3. Youth volunteer organizations

The main factor which can provoke young people into social activity is their confidence that they can change something dramatically by their actions. That is why more and more young people find their way in public associations. This is an opportunity for them to influence a situation, a vivid result of their work and also a

Nature Protection Guard (NPG) named after V.Tikhomirov in the biology faculty of MSU is a volunteer public youth organization for nature protection, one of the oldest organizations of Nature Protection Guard Movement. The NPG is works in Moscow and the Moscow Region with its main companies (“Zakazniki”, “Crane Motherland”, “Pervotsvet”) and also takes part in solving urgent ecological problems in Russia and the whole world.

Since 2010 there has been a volunteer organization “STOPHKAM”. Its participants look for cars which are parked incorrectly and ask a driver if he is inside a car to change the location according driving rules. If he refuses or if there is no driver inside they put a sticker on the windscreen of the car saying “I don’t care - I park as I wish”. Drivers usually get angry and try to fight with the activists, while they capture the whole process and post the short film on the internet.

Another organization “PIGS AGAINST” also has been working since 2010. Its activists carry on sorties in supermarkets and market in order to detect violations, attract public attention and remedy the violations such as: old products, false weight, offensive behavior of shop clerks, illegal actions of security service. The participant put on pink costumes of big pigs with angry noses – that is where the name comes from. The idea is as following: in a manager of a shop treats us like pigs then he should have pigs as his clients.

The organization “LION AGAINST” has existed since 2016. It is named after zodiac sign of its founder Mikhail Jemalovich. The participants carry on sorties in the city streets and look for those who drink and smoke in prohibited places. The activists ask people to spot smoking, and try to punt a cigarette or swill people with water. Anti-alcohol sorties are even more severe and followed by mass fights and injuries of those who refuse to give back their drinks.

Youth was also very active in volunteering for the Olympic games-2014. The Organizing Committee “Sochi-2014” gathered the youngest volunteers in the history of the Olympics, average age was 23 years old (41 – in London in 2012, 37 – in Vancouver in 2010).

There are also volunteer projects for school children but only from the age 15. It is the Hermitage Volunteer Service. They meet visitors at the entrance, guide those who get lost in the museum. They also systemize and update catalogues in the storages and work with exhibit items (sort them out, etc.). The Movement Separate Collection since 2011 has carried on education in the area of ecology and run campaigns of waste sorting. Children of Saint-Petersburg is a volunteer organization with cultural and educational events for children and free trainings in Russian and courses for the kids of immigrants.

In Krasnogorsk at school #14 a volunteer movement “Together+” was created where children from 7-8-9 grades participated in the revival of patronage over the first-grade pupils, ecological, patriot and sport campaigns.