The most crowded events were the sports competitions, the electronic shooting range and the simulated tank driving.
Some members consider the Youth Army their glide path into the regular army. Two teenagers from Ryazan, just southeast of Moscow, said they thought activities like a 12-mile hike through terrain filled with obstacles and exploding devices would give them an advantage when they finally joined the military.
They were not worried about being deployed to conflicts outside Russia, like ones in Ukraine or Syria. Paintings from the Syrian war were featured along one wall.
Aleksei Poltnikov, 17, noted that regular soldiers had been given the option of signing a contract to deploy to Syria or not. “The money there is huge,” he said, adding, though, that it seemed like a quick way to get killed.
“I would not sign such a contract unless my country was under threat,” he said.
Other members conceded that the military videos playing on screens overhead and the recurrent chants of “Russia! Russia!” might convince some impressionable youth that they should go out and fight — no matter who the adversary was.
“The government might be able to use them too easily — that is not a good thing,” said Eldar Kormilin, 17.
Mr. Kormilin and his friends joined the Youth Army because there was little to do in their Moscow neighborhood beyond playing video games, he said. He was hoping to hold a gun later that day for the first time in his life.
“In Russia there are not many opportunities to see a real gun,” he said.
Source : Nytimes
