Russia Should Reopen Soviet Child Labor Camps, Says Moscow Official

Russia should restore the Soviet practice of youth labor camps to keep schoolchildren occupied during the summer, Moscow’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Olga Yaroslavskaya stated, according to The Moscow Times report on June 2.

Speaking on the “Govorit Moskva” radio station, Yaroslavskaya argued the camps would provide employment and structure for teenagers, particularly those whose parents cannot afford to give them a “three-month fiesta.” To justify the proposal, she cited her own childhood experience in a Soviet labor camp.

“In the 7th grade, we were taken to the Volgograd region to weed tomatoes in 40-degree heat in a barracks in the middle of a field. We survived, and what’s more, I brought 120 rubles home,” Yaroslavskaya said. “It seems to me that the return of labor camps is a realistic scenario that our children will support.”

In addition to reviving agricultural camps, The Moscow Times notes that Yaroslavskaya advocated for relaxing restrictions on employing minors. She argued that current Russian legislation strictly limits employers, preventing them from expanding summer job opportunities for teenagers.

The Moscow Times noted that the ombudsman previously proposed lowering the legal working age, suggesting that children as young as 12 should be allowed to officially earn money during school holidays because “almost all” of them want to work rather than rest.

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Soviet labor and recreation camps operated from the 1950s onward, typically deploying 7th to 10th-grade students to collective state farms for several weeks of agricultural work. Under current Russian law, teenagers can legally work from the age of 14 with written parental consent, independently sign a contract at 15 if they have received a general education, and work under standard conditions from age 16, The Moscow Times reported.

The proposal to put children to work aligns with a state-sponsored militarization of Russian youth. Russian educational institutions—including general schools and even kindergartens—have previously spent nearly $170 million on drone training equipment since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

Drone assembly and piloting were formally added to the national curriculum in 2024, effectively transforming classrooms into early training grounds for future military drone operators as the Kremlin continues to burn through personnel on the frontline.

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