Pioneer camps are where Young Pioneers (the Soviet youth organization) went in summer and on vacation to play games, go sightseeing, and listen to rousing speeches about how all good children should emulate Wise Grandfather Lenin. The movie title is a joke on all those Pioneer slogans like "Happiness and Socialist Patriotism to Soviet Children!" Incidentally those uniforms the Tatu girls were wearing were modeled on Pioneer uniforms.
I have a CD of Pioneer songs that is really cool. "The Leninists Are Coming" is my favorite.
--- On Mon, 10/20/08, B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There are references to "pioneer camps" in the
> Russian movie "Come & See," which you
> probably, criminally, still haven't seen. (An older
> anti-Nazi partisan remarks to a younger one, when he is
> conscripted, "Don't worry, it'll be just like
> pioneer camp," or something.)
>
> So, what are these pioneer camps...?
>
> -B.
>
>
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com