An urbex tour to an abandoned pioneer camp

During the Soviet era, pioneer camps played a central role in shaping the younger generation. They blended recreation, education, and ideological training, serving as a cornerstone of youth development across the vast socialist state. As part of the broader Pioneer movement, the camps aimed to instill loyalty to communist ideals while also providing children with summer and winter holidays away from home.

In Soviet times, Armenia was home to around 200 pioneer camps. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, only about 10 managed to remain active. Most of these camps were built outside the cities, often hidden in the forests. Today, once lively and full of voices, many of them stand abandoned, overgrown with dense bushes, turning into intriguing sites for urban exploration.

Mysterious looking stairs led us to the once prosperous pioneer camp

Finally, in the midst of September, I decided to stop procrastinating and together with popular urban explorer Avarathewanderer, set out on an urbex mission to the north of Armenia to explore one of these once-prosperous pioneer camps.

We had already roughly located the pioneer camp using Google Earth, and after wandering around for some time, we finally came upon the old pioneer camp.

The territory was vast, encompassing several buildings with remarkable architecture, including arched facades, a canteen with an adjacent kitchen, a medical post, a playground, a football field, and more.

Several of the buildings still feature murals on their walls, surprisingly well-preserved to this day. Whenever I guide tourists there, they are always fascinated by them.

However, the most impressive murals can be found inside the canteen. Its walls are adorned with vibrant scenes from famous Soviet cartoons. One of them instantly brings to mind Pushkin’s timeless poem “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish.”

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