Even before the publication of the work, Gaidar was interested in the problems of military education of schoolchildren. In any case, traces of such interests were reflected in his diary and all his works about Timur. We just talked about the first book. But a little later the writer wrote a second work. It was called “Commandant of the Snow Fortress.” The characters were already doing some war game. Well, at the very beginning of the war, Gaidar managed to write the film script “Timur’s Oath.” From the pages he spoke about the need for a children's organization in military conditions. Members of this community will be on duty during the blackout and bombing. They will protect the territory from saboteurs and spies, and will help the families of Red Army soldiers and peasants in their agricultural work. Actually, that's what happened. Another question is whether the author actually wanted to create some kind of alternative to the pioneer organization with his works about Timur... Unfortunately, we will never know for certain.
Gaidar's idea
They say that Gaidar, in his books about Timur, described the experience of scout organizations in the 10s of the twentieth century. In addition, at one time he led a yard team. And secretly, like his character Timur, he did good deeds without asking for any reward for them. By and large, teenagers who help those in need are now called volunteers.
By the way, such eminent personalities as Anton Makarenko and Konstantin Paustovsky wrote about such a children’s organization in their time. But only Gaidar alone, willingly or unwillingly, managed to bring this plan to life.
Start
What event served as the beginning of the Timur movement? The answer to this question seems quite obvious. It was after the appearance of the book about Timur that the informal Timur movement began. Corresponding detachments also appeared.
The Timurites themselves became, in fact, part of the ideological system of the Soviet Union. At the same time, they managed to maintain a certain spirit of volunteerism.
Timurovites were exemplary teenagers. They selflessly committed good deeds, provided assistance to elderly people, helped collective farms, kindergartens and much, much more. In a word, a real mass movement of schoolchildren has emerged.
Who was the founder of the Timur movement? The very first detachment appeared in 1940 in Klin, in the Moscow region. By the way, it was here that Gaidar wrote his “imperishable story” about Timur and his team. There were only six teenagers in this detachment. They studied at one of the Klin schools. Following them, such detachments arose throughout the entire territory of the Soviet Union. Moreover, sometimes in one of the small villages there were 2-3 such teams. Because of this, funny things happened. Let's say teenagers repeatedly chopped wood for an elderly person and swept the yard three times...
The era of the great war
During the war, the Timur movement in the USSR grew in arithmetic progression. In 1945, there were already about 3 million Timurites in the Soviet Union. These teenagers actually turned out to be irreplaceable.
Such detachments functioned in orphanages, schools, palaces of pioneers and out-of-school institutions. The teenagers patronized the families of officers and soldiers and continued to help harvest the crops.
The teams also carried out tremendous work in hospitals. Thus, the Timurites of the Gorky region managed to organize almost 10 thousand amateur performances for the wounded. They were constantly on duty in hospitals, wrote letters on behalf of the soldiers, and performed a number of various chores.
Another example of the Timur movement occurred in the summer of 1943. The steamer "Pushkin" set off on the route "Kazan - Stalingrad". On the ship as cargo are gifts that were collected by the Timurites of the republic.
And in Leningrad, besieged by the Nazis, the Timur movement acquired special meaning. Twelve thousand teenagers operated in 753 Timurov’s detachments in the northern capital. They provided assistance to the families of front-line soldiers, the disabled and pensioners. They had to prepare fuel for them, clean their apartments and receive food ration cards.
By the way, at the beginning of 1942, the first rallies of Timurites were held throughout the USSR. At these events they talked about the results of their successful activities.
Also by this time, the first songs about the Timur movement appeared, among them “Four friendly guys”, “How high is our sky above us” and, of course, “Song of the Timurites” by Blanter. Later, such popular musical compositions as “Gaidar Walks Ahead”, “Song of the Red Pathfinders”, “Eaglets Learn to Fly”, “Timurovites”, etc. were written.
Ural detachment
Returning to the war period, one of Timur’s famous teams was a detachment from the mining town of Plast, in the Chelyabinsk region. Two hundred teenagers took part in it. And it was headed by 73-year-old Alexandra Rychkova.
The detachment was created in August 1941. At the very first training camp, Rychkova said that she would have to work literally to the point of exhaustion. There will be no age discounts. She announced that if anyone changed their mind, they could leave immediately. But no one left. The teenagers were divided into groups and appointed leaders.
Every day Rychkova handed out a work plan. They helped those in need, told townspeople about situations at the front, and held concerts for the wounded in the hospital. In addition, they collected medicinal plants, scrap metal, prepared firewood, worked in the fields, and patronized the families of front-line soldiers. They were also trusted with a serious matter: Timur’s men crawled into mine dumps and took away rocks.
Note that despite working, teenagers still continued to go to school.
As a result, in six months the team from Plast was able to gain a truly impeccable reputation. Even the officials gave the guys a room for their headquarters. Timurites from this mining town have been repeatedly written about in periodicals. By the way, this detachment is mentioned in the encyclopedia of the Great Patriotic War.
The process of merging pioneers and Timurites
In 1942, teachers were in some confusion. The fact is that Timur’s detachments, in fact, began to displace the pioneer squads. Let us remember that the book about Timur was about a “self-disciplined” team. In it, teenagers took on all the responsibilities and solved all problems themselves, without adult supervision.
As a result, the leaders of the Komsomol made a decision related to the unification of the pioneers and Timurites. After some time, the Komsomol managed to take control of them.
By and large, this situation had its obvious advantages and big disadvantages. The activities of the Timurites began to be considered an additional form of pioneer work.
Post-war period
Immediately after the victory over the fascist invaders, Timur’s men continued to help front-line soldiers, the disabled, and the elderly. They also tried to care for the graves of Red Army soldiers.
But at the same time the movement began to fade away. Perhaps the reason was that the Timurites did not feel much desire to “join” the ranks of the pioneer organization. They lost their freedom of choice.
The revival of the movement began only during Khrushchev’s “thaw”...
60-80s
The history of the Timur movement in Russia continued. During this period, teenagers continued to engage in socially useful activities. The best were awarded. For example, eleven-year-old schoolgirl M. Nakhangova from Tajikistan managed to exceed the norm for an adult by seven times in picking cotton. She was awarded the Order of Lenin.
Timurovites began to engage in search work. So, they began to study the life of A. Gaidar and, as a result, helped open museums of the writer in a number of cities. They also organized a library-museum named after the writer in Kanev.
And in the 70s, under the editorship of the famous Soviet magazine “Pioneer”, the so-called All-Union Timur Headquarters was formed. Training sessions for Timurites also took place with enviable regularity. Poems about the Timur movement were actively composed and read. In 1973, the first All-Union rally took place in the Artek camp. Three and a half thousand delegates attended the event. They then even managed to adopt the program of the Timur movement, aimed at its active development.
Note that such teams were created in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the GDR.
Collapse and revival of the movement
At the very beginning of the 90s, the role of the Komsomol and the Pioneers was declared exhausted. These organizations officially ceased to exist. Accordingly, the same fate awaited Timur’s movement.
But almost simultaneously the Federation of Children's Organizations was created, independent of any political party. After few years Russian President announced the creation of a movement of Russian schoolchildren. Note that this idea was also supported by teachers.
A little earlier, a new Timurov (volunteer) movement was officially formed, which is designed to help socially vulnerable groups of the population.
New time
Thus, in our time, the traditions of the Timur movement have been preserved. Such units exist in several regions. For example, in Shuya, in the Ivanovo province, there is a youth movement of Timurites. As before, they not only help those in need, but also try to be useful to society.
I'm glad that this movement is spreading everywhere again...
Were you a Timurite? Thirty years ago, this question, asked of a recent student, would have caused bewilderment. Almost all the guys were Timurites Soviet Union. Helping someone who needs your help and doing it selflessly was a normal human reaction to an event. This can be called morality, it can be education, but the essence was the same - this attitude towards the world around us allowed Soviet children to grow into decent people and worthy citizens.
It is also interesting that the Timurites were often confused with the pioneers. However, this is not the same thing. As a researcher of this issue, historian Alexey Nikolaevich Balakirev writes, during the Great Patriotic War out of twenty million schoolchildren, only a third of the children were pioneers. The reason is that in difficult times, when most men went to the front, teachers had no time for political education and children educated themselves. Or rather, they were raised by books and the personal example of their older comrades.
This is how the Timur movement was born. It quickly became popular and grew exponentially. During the five years of the war, there were already three million teenagers in the USSR who proudly called themselves Timurites. These guys were irreplaceable both in the rear and in the partisan movement, and today we also owe our Great Victory to them.
* * *
The movement was born in 1940 after the story “Timur and His Team” by Arkady Gaidar was published. The story was completed on August 27, and a week later the excerpt was published in print. Then radio broadcasts began - the success was stunning. A year later, the story was published in large numbers, it was immediately sold out, and more and more were printed. And until the end of the 1970s, the story “Timur and His Team” became one of the most significant and most importantly beloved works of children's literature.Immediately after the release of the first edition, detachments of Timurites began to appear in all cities and villages of the USSR, like mushrooms after rain. It even happened that in one small village there were two or even three detachments. And they even fought for good deeds: they cut the same firewood twice for the widow of a war hero, swept the yard three times or rinsed the laundry. Such funny things happened.
He did not invent the organization that Gaidar describes, but created it himself in his childhood: he was the commander of a yard team, secretly did good deeds and did not ask for rewards for them. In modern language, the guys who help their neighbors could be called volunteers. And then they were something new and unusual, because teenagers organized themselves, without the participation of adults and without their leadership
Konstantin Paustovsky wrote about a similar yard team; he recalls a case when the boys helped find a very rare medicine and thanks to this, a seriously ill child recovered.
During the war years, the Timur movement acquired a mass character. There were many problems in each yard and the guys, as before, did not work according to orders from above, but decided for themselves what to do and whom to help. But still, if before it was more of a game, now it is necessary help. “Conspiracy” and “secret plans” remained in peacetime, but now there were lists of urgent matters and duty schedules. Around the same time, having appreciated the attractiveness of Timur’s teams, mature people also joined the movement.
In 1941, Timurov’s team of 250 children operated in Kyiv, and a team of 200 teenagers gathered in the city of Plast, Chelyabinsk region. She was led by 74-year-old Alexandra Petrovna Rychkova.
One of her former wards recalled that when in August 1941 in the mining town of Plast they learned that a team of Timurites was gathering in the center, all the local guys came running to help the front.
And although at the very first training camp Alexandra Petrovna announced that they would work hard, without discounts for age (and those who changed their minds could immediately leave), the ranks did not move. There were 108 children and teenagers in the ranks. Those who wished were divided into groups, and a leader was appointed for each group.
We acted according to the plan that Baba Shura handed out every day. The plan included helping those in need, political information and ideological work, and holding concerts for the hospital. There were also general tasks that concerned everyone: collecting medicinal plants, preparing firewood, collecting scrap metal for the front, and other current affairs. And there were many of them: work in the fields, patronage of the families of front-line soldiers, many worked as nannies for other people’s children while their parents worked.
Over the course of six months of active work, the detachment gained an impeccable reputation. And then the authorities allocated them an empty room in which the headquarters was located. The Trimurites are here, and local residents, carried gifts for soldiers at the front and for hospitals: knitted socks, sleeveless vests, scarves, hats, mittens.
It is also interesting that gold was mined in the mines near the city of Plast, for which we, the USSR, bought from America and Britain military equipment and products. The main mining work was done by the miners, but if the lights suddenly went out (and this happened often), the employees called Timurovites for help. The boys descended underground and, together with the adults, lifted a heavy load to the surface.
Another task that they were entrusted with was that they crawled into the dumps and selected from the already mined rocks what the miners had missed.
Despite being so busy, the children still went to school. Their military work did not go unnoticed - the detachment from the town of Plast was written about more than once in Soviet newspapers. And today a mention of this Timurov team can be found in the encyclopedia of the Great Patriotic War.
In 1942, the pedagogical community became worried: Timur’s teams began to replace and displace pioneer organizations. The fact came to light that the pioneer organization had been disbanded in the capital. The Komsomol members got scared and began active work to merge the Pioneers and Timurites. In the final, Timur's team took control. There were both pros and cons here. We can talk about this for a long time. But the point is that now the Timurites have lost their freedom of choice; they have been transferred to the category of an additional form of work of the pioneer organization. And some researchers believe that the movement died in the 60s and 70s.
I'm not a historian. Born in 1979. And my childhood was in the second half of the eighties. I remember long lines, coupons, lump sugar instead of sweets. But I also remember how I was part of the Timurov school team in the town of Saratov, Odessa region.
We carried water to grandmothers, cleaned apartments for disabled people, helped in gardens and played with other people's children. I don’t remember doing all this under pressure. On the contrary, she was proud that she was able to bring benefit to her country and do something good for someone. My school friends thought so too. That's how we were raised.
Therefore, talk about what last years In the USSR, the Timur movement has outlived its usefulness, I consider them dishonest.
Today Timurites can be called volunteers, or volunteers. There are detachments at schools and at sports clubs. But still this is a little different. Because new times give birth to new idols. And this is inevitable.
As psychologists explain, teenagers need to form groups and have common hobbies. That’s how they, or rather, you and I, people, are structured. But what kind of groups these are, and what kind of hobbies they are, is determined by time. Or rather, those adults who are at this time are making this story today. For example, during the war there were Timurites in the USSR, and a little later, boys ran to conquer the North, build the Baikal-Amur Mainline, and develop virgin lands. In the 70s there were hippies, in the 90s the skinhead movement flourished.
Now being reborn search parties, patriotic movements, sports clubs, they say that in some places there are new Timurites. It is unlikely that they can be a real alternative to “those” Timurovites, but it’s good that they exist. Now the theme of love for the Motherland, for Russia is coming to the fore and this gives us hope that in the near future we will see a new generation. And it will be better than us...
Svetlana Khlystun
As domestic historians note, in the summer of 1941, Timur’s movement had already covered the entire USSR. A. N. Balakirev in his scientific work According to the research of this organization, he provides statistics characterizing the difference in the attitudes of children towards the Pioneers and Timurovites using the example of Buryatia: there, during the war, the number of Pioneers decreased by 5 times, and the number of Timurov organizations, on the contrary, increased by 3 times and reached 25 thousand people.
The movement of the Timurites in the Great Patriotic War enjoyed great prestige among Soviet children, since it was associated with specific work - the Timurites looked after the families of front-line soldiers, the elderly - they chopped firewood for them, carried water, collected ash and chicken droppings for greenhouses, money and bonds for the construction of the Soviet weapons, paraded over hospitals, performed concerts in front of the wounded... As A.N. Balakirev wrote, in the Chelyabinsk region alone in 1942-1943 there were over 3 thousand Timurov teams with a total number of 28 thousand people, children took care of 15 thousand families of front-line soldiers. In the Khabarovsk Territory, about a thousand teams of Timurovites were engaged in renovating the homes of families who fought on the fronts of the Second World War, helped in raising small children, weeded vegetable gardens and collected the grown crops, and prepared firewood. IN Voronezh region During the war, more than 50 thousand Timurites acted.
At the beginning of 1942, Timur’s rallies took place in the USSR, where the results of the work of these organizations in the country were summed up. Volunteer Komsomol assistants who acted in besieged Leningrad. In the besieged city, there were 753 teams with 12 thousand Timurites. Leningrad Timurites also took care of the families of front-line soldiers, pensioners and disabled people, purchasing food cards for them, storing fuel and cleaning apartments.
Timurov movement a mass patriotic movement of pioneers and schoolchildren, the content of which is civic concern for people in need of help. Originated in the USSR in the early 40s. influenced by A.P. Gaidar’s story “Timur and His Team” as a movement to help military families. Etc. - an effective (with game elements) form of social useful activity children, promoting their moral education, development of initiative and initiative. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, Timurov's teams and detachments operated in schools, orphanages, at palaces and houses of pioneers and other non-school institutions, at the place of residence; in the RSFSR alone there were over 2 million Timurites. Timurites patronized hospitals, families of soldiers and officers Soviet army, orphanages and kindergartens, helped harvest the harvest, worked for the defense fund; in the post-war period they provide assistance to the disabled, war and labor veterans, and the elderly; care for the graves of fallen soldiers. In the 60s The search work of the Timurites to study Gaidar’s life greatly contributed to the opening of the writer’s memorial museums in Arzamas and Lgov. With funds raised by Timur's members, a library-museum named after. Gaidar. In the early 70s. For practical guide Timur associations by the Central Council of the All-Union Pioneer Organization (See All-Union Pioneer Organization) named after. V.I. Lenin created the All-Union Timur Headquarters under the editorial office of the magazine “Pioneer”, and local republican, regional, district and city headquarters. Traditional gatherings of Timur members are held regularly. In 1973, the 1st All-Union meeting of Timurites (about 3.5 thousand delegates) took place in Artek, which adopted a program for the development of etc. The traditions of etc. found their expression and development in the voluntary participation of children and adolescents in the improvement of cities and villages, nature conservation, and assistance labor collectives adults, etc. Timurov teams and detachments were created in the pioneer organizations of the GDR, People's Republic of Belarus, Poland, Vietnam, Czechoslovakia. Lit.: Ukhyankin S.P., Timur Pioneers, M., 1961; Kamov B.K., Ordinary biography (Arkady Gaidar), M., 1971; Furin S. A., Simonova L. S., Young Timurovites, M., 1975. S. A. Furin.
Big Soviet encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .
See what the “Timurov movement” is in other dictionaries:
It arose in the USSR among pioneers and schoolchildren in the beginning. 1940s under the influence of the story by A.P. Gaidar, Timur and his team. We provided assistance to the families of military personnel and veterans, as well as the elderly, kindergartens, looked after the graves of fallen soldiers, etc... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
It arose in the USSR among pioneers and schoolchildren in the early 1940s. under the influence of A.P. Gaidar’s story “Timur and His Team”. They provided assistance to the families of military personnel and veterans, as well as the elderly, kindergartens, looked after the graves of fallen soldiers, etc... encyclopedic Dictionary
Timurov movement- TIMUROV MOVEMENT, mass patriotic. movement of pioneers and schoolchildren, the goal is to care for people in need of help. At the end of the 1930s. In some pioneer detachments, an initiative arose to patronize the families of military personnel, expressing... ... Great Patriotic War 1941-1945: encyclopedia
movement- , iya, wed. 1. Moving in space in which l. direction. == Progressive movement towards communism. pathet. Titarenko, 6. 2. Social activity, pursuing certain goals. * Revolutionary movement. MAS, vol. 1, 368. ◘ I... Dictionary language of the Council of Deputies
Emblem of the pioneer organization of the USSR Pioneer movement movement of children's communist organizations in the USSR and in other countries. Modeled after the scouting movement, the pioneer movement differed from ... Wikipedia
Children's movement- children's social movement, a set of activities of various children's public organizations and children's public associations; one of the forms of socially significant activities of children and youth. The term children's and... Pedagogical terminological dictionary
Timurovets is a concept from Soviet times, denoting an exemplary pioneer who freely performs good deeds for the benefit of a socialist society. Derived from the book “Timur and His Team” by Arkady Gaidar, the hero of which, Timur, ... ... Wikipedia
Timurites- members of societies. movements within the framework of the All. pioneer organization named after. V.I. Lenin, primarily in the 1940s. Published in 1940. pov A.P. Gaidar Timur and his team, who set an example of self-organization for children. team without control and... ... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary
Timurovskaya Street runs from Demyan Bedny Street to Ushinsky Street. On October 2, 1970, a new street in the Kalininsky district was named Timurovskaya. “In honor of the patriotic education of pioneers,” the decision stated. IN … St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)
ALL-UNION PIONEER ORGANIZATION, a mass amateur communist organization of children and teenagers of the Soviet Union, formed on May 19, 1922, bore the name of V. I. Lenin since 1924; as a single organization ceased operations in the early 1990s... encyclopedic Dictionary
Books
- Timur and his team, Gaidar A.. The story “Timur and his team” was written in 1940 and immediately became a favorite book of millions of young readers, and Timur’s movement - to selflessly help those in need - literally...
Were you a Timurite? Thirty years ago, this question, asked of a recent student, would have caused bewilderment. Almost all the guys in the Soviet Union were Timurites. Helping someone who needs your help and doing it selflessly was a normal human reaction to an event. This can be called morality, it can be education, but the essence was the same - this attitude towards the world around us allowed Soviet children to grow into decent people and worthy citizens.
It is also interesting that the Timurites were often confused with the pioneers. However, this is not the same thing. As a researcher of this issue, historian Alexei Nikolaevich Balakirev, writes, during the Great Patriotic War, out of twenty million schoolchildren, only a third of the children were pioneers. The reason is that in difficult times, when most men went to the front, teachers had no time for political education and children educated themselves. Or rather, they were raised by books and the personal example of their older comrades.
This is how the Timur movement was born. It quickly became popular and grew exponentially. During the five years of the war, there were already three million teenagers in the USSR who proudly called themselves Timurites. These guys were irreplaceable both in the rear and in the partisan movement, and today we also owe our Great Victory to them.
Let's contact the organization
The movement was born in 1940 after the story “Timur and His Team” by Arkady Gaidar was published. The story was completed on August 27, and a week later the excerpt was published in print. Then radio broadcasts began - the success was stunning. A year later, the story was published in large numbers, it was immediately sold out, and more and more were printed. And until the end of the 1970s, the story “Timur and His Team” became one of the most significant and most importantly beloved works of children's literature.
Immediately after the release of the first edition, detachments of Timurites began to appear in all cities and villages of the USSR, like mushrooms after rain. It even happened that in one small village there were two or even three detachments. And they even fought for good deeds: they cut the same firewood twice for the widow of a war hero, swept the yard three times or rinsed the laundry. Such funny things happened.
He did not invent the organization that Gaidar describes, but created it himself in his childhood: he was the commander of a yard team, secretly did good deeds and did not ask for rewards for them. In modern language, guys who help their neighbors could be called volunteers. And then they were something new and unusual, because teenagers organized themselves, without the participation of adults and without their leadership
Konstantin Paustovsky wrote about a similar yard team; he recalls a case when the boys helped find a very rare medicine and thanks to this, a seriously ill child recovered.
During the war years, the Timur movement acquired a mass character. There were many problems in each yard and the guys, as before, did not work according to orders from above, but decided for themselves what to do and whom to help. But still, if before it was more of a game, now it is necessary help. “Conspiracy” and “secret plans” remained in peacetime, but now there were lists of urgent matters and duty schedules. Around the same time, having appreciated the attractiveness of Timur’s teams, mature people also joined the movement.
Baba Sasha's squad
In 1941, Timurov’s team of 250 children operated in Kyiv, and a team of 200 teenagers gathered in the city of Plast, Chelyabinsk region. She was led by 74-year-old Alexandra Petrovna Rychkova.
One of her former wards recalled that when in August 1941 in the mining town of Plast they learned that a team of Timurites was gathering in the center, all the local guys came running to help the front.
And although at the very first training camp Alexandra Petrovna announced that they would work hard, without discounts for age (and those who changed their minds could immediately leave), the ranks did not move. There were 108 children and teenagers in the ranks. Those who wished were divided into groups, and a leader was appointed for each group.
We acted according to the plan that Baba Shura handed out every day. The plan included helping those in need, political information and ideological work, and holding concerts for the hospital. There were also general tasks that concerned everyone: collecting medicinal plants, preparing firewood, collecting scrap metal for the front, and other current affairs. And there were many of them: work in the fields, patronage of the families of front-line soldiers, many worked as nannies for other people’s children while their parents worked.
Over the course of six months of active work, the detachment gained an impeccable reputation. And then the authorities allocated them an empty room in which the headquarters was located. Here, Trimurites, and local residents as well, brought gifts for soldiers at the front and for hospitals: knitted socks, sleeveless vests, scarves, hats, mittens.
It is also interesting that gold was mined in the mines near the city of Plast, for which we, the USSR, bought military equipment and products from America and Britain. The main mining work was done by the miners, but if the lights suddenly went out (and this happened often), the employees called Timurovites for help. The boys descended underground and, together with the adults, lifted a heavy load to the surface.
Another task that they were entrusted with was that they crawled into the dumps and selected from the already mined rocks what the miners had missed.
Despite being so busy, the children still went to school. Their military work did not go unnoticed - the detachment from the town of Plast was written about more than once in Soviet newspapers. And today a mention of this Timurov team can be found in the encyclopedia of the Great Patriotic War.
Under the wing of power
In 1942, the pedagogical community became worried: Timur’s teams began to replace and displace pioneer organizations. The fact came to light that the pioneer organization had been disbanded in the capital. The Komsomol members got scared and began active work to merge the Pioneers and Timurites. In the final, Timur's team took control. There were both pros and cons here. We can talk about this for a long time. But the point is that now the Timurites have lost their freedom of choice; they have been transferred to the category of an additional form of work of the pioneer organization. And some researchers believe that the movement died in the 60s and 70s.
I'm not a historian. Born in 1979. And my childhood was in the second half of the eighties. I remember long lines, coupons, lump sugar instead of sweets. But I also remember how I was part of the Timurov school team in the town of Saratov, Odessa region.
We carried water to grandmothers, cleaned apartments for disabled people, helped in gardens and played with other people's children. I don’t remember doing all this under pressure. On the contrary, she was proud that she was able to bring benefit to her country and do something good for someone. My school friends thought so too. That's how we were raised.
Therefore, I consider the talk that in the last years of the USSR the Timur movement has outlived its usefulness to be dishonest.
Today Timurites can be called volunteers, or volunteers. There are squads at schools and sports clubs. But still this is a little different. Because new times give birth to new idols. And this is inevitable.
As psychologists explain, teenagers need to form groups and have common hobbies. That’s how they, or rather, you and I, people, are structured. But what kind of groups these are, and what kind of hobbies they are, is determined by time. Or rather, those adults who are at this time are making this story today. For example, during the war there were Timurites in the USSR, and a little later, boys ran to conquer the North, build the Baikal-Amur Mainline, and develop virgin lands. In the 70s there were hippies, in the 90s the skinhead movement flourished.
Now search teams, patriotic movements, sports clubs are being revived, they say that in some places there are new Timurites. It is unlikely that they will be able to be a real alternative to “those” Timurovites, but it’s good that they exist. Now the theme of love for the Motherland, for Russia is coming to the fore and this gives us hope that in the near future we will see a new generation. And it will be better than us...