Orlenok

(Little Eagle), an all-Russian Pioneer and Komsomol camp under the administration of the central committee of the Komsomol. One of the largest institutions for education and health in the USSR, it was founded in 1960 by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR. The camp, open year-round, is located on the Black Sea in the Caucasus, near Tuapse; its area is 300 ha.

Orlenok serves as a school for the most active Pioneer and Komsomol members. Young people, provided with passes by the Komsomol’s central committee, are sent here, recommended by councils of Pioneer brigades and by Komsomol committees of general-education schools. They include leading Komsomol members and Pioneers, outstanding students, participants in all-Russian and all-Union Pioneer and Komsomol festivals and tours, and winners of scholarly proficiency, sports, and other competitions. Among the events regularly sponsored by the camp are all-Union rallies, festivals, and games. Orlenok has six brigades and more than 200 clubs and divisions for polytechnical, aesthetic, and sports activities; about 50 types of sports are offered. Among the Pioneer museums in operation are the V. I. Lenin Museum, the Museum of the Defense of the Caucasus, the Museum of the History of Orlenok, and maritime and local-lore museums.

Orlenok has 1,500 employees, including about 400 teachers and leaders and more than 100 medical workers. Between 1960 and 1973 more than 17,000 children spent their vacations at the camp annually, a total of about 150,000. The camp has more than 60 facilities, among them dormitories, a palace of Pioneers with a winter saltwater swimming pool and a 600-seat movie and concert hall, and the nine-story Leaders’ House. It also has a general-education school with about 1,000 pupils in grades five through eight, medical facilities, the House of Aviation and Astronautics, an observatory, a 4,000-seat stadium, 20 playing fields and grounds, and a 600-seat winter sports gymnasium. The camp’s marina has a diesel-propelled ship and 45 smaller boats, six hydroplanes, and a number of motorboats and launches.