History

Volgograd Center for Children and Youth

Our Center is Russia's first (and the former USSR's second) afterschool institution designated for creative work, sports training and extracurricular activities for children and adolescents. It started as The Stalingrad Palace of Young Pioneers on January 3, 1936 through a decision of the Communist Party Regional Committee.

 

 After careful examination of 6 buildings (none of them found suitable for different reasons), the city's Communist Party Committee decided to donate their headquarters to the cause of education. Before the Revolution that building belonged to an entrepreneur K.V.Voronin. The façade of the mansion was decorated with Finnish granite; the interior of 38 rooms was stunning: the walls and the staircases of white, pink, green, red and black marble, the ornamented ceilings, the parquet floors… After three months of renovation the Palace of Young Pioneers opened its doors to the children of Stalingrad.

By the time it was opened, the Palace had the capacity to enroll up to 1,500 children. It had special-purpose rooms for music and physics, a science lab, a photo/movie-making studio, a zoological room, and an arts studio designed in a folk style as a Russian izba; a ballet studio and rehearsal rooms for the theater group and the choir. The Palace had its own radio station and a print shop that published The Children of October newspaper. By the decision of the People's Commissary of Education the Palace allocated budget for re-equipment was 150,000 rubles.

Besides the main building the Stalingrad Palace of Young Pioneers was using the premises of the former girls' gymnasium with an 800-seat auditorium.

The Palace development work was supervised by the specially formed Palace Soviet (board of directors) with the chairman Yosif Mihailovich Vareikis, the First Secretary of the Communist Party Regional Committee.

The interior design of the Palace was made by the Moscow artist N.V. Filippov.

 

 

 

The grand opening of the Stalingrad Palace of Young Pioneers was on May 17, 1936.

An archive 17-second film clip featuring The Stalingrad Palace of Young Pioneers before World War II

The first teaching staff of the Stalingrad Palace of Young Pioneers.

The pre-war history of the Palace is not much known. One of the major events was the choreographic work of Dmitrij Ivanovich and Elena Konstantinovna Zubovsky, who did the production of the ballet Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky in 1940. The Palace had its own symphony (conductor I.A.Divinsky). There was also Young Sailors' Club, poetry studio, aviation, music and technical design groups.

During the first months of the war the Palace was still functioning. The Arts and Crafts workshop members were making sheets for hospitals; young Chemistry experts were packaging medications and bandages for field medical battalions; the print shop was making conscription notices. The Palace's symphony was broadcasting music on the radio, replacing the city musicians gone to war. Performing Arts group members were giving concerts at conscription centers and hospitals. Young technicians were making wooden containers for anti-tank mines. Art students were drawing post cards to be mailed home by the Red Army soldiers.

On December 9, 1941 the city's Defense Committee made a decision to use the Palace as the Kharkov Military District HQ. The club work continued on the premises of the city schools No 8, 9, the music vocational school and the local radio station.

During the Battle of Stalingrad the Palace of young Pioneers was totally destroyed.

On April 22, 1950 the Palace resumed its work at Pushkin St, 25.

The building was too small and in 1956 the Executive Committee of the city Soviet gave the palace a new location – Lenin Prospect, 5.

On December 29, 1981 the Palace of Young Pioneers opened on a new location on the left bank of the river Tsaritsa. The building was designed by the architect E.I.Levitan.

In 1984 the Volgograd Palace of Young Pioneers hosted the World Women Chess Championship. Maya Cheburdanidze and Irina Levitina fought for the world title.

For almost four months world's chess community was following the tournament in Volgograd. Over 100,000 people visited the event, including the Minister of Culture P.N.Demichev, Chairman of the USSR Chess Federation cosmonaut V.I.Sevastianov, as well as regional government figures.

The awarding ceremony was held with the participation of the FIDE president Mr. Florencio Campomanes (the Philippines). In his closing speech he said, «The Soviet state and the USSR Chess Federation made a great effort to meet the international standards of this championship. The advancement of Soviet women in the world chess is the sign of high development level of the art of chess in your country.»