Figure 1.--The children at the Artek Camp in 1975 are performing a folk dance under the theme of friendship among the people of the Soviet Union.

Russian folk dances of the various Soviet national groups were commonly performed at Pioneer summer camps. [Prokiof] Presumably this would have been affected by the location of the camp. For example a camp located in Latvia might be expected to do something with Latvian folk dancing. However we have few details at this time. We are unsure if folk dancing groups were invited in or if the campers were actually talk folk dancing. We note images of children in rather elaborate folk costumes suggesting that it was not just a brief summer experience. I'm not sure to what extent folk dancing were actually taught to the campers. Hopefully our Russian readers will explain how this worked. These folk dances were often associated with one of the many Soviet natioanlities. They were never presented with a natioanlist serring, but rather one promoting the frienmdship of the various nationalites composing the Soviet Union. [Prokiof]

Sources

Prokiof, Ivan. E-mail message, October 2, 2002.