at the SportZania language camp in the Moscow region aboutit will do Parents can expect a price of 135,900 rubles. It's likely not wildly popular, as only seven vouchers remain available. The camp operates almost year-round, including weekends, holidays, and school breaks. To help parents save money, the camp's management has launched a special offer: a membership for 1 million rubles. With this membership, you can save up to 600,000 rubles by sending your child to all sessions.
Childhood in a camp
Sending a child to camp, or even camps for the entire summer, was common practice in Soviet times. Such a vacation wasn't considered the preserve of wealthy parents. Tatyana Ivanova, a Ryazan resident and former Pioneer camp regular, told NeMoskva about this.
My grandmother worked at the Krasnoye Znamya factory, and my mother worked at SAM (the Computing and Analytical Machine Factory – ed.). My grandmother got vouchers to Saturn, and my mother to Timurovets. But I went to more than just those camps. I don't know where or how they got their vouchers, but I don't remember it being a problem. I also went to Yunost, Zvezdny, and Solnechny. I was always an active child, and we didn't have a village, so I loved spending my summers at camp. Compared to the camps we had today – independent heating, shared showers, always hot water, comfortable beds – I still laugh when I remember how we'd run to the wooden toilet on the outskirts of the camp at night, three at a time, so we wouldn't be scared. How we'd try to put something under the sagging bed frame, and iron our pioneer ties – sharing one iron for the whole camp. They didn't complain—they laughed; it was all one big summer adventure. Now my granddaughter is 10, and we used to go to Zvezdny and Raduga. You'd bring some treats on the weekend, and she'd say, "I don't want that, take that back. We have yogurt here every day, we had bananas yesterday, and also pancakes with jam." Where were the slight hunger pangs and the "black pudding" with salt, and where were the night swims, and where were the punishments like picking up pine cones in the area "from here to the disco"? — the interlocutor laughs, but then her mood changes. — And my “Yunost” and “Timurovets” are no more.
Not only are they gone, but so are many of the camps and tourist centers where "mere mortals" vacationed. The businesses that had the camps on their books went bankrupt and collapsed, and the unwanted properties were disposed of. "Timurovets" has long since disappeared. abandonedshen, for many years рwas falling apart "Yunost" is now a cottage community. The area around "Chaika" has been developed, and high-rise buildings have sprung up on the sites of the Gaidar and Voskhod pioneer camps. Cottages and apartment buildings have been built on the sites of the "Yolochka" tourist center and the "Druzhba" sanatorium, where vouchers were generally available to families with children.
Pictured: the abandoned Yunost camp, 2013, now defunct (Maxim Novikovsky's blog)
“I don’t know exactly how many camps there were in Solotcha, but there were definitely more than ten, — Tatyana continues. — Wherever you go, you'll stumble upon a pioneer camp. There was plenty of room for everyone on the beaches of the Staritsa River, everyone strolled through the pine forest, even went on hikes and to pioneer campfires to bake potatoes and sing songs. My daughter never gravitated toward camp, but when we started looking for a vacation spot for my granddaughter, I was surprised to realize there were only four camps left in Solotcha. Maybe that's why the vouchers are so expensive? No one in the family works in factories, so we have to take vouchers at commercial rates. And such vouchers are very few; we literally have to fight for them, even though we save for almost half a year. This year, finances didn't work out at all; my granddaughter will be going to the Lenin Sanatorium on Lysaya Gora for free. It's good that at least he stayed.
Grown-up pioneers still remember their childhood in the camps, and some search for and photograph the remaining abandoned buildings in the bushes.
"My fondest childhood memories: the Solotcha tourist center, and I was at the Solnechny camp, and at Skazka, and the Sosnovy Bor sanatorium. They ruined everything, destroyed Solotcha, and built cottages. Across the road from the Saturn camp, there were porcini mushrooms, raspberry patches, owls, hawks, and all sorts of small creatures galore. A weasel lived year-round on the beach at Lysaya Gora."- podepoured Oleg Pozdnyakov.
"I couldn't bring myself to call the camp abandoned. It's not abandoned, it's closed. It's as if it was simply abandoned at some point—and that's it. It's slowly falling into disrepair and becoming overgrown, but it's not ruins, writtenл Five years ago, I.Vahmurka posted photos of the former "Forest Fairy Tale" camp on LiveJournal. Various clubs were held here. I joined the model-making club. They gave me a scale model of a passenger plane, but things didn't go well. I never finished the plane. I was amazed at how small the [club] hall was. It seemed large to me. Incidentally, movies were rarely shown. I remember the only films I saw the entire shift were "Dingo" and "Donkey Skin," which were shown in snippets, interspersed with dancing. In the end, I left.
In the photo: the closed camp "Forest Tale" (blog by I.Vahmurka)
From the "wild" 1990s to the "stable" years of our time, the number of camps in the country has been declining. According to the same statistics, 34 years ago, children could vacation in 23000 camps; ten years later, there were 16300; in 2010, 12400; in 2019, 7932; and in 2023, 7239. Not everyone can attend them.
What does the minimum wage and tongs have to do with this?
A NeMoskva correspondent called several regional country camps, but was only able to speak with two, and only two of them spoke on condition of anonymity. They said the cost of a child's stay at a camp depends on several factors, and the management or owner has little control over the cost.
For example, this year the minimum wage increased from 16 to 19 rubles. We're obligated to raise the salaries of our staff, and there are dozens of them—teachers, counselors, cooks, cleaners, and medical workers. The cost of transportation services has also increased, meaning the cost of organized travel to and from camp has also gone up. Private security company services, utilities, and gas prices all impact the cost of a camp trip. I read somewhere online that the cost of camp trips has skyrocketed this year because private security companies raised their fees after the terrorist attack. This is nonsense, of course, and it's not true. Just as every family's expenses have increased due to the rising cost of everything, so too have the camps' expenses for the upkeep of both the facility and the children. What about mandatory treatment of the area against ticks and other insects? And the cost of food? — commented the director of one of the private camps, which belongs to the enterprise.
It's worth noting that employees of the company that owns the camp typically pay 10-20% of the total cost of the trip. Russian Railways employees, for example, pay 10-15% of the cost of a trip to almost any camp in the country—the rest is covered by the employer.
Photo: ombudsman92
Regional camps are typically divided into private camps, owned by businesses and individuals, and municipal camps, owned by the city or region. The former are maintained by the private owner, while the latter are financed by the state. Private camps rarely receive government assistance.
— I would focus on the rise in food prices and the increased demands of parents and children themselves, — shared another director of a private children's health camp. — The food must be fresh and tasty, and the menu varied. Otherwise, even if the menu is healthy, there will be complaints and inspections. The half-rotten or unripe fruits and vegetables that line the shelves of many chain stores are unacceptable. Moving on. So-called soft goods—bedding, pillows, mattresses, blankets. We make sure the children don't ruin them, but sometimes they tear a pillow here, sometimes a blanket there. The cost of all these "bed linens" is exorbitant, as is laundry service. Broken toilets and sinks, broken beds and nightstands—all of this constantly requires replacement. So, do the math. Just imagine replacing the toilet in your apartment every year, and you'll be in for a real rude awakening.
An important detail: many camps operate seasonally, as do their profits; the camp sits idle for the remaining nine months. But land taxes "don't pay themselves," nor do monthly gas bills, nor do some other utilities. Some camps have learned to survive in a market economy: they organize sessions during school holidays, school graduations, weekend camps, and rent out their buildings for family celebrations and events. Others cannot operate year-round due to various circumstances, such as their remoteness from major cities. No one would go there for a weekend or a pensioners' reunion.
Lyudmila Sysoikina, Head of the Children's and Youth Tourism Committee of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), spoke about the same thing back in 2013, when she compared prices for vacations in Russian and Bulgarian camps.
«The costs of camp owners are higher in Russia—they need to be heated in the winter. Russian camps have large areas. Following the cadastral revaluation of land, land taxes have increased significantly. Complying with all sanitary and epidemiological requirements for children's camps is very expensive. Antiseptic treatments and insecticides—these procedures are expensive, but they are mandatory. When all this accumulates, the cost of maintaining a children's recreation facility, which is supposed to be inexpensive, increases.".
Pictured: The children's enclosure in Bulgaria, "Sea Dunes" (mycamps.ru)
In other words, the problem of unaffordable prices didn't arise yesterday. It's been "prolonged" and systemic. The exceptions were 2021 and 2022, the post-COVID years, when Rostourism launched a cashback program: it offered a 50% refund on travel packages, up to a maximum of 20 rubles. The program was not reinstated in subsequent years. Therefore, just as the catastrophic shortage of camps has contributed to the current situation in the regions.
For example, in Ryazan, the press service of the regional government brineortovala:
“This summer, more than 26 thousand children will rest in health camps in the Ryazan region [in 2022, there were registeredstripped [Almost 93 thousand children aged 7 to 14]. There are 391 camps operating in the Ryazan region."
Of these, only 14 in the entire region are 24-hour country camps. Before the 2000s, there were 16 in the village of Solotcha alone.
Main photo: bangkokbook.ru
