Figure 1.--The movie “Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin: Usual and Incredible” (“Priklucheniya Petrova I Vasechkina, obyknovennye I neeroyatnye”) was made in 1982. This is another film about 4th graders. Here we see Petrov at school with a friend. Notice the school unifoms and Pioneer scarfs.

The movie “Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin: Usual and Incredible” (“Priklucheniya Petrova I Vasechkina, obyknovennye I neeroyatnye”) was made in 1982. This is another film about 4th graders. Children play, sing, write love notes to girls, make a school preformance (in French) on the “Little Rrd Riding Hood", have a rest on the sea shore and so on. Here there is no heavy-handed ideology. The children are realistically depicted. They wear Pioneer Scarfs, but this is just a uniform item, nothing more. There are scenes at school and at a Pioneer camp. The film is essentially a children's comedy about school life, without Communism, Party and other such things. I am sure, you will notice the difference between movies during the Stalinist years (1930s-50s) and later movies. Just look at faces. Since the late- 60s most of educated people, writers (for example – Vladislav Krapivin, Anatoly Alexin, Edward Uspensky), actors and other progressive people of USSR began to openly criticize the Young Pioneer Organization for its formalizm, old-fashioned military style, stupid “marching in rows” and so on.

Created: 7:16 AM 12/8/2008
Last updated: 7:16 AM 12/8/2008