Vacations with a calculator

Summer is the time for school holidays and vacations. While adults plan ahead — a trip to the sea or the cottage with its potato patch — the problem of where to send the kids can be far more difficult to arrange. Children have to be looked after; they need hot meals and activities; and parents must be able to afford the costs. Children’s vacations are the province of local authorities and the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports, and their work is netting mixed results.

For the past few years Ukrainian schools have been obliged to open day camps for their pupils: sightseeing tours around the city and trips to other regions, creative contests, and festivals. This would seem to be a good idea; this year the capital had 226 school-based day camps accommodating over 17,000 children. Is this a lot or a little? Judge for yourselves: there are about 250,000 schoolchildren in Kyiv.

Is there a demand for this kind of vacation? Any resident of Kyiv can see the way schoolchildren “relax” in school-based camps, walking in columns up and down streets under the scorching sun, being taken to museums and theaters, and playing games on asphalt courts in between excursions. Parents say that few children are eager to spend the summer in a school camp, while some prefer it to staying with grandparents in the countryside.

Parents are generally satisfied, says the Chief Kyiv Directorate for Education and Science. These kinds of holidays feature teacher supervision and meals, and hiking trips cost them less then 32 hryvnias, 15 percent of the actual cost. This sum is spent only on admission tickets and meals. It would seem to be easy to arrange for a child’s vacation in this type of school-based camp accommodation: the costs are low and the environment is familiar. However, children can spend only one holiday “shift” in the capital. It ends in late June, as most teachers and instructors are on holiday in July.

But not everyone can obtain a place. According to a Kyiv State Administration directive, younger children from lower-income families have priority access to these accommodations.

The cost of out-of-town camps and resorts has substantially increased this year. The ministry says that a total of 1,010 stationary rest camps are available this season, at 45-116 hryvnias per bed/day, and that the cost depends on the location; whether there is a river, sea, or forest in the vicinity. Considering that a “shift” cannot be less than three weeks, 1,000 hryvnias sounds more than reasonable, since decent holiday accommodations may cost 2,000 hryvnias, a sum many simply cannot afford.

“Imagine! Resort accommodations at Vorzel near Kyiv cost 1,060 hryvnias and my salary is half of that,” says Rayisa, the mother of a 13- year-old girl studying to be a ballet dancer. “So it’s much simpler to send my child to Artek through the ballet school.”

“A new holiday shift will start in a couple of days in camps and resorts meant for members of the Small Academy of Sciences, Young Firefighters, Road Traffic Inspectors, and children’s creative groups. Children are happy to spend the summer here because they rest and study, and stay in a familiar environment,” says Olena Batenko, head of the information support department at the Chief Directorate for Education and Science.

Summer vacations are free for gifted children and straight-A students; they are financed by state enterprises and ministries. Parents have to apply to oblast and raion family, youth, and sports departments or directly to the ministry. Of course, a large number of schoolchildren have privileges. Apart from gifted children, free vacations are awarded to orphans and physically handicapped children, while parents pay part of the costs. The municipal administration has decreed that parents must pay at least 11 percent of their child’s vacation.

Another encouraging sign is that a number of resorts and camps have undergone major repairs and can now accommodate children throughout the year. The best students from teacher’s training colleges are hired as instructors, and there are other experienced auxiliary personnel. “Each resort facility for children is manned by qualified medical staff,” says Tetiana Yurchenko, the health ministry’s press secretary. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you more about the health-building process because these medical workers are not under our ministry.”

Despite the obvious advantages of children’s rest and recreation outside the city together with their peers, obtaining accommodations other than through a given enterprise or an educational establishment is easier said than done. It is also very expensive, probably because children’s rest and recreation are in the hands of private businessmen acting under official authority.

For example, a private resort near Odesa is run by a local parliamentarian. He provides free accommodations to the children of his voters, and everybody is happy. Getting accommodations in a state-run rest camp is easy: no red tape or special qualifications for children are necessary. Arrangements can be made through a trade union or travel agency. Either way, parents have to pay a large portion of the costs, since no accommodations with a 10 or 50-percent discount are left. In other words, the financial aspect is the key factor in selecting a summer resort. After all, not all parents can afford one.