WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th March, 2023) Russian scouts have helped their countrymen in the diaspora maintain their national identity and traditions, the world's oldest Russian scout Lidia Gerich told Sputnik.
"Our scouts have helped people who are living outside of Russia to keep their roots and to maintain the Russian traditions," Gerich, who turned 103 on Monday, said.
Gerich said she was born during the Russian civil war between the White Army and the Bolsheviks and spent her childhood in Latvia in the city of Daugavpils - which she calls by its old name, Dvinsk - with a large Russian community.
"Of course, there was a Russian church, where we spent all Sundays and celebrated all holidays. We lived in Latvia, but it felt as if we were in Russia. We had a Russian cultural center, a Russian school and even a Russian Teachers Institute, from which I graduated," she said.
Gerich said she joined the Russian scout organization almost 90 years ago at the age of 14.
"We went to scout camp, sang Russian songs, held gatherings, celebrated Orthodox Christmas - with Father Frost and the Snow Maiden," Gerich said.
The scouts took those traditions with them to other countries when they relocated after World War II, she said.
Gerich noted that Russian scouts did a lot for the renaissance of the scout movement in Western Europe, where it first appeared in the early 1900s.
"Many of the first emigrants were scouts in Russia and they brought scouting to Europe. And then, when they moved to the United States, they brought those traditions to New York, San Francisco and other cities here," she said.
Gerich explained that she settled in San Francisco in the early 1950s, as it was the only city with a Russian Center at the time.
"We had a library, a big concert hall and a Russian newspaper. We organized our meetings and performances there as well," she said.
After moving to Washington, DC in 1962, Gerich said she created a Russian scout team, which she named after the ancient Russian city of Putivl. More than 60 years later, the team remains one of the largest Russian scouts groups in the world.
"I came to the Russian school and announced creating a new scout organization. The whole class signed up and we began to work," she said.
Gerich pointed out that the organization began to grow rapidly when the children began to speak in English to one another and their parents, disappointed, tried to engage as many of them as possible. They arranged gatherings, held summer camps, but, most importantly, they helped the youth keep the Russian language, she said.
"Over time, our squad became stronger and now we see the result: the grandchildren of our first scouts are already studying with us. We have always been with our church, which has been very supportive of us," Gerich said.
In the early 1990s, Gerich said she and other like-minded people from the Russian diaspora participated in the first meeting of Russian scouts in Pavlovsk - a neighborhood of St. Petersburg, where the country's scouting movement appeared in the 1900s.
"It was amazing. Can you imagine, hundreds of people in scout uniforms, the same as ours. The leaders of the Russian scouts come up to us and said: 'Thank you for returning scouting to us.' It was so touching," Gerich added.
