Figure 1.--

The Pioneer uniform was essentially the same for boys and girls. The one difference was that boys wore pants and girls wore skirts. The girls even at camp wore skirts rather than pants. As far as we know the color of the pants and skirts was always the same, although most of our information concerns the new uniform introduced in 1968-69. We do notice boy and girl Pioneer members wearing different colors in some parades. This appears to be special uniforms handed out for parades rather than official uniforms. The official uniform was the same color for both pants and skirts.

Boys' Pants

Blue pants appear to have been the formal uniform. This may be because the members commonly wore the school uniform as the Young Pioneer uniform. HBC has noted boys wearing both short and long pants. Often boys wear short pants as part of the formal uniform, but this certainly depended on the season. Many formal Pioneer events took place at summer camps. Presumably boys would wear long pants for out door activities during the winter. Girls of course wore skirts rather than pants. Wjile blue pants and skirts appear to be the most common uniform, they were not always worn. Many of the images that we have archived are black and whote, making it difficult to discern color. We do note Pioneers in uniforms with different colors than blue. We note for example boys wearing green short pants and girls tan/checked skirts for a Leningrad parade during the early 1980s. This is interesting both because the boys' shorts are not blue, but also because the boys and girls do not have matching pants/skirts. Here we are not sure if this was an actual Pioneer unifirm or a special costume for a specific celebration. A Russian reader also tells us that at the Artek Pioneer summer camp that the children in each sub-camp wore different color shorts/skirt.

Girl's Skirts

The girls even at camp wore skirts rather than pants. As far as we know the color of the pants and skirts was always the same, although most of our information concerns the new uniform introduced in 1968-69. We do notice boy and girl Pioneer members wearing different colors in some parades. This appears to be special uniforms handed out for parades rather than official uniforms. The official uniform was the same color for both pants and skirts.