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Russian Kindergartens Teach 3-Year-Olds That Crimea Was Sad Before Annexation
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Russian authorities have introduced a new series of games for kindergarten children aimed at explaining the motives behind the annexation of Crimea and designed to teach them that Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea was justified.
The activity guide, titled “Adventures in Crimea,” was published on the official website of the Institute for the Study of Childhood, Family and Upbringing, as reported by The Moscow Times on October 19.
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The lessons are part of the newly implemented “Kind Games” program, which serves as a preschool counterpart to the government's promotional school lessons, “Talk About Important Things.”
Under the guidelines, children as young as 3 years old are introduced to concepts surrounding the annexation of the Ukrainian region.
In one activity designed for children aged 6 to 7, titled “Bridge of Friendship,” participants toss a rope over an imaginary sea, hold it above their heads to represent the Crimean Bridge, and recite: “Crimea and Russia—a bridge forever!”
The children then walk along the rope carrying a flag while their peers applaud and shout "Hooray!" A card within the lesson set notes that Russian regulations define Crimea as part of the country, though it acknowledges that “its status is a subject of international dispute,” The Moscow Times reported.
Another game involves matching picture cards of the Crimean Bridge or national flag, during which classmates are instructed to cheer: “Patriotic moment: when you find a pair “Crimean Bridge” or “flag”—everyone claps and says: “Hooray! We are together!'”
For children aged 3 to 4, an activity titled “Sun and Cloud” is used to depict the region's situation prior to 2014. Under the game's concept, the peninsula was lonely and sad before joining Russia.
Once the instructor announces, “But when Crimea and Russia came together—the sun came out,” upbeat music plays, and the children stand up from a crouching position to smile, clap, and spin around.
Additional activities include “Train to Crimea,” where children pretend to cross the Kerch Bridge while saying, “How good it is that we are one country!” and a wildlife identification exercise where toddlers repeat: “The dolphin lives in Crimea—this is our Crimea!”
Russia transformed its educational system into a sweeping mechanism for military indoctrination and anti-Western propaganda, effectively rolling back decades of post-Soviet academic autonomy.
Labeling the fight for children’s minds as a “new front,” Russian leader Vladimir Putin mandated a nationwide “federal programme of upbringing” aimed at cultivating militaristic patriotism, which culminated in the formal introduction of state-sponsored patriotic curricula inside Russian kindergartens.
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