The Feast of Spring, Plast’s first three-day camp in a year, is held in most of the centers of organization in Ukraine on an annual basis. This is a symbolical beginning of an active season, during which Ukrainian scouts spend a part of summer in camps. The action program includes traditional Plast competitions in knotting, cooking, cartography, camping, quests, and sports, artistic and intellectual games, etc. After arriving in the forest, every youth kurin (a unit of 15-30 children) organizes the life on its territory: puts up tents, builds the kitchen, as well as wooden camp structures: the entry gates, tables, etc. In the end of the day the members of Plast gather around a big bonfire, where to the accompaniment of music instruments they sing Ukrainian songs and give theater performances.
“For capital children who grow up ‘on asphalt’ the topic of the holiday held in –‘Ukrainian village’ – is extremely actual. Every kurin had a domestic animal, and children took collective care of it and had to plant a garden-bed or a flower-bed. The event had an ecological component, so we cleaned a large part of Sviatoshyn Forests and Parks in Pushcha-Vodytsia. Happy faces of the children who took part in camping are the best award for organizers for holding the event. Children were smiling generously, so we can say that the Feast of Spring 2015 was held in a wonderful way,” says Andrii Luzan, the commandant (chief organizer) of the Feast of Spring in Kyiv Plast Center, about the event that took place past weekend in Pushcha-Vodytsia.
According to the participant of Kyiv Plast camping Vadym Petruk, this action is a good opportunity for young children to get ready for the camp summer, and for the older ones – to meet children, communicate, and simply get distracted from everyday routine. “Friends in Plast add healthy competition and motivation. This is the way new citizens and leaders of society are formed,” a participant of the camp Oleh Vdoviak summed up.
