Health complexes, sanatoriums and recreation centers on Black Sea coast, in the valleys in the middle of the Carpathians or in Vorzel near Kiev. The summer camp, where everyone and we were sent at least once in our lives, is new acquaintances, unprecedented adventures, first confessions and just a way to become more mature.

Remember how, returning home, we felt a little different people, because in 21 days away from our parents we gained so much experience that we could no longer be the old sissies and good girls? Of course, for some, the camp became a serious test and a strong exercise in social adaptation. But, we are sure that now you remember those times with the same warmth and awe as we do.

Squad chants

And more chants, buzzers, squeakers and whistles that were invented on the first day, as soon as we divided into “crazy hedgehogs”, “wild penguins” and “cool cucumbers”. These distinctive quatrains had to be pronounced as amicably and loudly as possible 10-15 times a day - before and after meals, at competitions, concerts and even discos.

"Heels together, toes apart!"

Probably, they wanted to bring us up as healthy and strong members of society. But at the age of 13, getting up at 7 in the morning was contrary to common sense and seemed nothing more than torture. For one truant, the entire squad could be fined - deprive them of some points or even not be allowed to go to a disco. No matter how painful it was to wake up early in the morning, you still had to walk and turn the “mill” and imitate a swallow along with everyone.

"Mom, I'm not hungry"

Every meal in the camp is a whole ritual. It was impossible to just come to the dining room and eat in peace. First, it was necessary to line up, report to the leaders that everyone was assembled, arrange a battle in the spirit of “whose squad worked up the best appetite” and only then proceed to the meal. After breakfast, lunch and dinner, it was customary to yell: “Thank you to our chefs for making delicious food for us!” And it was really delicious. Remember macaroni a la navy? And rubber pancakes with condensed milk? For some reason, neither my mother nor my grandmother ever got such.

Quiet time

What kind of sophistication did we not go to in order to save ourselves from daytime sleep after dinner: play a throw-in "fool", arrange a pillow fight, feast on "nichki" from the bedside tables, stockpiled from home, or stuff a dragon on the shoulder (temporary, of course ). The most daring managed to escape from the territory of the camp, where they could indulge in forbidden activities - meet the locals, smoke and drink low alcohol.

Shop 5 km from the camp

Even if he was on the other side of the globe, we would still go there. No, not because five meals a day in the dining room were not enough for us. Well, how can soups and cereals with cutlets compare with the cherished pack of crab-flavored chips or “huba-bouba” chewing gum?

Room revision

God forbid, someone's pillow will not stand like a “ship” or a candy wrapper from “Rachka” is lying around on the nightstand - such blunders threatened with fines and additional checks. And who needed them? It was necessary to keep cleanliness not only outside, but also under beds and in bedside tables - places for spoiled sandwiches, rotten apples and dirty socks.

"Gypsy Night"

This fun took place after midnight. Its essence is to get into someone else's room, find red things there and take them with you. They returned the item to the owner only for a kiss.

Slip a day at the infirmary

The skill of simulating migraines and stomach pains, perfected at home (when you didn’t feel like going to school), we applied at summer camps, especially when your friend got sick and was bored in isolation alone. From the unpleasant - I had to drink potassium permanganate or even transfer the injection intramuscularly. But then it was possible not to go to the gym and pass other activities all day.

Clothes exchange

Then we were not snobs and did not bother with the fact that today everyone saw you in this top, and tomorrow one of your friends is embroidering in it. And although this was practiced mainly by girls, the guys also did not disdain to take jeans with a big sack from their neighbor (like Timothy's) in order to sketch on the disc player.

Discos

Everyone waited for the evening program with special excitement. The girls tested the cosmetics borrowed from their older girlfriends, and the boys took dancing lessons and practiced kissing on tomatoes. Timid lingering, ridiculous kisses and sudden fights. For some, the harmless dances in the assembly hall continued in secluded places where teenagers experienced their first sexual experience.

Campfire gatherings

On each shift there was a handsome counselor or a kid from the group of elders who played the guitar and made all the girls suffer from unrequited love. The luckiest ones got to hang out with him and his company. It was they who taught you how to smoke without delay and introduced you to the work of Spleen, Bi-2 and Night Snipers. For a snack, there was always a favorite “Lish won, leash won, sit in a bag ...”.

Night entertainment

After lights out, when the lights went out, a completely different life began in the camp. We told horror stories, summoned the swearing dwarf, the king of diamonds, and the queen of spades, and made our way through roadblocks full of counselors to the next block to play strip cards with the boys/girls.

Farewell evenings

There is nothing sadder at summer camp than a breakup. For three inseparable weeks, we managed not only to become friends, but to become literally relatives - brothers and sisters, sometimes even by blood. To consolidate this status, on the last evening we arranged an exchange of all sorts of trinkets, signed pictures and filled out questionnaires (these are self-made, in notebooks). The counselors kindled a bonfire as high as a three-story house, on which we roasted sausages.

"Royal Night"

No, no one was appointed kings and queens. This was the name of the last night of the shift, when all the toothpaste remaining on the territory of the camp was smeared with sleeping ones. In order not to wake up the victims of the massacre, the paste was heated, and then they painted the face and body of a person with it.

Unique collective experience

Despite almost army discipline, we managed to find loopholes and circumvent strict rules through joint efforts. We exercised intelligence and developed together, which made us aware of ourselves as individuals. True, some still cannot close the gestalts of that time, but that's a completely different story.

ROYAL NIGHT.

A long time ago, when our grandmothers were still playing in the sandboxes, in one camp, one pioneer did not please another pioneer in some way. The injured party decided to take revenge. And under the cover of night, the offended future Komsomol member entered the villain's chamber and depicted a snowflake on his peacefully sleeping face. Toothpaste.
Since then, it has become a good tradition to decorate your campmates with a cool and refreshing face pores with a mint substance from a tube. During the daytime, there was usually no animosity between the artists and the victims. Moreover, in everyday life they could be not-break-a-glass-friends. However, there were rules at night. And if you managed to smear a friend so carefully that he didn’t even turn in his sleep, you are handsome.
For some time, the camp administration tried to fight against night art. Threatened. Even expelled from the camp without reimbursement of the cost of the tour. But it's useless. Children both painted other children at night and continued to do so. And then someone smart from the elders suggested streamlining this business, allowing the pioneers to unofficially make night outings only once per shift.
On the Royal Night.
The night before departure. On the Night, when there is nothing to lose - after all, in the morning everyone will leave for their gray everyday life, and they will no longer be kicked out of the camp.

* * *
Royal Night is the finale of the camp shift. It begins, as a rule, with a protracted disco.
The last "disco" is like a prom. They are preparing for it. The boys, who had been plucking up courage for the sluggard all shift, understood that this was their last chance. The girls, painting their faces, "puffed out" the remnants of perfume on themselves. Even if by the end of the change the bottles were still full. From such a nuclear smell of the boys, of course, torkalo. As a result, the level of courage in the blood began to go off scale. And this fact, I believe, brought the pioneers together. with the pioneers.
The DJ at the last disco traditionally cannot cope with the number of orders. The bugs fall one after the other. One is more painful than the other. The chaste distance between two children dancing in a couple, which usually reaches a meter, at the last disco is reduced to as much as fifty centimeters. Almost full-fledged hugs, you understand, yes! Shame!
Particularly shy girls of the older detachments use the last chance to join the young leader's chest at the final "discach". For these purposes, they order a white dance from a DJ, and at the right time they jump off the benches and run to invite the chosen one. The one who ran to the counselor first, she dances him.
After the final most snotty "slow-motion" - something like the main hit of Whitney Houston or Celine Dion - the second portion of events awaits the children.
The second part of the prelude to the Royal Night is a pioneer bonfire.
On the day before the described event, the counselors and educators of the harsh sex go to the forest for firewood. With axes at the ready and with longing in their breasts. For three to five hours they are engaged in gathering, then dragging and, finally, building. Obscene language, mass killings of mosquitoes, a bunch of dead nerve cells, poisoning the body with nicotine - and all this in order to pay tribute to tradition. In order for a skewed hut to be erected in a clearing near the camp, which was to disappear in a couple of hours.
After a big disco, the entire population of the camp, under the cover of night, stomps in an organized herd to the hut. From the structure, as a rule, it already carries gasoline for ten meters - in case he refuses to light up voluntarily, the watchman Uncle Kolya has already soaked him with what he should.
The pioneers form a circle around the fragrant future bonfire. Irina Palna runs around, driving away those who suddenly decided to join the pioneer tradition too much. And only after all security measures are observed, the creation of the leaders' hands is set on fire.
Probably, our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers - Komsomol members, patriots and romantics - experienced some lofty emotions, looking at the pioneer fire. Maybe even tears were let out - from an overabundance of feelings and the realization that tomorrow everyone will have to go to their apartments. Our kids have never experienced anything like this. They strove to quietly throw some larger stone into the fire or crawl closer to the fire, testing the camp administration's nervous system for stamina.
In my memory, a couple of times Palna came up with the idea that the detachments would make some kind of stuffed animals from herbs, rags and branches in advance, call them some kind of human flaw and perform the rite of the Inquisition on the fire with them. A kind of Pioneer Shrovetide. Otherwise, the process of burning wood is not so remarkable.
Returning back to the camp, the leaders usually let the children go ahead a little, and they themselves linger for a couple of minutes near the remains of the fire. In order to, paying tribute to ancient traditions, put out the Pioneer bonfire "pioneer style". That is - with unbuttoned fly.
In general, the goal of all the protracted last dance floors and bonfires is the same - so that the pioneers are properly exhausted, tired and fall asleep without the slightest desire to have fun at night. With most children, this usually happens: after a disco and a fire, they have just enough battery left to crawl to the ward, throw off their clothes and collapse onto the bed.
It is they who become victims of those who have a more powerful battery in the anus.
These most "powerful" ones wait for the even sniffing of their fellows, and then, as in the game "Mafia", they raise their heads, meet each other's eyes, and, winking and giggling, begin their dirty deeds.
Like any serious business, transforming a friend with paste is divided into levels of difficulty.
Level one - color the bedmate.
The second level is to beat someone from the next room.
And, finally, the third “level” is to paint someone from another residential building with paste.
True, there is also a fourth level, but only a few reach it. This level involves imperceptibly entering the leader's room and transforming the physiognomy of the sleeping leader.
As a rule, average children do not rise beyond the third level, so they draw at night only on their own kind.
It happens that during the coloring the victim wakes up. It hurts. Moreover, both sides. In this case, the unpainted pioneer, after some considerations, usually adjoins the society of itinerant artists and goes to smear those who are in a state of sleep.
In the old action films starring Schwartz and Vandamm, tough guys work alone. Royal Night is not an action movie. It is not interesting to work in one. Therefore, the pioneers often look for accomplices in the work the day before. They confer and discuss against whom they will be friends. There is a legend that once a ward of boys in the amount of eleven pieces agreed to smear the twelfth at night. But the boys somehow did not calculate their strength and could not wake up at the appointed time to do evil. But woke up the same twelfth. And in one mask he painted all the sleeping conspirators.
And here's a riddle for you, dear reader of my writings. How to make sure that in the morning your comrades do not guess that it was you who smeared them?
Right! You need to smear yourself too! And in the morning make an innocent face and resent the loudest. “Idiot!” you say. That's right. There is little. But you have an alibi!
However, the Night, which is called the Royal Night, is not remarkable for pasta alone. There are other, however, less popular entertainments.
One of these is the transfer of a bed with a sleeping brother somewhere in the corridor. This is a cute and harmless, in fact, joke. In the morning the little man wakes up and at first cannot understand where he is. Then he takes a deep breath and rushes alone his bed back into the ward.
There is another entertainment - to sew a sleeping pioneer to the bed. I mean, threads. In the sense - a blanket to the mattress. As a result, the little man is walled up like a butterfly in a cocoon. Attempts to roll over in a dream on the other side are unsuccessful. In this case, the victim will usually wake up and start screaming wildly. By the way, a particularly nervous child can wake up to forty people in one cry.
The Royal Night ends on the morning of the Streltsy execution. By the time the administration of the detachment wakes up in the form of a teacher and leader, the children have already managed to wash the paste off their faces and hair, pick it out of their ears. A fair teacher tries to find the perpetrators of the crime, and an unfair one punishes the entire detachment. The punishments, however, are quite harmless - to wash off the paste and other substances the world: doors, bedside tables, beds, doorknobs and floors.
And only after that the children are allowed to proceed with the bag to the bus that will take you home.

* * *
Together with the Royal Night, the camp shift ends. And with it, summer.
And if, my friend, you are not yet sixteen years old, then in a year you will have every chance to return to a wonderful world called "camp". But if you are already too old to rest in the detachment, then there are practically no options to get here again.
Although - I'm lying. There is one option, though.
Become a leader yourself.

AFTERWORD.

The camp is completely saturated with stories.
Much of what happened to us, I have not told.
For example, how we received a warning about drinking on payday. And the alcohol was already bought. And how Mikhalych had to break a liter of Belenkaya. To smithereens.
Or about how the same Mikhalych rolled the girls from his squad on the Romashka carousel to a state of extreme blueness. And then the girls lay in the grass and could not move.
I did not tell about how Dimon told the little children that Vovchik had a lot of sweets, and how after that the children ran after Volodya in a large herd along football field demanding sweets.
Many stories are still patiently waiting to be told.

* * *
About ten years have passed since the events described above.
Outside the window of my office - the third of July 2015, Friday.
Friday. Accordingly, tomorrow a new camp shift begins at the Raduga camp. Children will come. They will be met by educators and counselors.
And this means that the history of our camp continues.
Well, isn't that great, huh?!
Smiley.

Royal night

The old, old cemetery lived out its mournful age next to the summer camp "Spark". For a long time no one was buried on it - the cemetery church, where the dead were once buried, cracked, squinted. Wild pigeons now lived in it, their alarming googling on quiet summer evenings was heard throughout the neighborhood. Often, for no reason at all, sensitive pigeons suddenly became frightened of something. They noisily took off from their seats, flapped their wings with a loud whistle, screamed in alarm - and, flying out through broken windows and gaps in the dome, rushed over the area for a long, long time. Their plaintive voices were heard in the heights until the very darkness.

At the same distance from the abandoned cemetery and from the camp stood a village. The road from the camp to it went into a detour of the forest, which significantly lengthened the path. Therefore, local residents rarely visited Ogonyok.

This, however, the guys resting in the camp, and did not notice. They saw the villagers only occasionally - when they went swimming. The meetings were mostly held peacefully, the water of the local pond and its shore did not have to be divided.

The path to this pond ran just through the cemetery. Of course, it was possible not to walk past the rickety monuments and rotten crosses, but to go around the old churchyard along the edge of the forest, but for some reason none of the vacationers did this. To cut the road and shorten the travel time, everyone walked through the cemetery. Not feeling their feet under them, the kids rushed along it, trying not to look around; also hastily, but every now and then looking sideways at the graves and anxiously looking around, older boys and girls passed.

The cemetery was mesmerizing. On damp evenings, a white mist curled between tall cemetery birches and broad-legged fir trees. Twitching, he skirted the trees, sat down on the rusty fences, shuddered gloomily as he sank down on the graves overgrown with grass.

Many of the vacationers in the camp looked at him from above - from the mountain, from the windows of the second floor of the building, turned end to the cemetery. But no one dared to go to the cemetery in the evening, and even more so at night. Go out, wander around, shrouded in cemetery fog, look at abandoned graves, stand, wait, listen ...

Or maybe there was simply no time for this - after all, the cheerful life in Ogonyok did not stop for a minute. Music blared there until dark, there were discos, games and competitions were held. Having played enough and walked up, everyone, young and old, got so tired that they fell right off their feet and fell asleep with a sweet dream, barely touching the bed. After all, new entertainment awaited them in the morning.

And today the camp was filled with lights, festively decorated, the music rushed from the speakers installed on the disco and on the roof of the dining room, especially loud. Royal Night - the end of the second summer shift, that's what the population of Ogonyok celebrated!

No one ever sleeps on the Royal Night! Many, in order to have fun at the closing, patiently sit in the camp the whole shift. After all, EVERYTHING was possible on the Royal Night !!!

It was almost dark, bright illumination bulbs were burning on the street, here and there stood trays with pies and soda, which was poured for everyone by the workers of the catering department. Even the ice cream was not over yet - although some of them ate so much that they could no longer move and partially dispersed into their buildings and fell asleep, and some sat on benches and languidly brushed off mosquitoes.

The festive concert was over - they were preparing for it almost from the middle of the shift - but the disco, which was usually covered at eleven o'clock in the evening, today promised to drag on well after midnight, and therefore they danced there with special enthusiasm.

With screams and hooting, the kids of their educators drove around the camp. They ran as fast as they could, because they knew: if the little one caught them, they would certainly roll them in the grass, smear them with toothpaste, cream for cakes and pastries, throw ice cream by the scruff of the neck - in a word, mock glory. There were many products for this, the fighting enthusiasm of the former wards of the unfortunate teacher was even greater - so the poor adults now rushed about like mad.

The educator of the ninth detachment Nathan, for example, today, out of desperation, climbed to the top of a dry pine tree without lower branches, which submitted to only one more person - a few years ago, the same unfortunate uncle, a physical education teacher, climbed it. Togo, tormented by his morning exercises and many kilometers of cross-country for prizes in the form of posters of rock singers he didn’t like, the children drove for an especially long time. They divided into groups, and when one got tired of running after the mischievous uncle with an ominous hoot, the other took over. So, in zigzags, the fizruk ran around the territory. Neither the head of the camp, nor any of the educators could save him - such was the law of the Royal Night. The fizruk asked the guys to stop and not run after him, but thin children's voices commanded: “Forward! Cross! Health! Don't slow down! Do not change the rhythm! ”And the race continued ... When the sports leader finally reached the last stage of fatigue, resentment and despair, a dry pine caught his eye. In the last powerful jerk, breaking away from his pursuers, he screamed like a monkey and climbed to the top of the tree.

There he sat, from time to time changing his landing place - dry branches creaked, threatening to crack and break off, the wind shook the pine tree ...

Or rather, not the wind, but the children shook the tree, trying to shake off the sports leader from it. The pine tree survived, after a while the kids ran away to look for other entertainment ... And the athlete sat on the pine tree until the pink morning clouds. Only then, having grown bolder, did he somehow descend - and already on the next shift, he was not in the “Ogonyok” spirit. They said that the tyrannical fizruk moved into the guards, to accompany concrete products that were transported from Siberia to the desert regions of the near abroad.

But no one in the camp was sad about it. He, a harmful tormentor, was driven in revenge. And all the rest, in principle, beloved educators and educators, just like that, to maintain the tradition.

How long the unsportsmanlike Nathan was going to sit on a pine tree, no one could predict. Because they drove the teacher up a tree, but the kids were clearly not going to shoot him. In the meantime, help from the attendants arrives ... To sit and howl at the big round moon that has risen above the forest - there was nothing more for the uncle who jumped onto the tree ...

Adult children were no longer surprised by this. For the entire shift, they were not distinguished by special obedience, so it was no longer interesting for them to recoup their leaders, whom they already brought pretty well.

And even more so after one of them came up with a wonderful idea.

“Guys,” Vovka, a boy from the fourth detachment, turned to his friends, “wouldn’t it be nice to go to the cemetery?” Right now!

“So we were going to smear our girls with paste,” Mishka was surprised, throwing a tube of toothpaste in his palm. “I warm it up in my pocket on purpose.

“We’ll have time to smear them,” Vovka answered. - Later. It's even better - while we are at the cemetery, while back, they will definitely go to bed.

“So the disco hasn’t even ended yet,” Andryushka added. - And all of us are at the disco.

- Disco, maybe all night long - said Vovka. But not all of them will stay on it. I want to smear Nikiforov. I don’t think she’ll be enough to dance at the disco all night. She will go to the side. Here I will paint it with patterns.

“And Petrushkina always leaves the disco early, it would also be good for Petrushkina to be specifically smeared so that she doesn’t dress up,” Mishka grinned.

- We'll put it on. But first, at the cemetery,” Vovka said. - It's time today.

- So it's impossible for the territory! .. - Andryushka scratched the back of his head.

- Today is the Royal Night, everything is possible! And for the territory to run, and in general! Vovka exclaimed. “So we won’t get anything for it. They will no longer be expelled from the camp, they will not be sent home. Change is over!

“Well, yes…” the guys agreed.

“What is there to do, in the cemetery?” Andryushka asked.

“Check your courage,” Vovka answered. - Just take it and go through the whole cemetery from beginning to end.

- Oh, yes, this is any fool! .. - Mishka exclaimed.

And stopped.

A strange howl came from somewhere.

- What is this? A? Mishka muttered timidly.

“I don’t know,” Andryushka replied in a barely audible voice. “It looks like it’s from the side of the cemetery…”

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In the summer, many girls and boys aged ten to seventeen go to various camps, children's centers, sanatoriums - how to relax in nature. Some are happy to leave home to get rid of parental care, others just have fun, others want to find new friends. But, as Hans Christian Andersen said, “everything in the world has its end”, so the camp season ends and you need to go home. But before the bitter parting, the guys are waiting for a very bright and cheerful event - the “royal night”.

It is difficult to say now why it is customary not to sleep on the last night of the season, but to play jokes on each other and why the last night is called “royal” is difficult. But in almost all camps, this tradition is sacredly honored. On the last night of the season, all units go late at night to the fire. They sing songs around him, fry bread on sticks, tell stories to each other. They go to their rooms closer to the morning. But the "royal" night does not end there! The guys have fun in all sorts of ways, and the counselors turn a blind eye to their antics. The most interesting thing is that the usual “smearing” with pasta is becoming obsolete, and new entertainments are coming to replace it.

Sergey, 25 years old:

In our camps, I remember, after lights out, boys with sheets walked around the rooms and pretended to be ghosts! After horror stories about a coffin on wheels, it was quite impressive. There was a screech!

Yes, we've all ever told each other scary stories, and at the end we shouted: "Give me back my heart!". The boys especially liked to do this - they are so pleased to listen to the girlish screams of horror! But sometimes the representatives of the stronger sex have fun in a completely different way: they throw spiders, bugs or someone else into the bed or into the bags.

Valya, 17 years old:

When I was resting in the camp, on the last day the boys caught frogs somewhere and in the evening they stuffed them into the girls' beds. How scared we were! It's good that they didn't go to bed!

Any prank at first glance seems to us very cheerful. And we almost never think about the consequences.

Asya, 15 years old:

On a farewell night, my friends and I have fun like this: in the bustle of the night, you never look after your things. But in vain! We dragged off shoes, bags and hung it all on trees. Sometimes even some of the contents of the bags! Very funny! But then some were very offended. Especially when their things were thrown high into the trees! But after this fun, we tried to climb trees together and shoot unfortunate things and, as a rule, laughed even harder!

Fun is an integral part of the "royal" night. The oldest teenagers usually celebrate it until morning. But in the morning they fall asleep so soundly that they don’t notice the “procedures” that other “merry fellows” are doing with them.

Cleopatra, 20 years old:

At night, the guys who were stronger than the rest carried the bed with the sleeping girl or boy out into the hall. And it was a lot of fun to watch the expression on his face when he or she woke up! And we also smeared the fingers of the sleeping people with gouache at night and then looked at what patterns were obtained on the pillow, blanket and sheet!

Nastya, 18 years old:

We stole things from everyone, tied them up and hung them like garlands. Of course, they smeared the paste on the sleeping people and on the doorknobs! And once one girl was wrapped with thick threads - she ended up in a cocoon, and even tied to the bed! But she was sleeping so soundly that she didn't notice anything.

Most of the guys are madly happy when they can go away from their parents in the summer and have fun full program. And on the last night I want to come up with something especially fun!

Stasia, 14 years old:

We had fun pillow fights with flying feathers, as well as showering each other with colognes and creams! In general, we had developed a grandiose night program, but after this battle we were so tired that we went to bed without undressing, all in paste, creams and feathers. In the morning, however, it was no laughing matter when I had to quickly wash the room!

On the "royal" night, it is not customary to be angry with each other, because it is the last one. But sometimes children, especially under the age of thirteen, show miracles of cruelty, and their dirty tricks end up quite sadly:

Ksyusha, 12 years old:

All day I had a headache. I went to sleep in the room at a time when the whole squad was busy with something. I woke up from a burning sensation in my eyes: they smeared my eyelids with mint toothpaste and also smeared all my clothes. I didn't laugh at all...

Children are sometimes completely unaware of what they are doing. After all, “kids” are usually not allowed to go to discos with older teams on the “royal” night, but they try to put them to bed early. But the younger ones are trying to keep up with the "starshaks" and celebrate the end of the season as it should be. It often boils down to a scare-whom competition, where victory is measured not in points, but in the volume and duration of the screams.

Ira, 16 years old:

Then we were still not very adults and slept on the last night. I was eleven years old. I remember I was at the window. And suddenly I woke up in the middle of the night from some strange sounds! She pulled back the curtain - dear mother! In the window on the other side, someone's creepy head appeared, like the one from the movie "Scream", and I yelled terribly! The girls sleeping with me in the same room jumped to the window. But the performance is not over! A knife appeared from somewhere, and it’s scary to talk further! Half of the girls fainted, the other half, led by me, screamed and did not sleep all night! And the window, outside filled with red paint, was scrubbed the next morning by our boys!

"Royal" night - a storehouse of fun, laughter, interesting entertainment positive and sometimes negative emotions. But it is simply impossible to argue with the fact that this time is a bright and memorable event.

August 14th, 2015 05:23 am

"Royal night" in the (pioneer) camp. This is the last night before the day of departure. None of the adults installed it, but it exists behind the scenes. Sometimes the children themselves ask the counselors: "Will we have a royal night?" What is left for the counselor to do? Select and hide toothpastes, as it is customary to smear each other with toothpaste on the "royal night". And this is the most innocent "fun".

This is reminiscent of a rite of passage in traditional societies.

Adolescents in traditional societies are initiated by spirits. Adult, experienced members of the community only help initiation, create conditions for meeting with spirits. In the children's camp, of course, no one has ever heard of any primitive "initiations", but, nevertheless, the children themselves, at their own peril and risk, are trying to create some kind of initiation. Adults forbid, but they are like "devils inflame."

It is clear that nothing works out for children, and it cannot work out, but this unconscious attempt to create rite of passage. Actually, all the traditional signs of initiation are present here: a break with parents, a temporary stay in the unknown world of camp life, here the teenager must prove his willpower, not burst into tears, pass tests. But these tests are not "terrible", and at the end of the race, the children themselves arrange additional "super tests" for themselves and each other. last night before departure is chosen, of course, because the tests must be "terrible", maybe even criminal. Well, in the morning we will "fall" home and no one will ask us for crimes: yesterday there were no parents there, and today there are no educators.

Do not forget that all the "fun" of the "royal night" have a sexual connotation. For queens spent their nights as they pleased and with whom they pleased. Of course, all this is more in fantasies and, as a rule, things don’t go further than smearing girls with toothpaste, but erotic excitement takes place, like on the eve of the night at Ivan Kupala. On the "royal night" some miracles are expected, like the story from the film "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath". Without the expectation of such miracles, there would be no "royal nights".