Russian Association of Girl Scouts is the national Guiding

Girl Guides

A Guide, Girl Guide or Girl Scout is a member of a section of some Guiding organisations who is between the ages of 10 and 14. Age limits are different in each organisation. It is the female-centred equivalent of the Scouts. The term Girl Scout is used in the United States and several East Asian...

 organization of Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Guiding in Russia started about 1910 within the Boy Scout groups and was disbanded in the 1920s. It was restarted in 1990 as part of the Federation of Scouts of Russia

Federation of Scouts of Russia

The Federation of Scouts of Russia, or FSR , was one of several national Scouting organizations formed in the Russian Federation following independence from the Soviet Union.-History:The federation was formed on November 27, 1991...

 and formed an independent association in 1994. The organization became an associate member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts is a global association supporting the female-oriented and female-only Scouting organizations in 145 countries. It was established in 1928 and has its headquarters in London, England. It is the counterpart of the World Organization of the Scout...

 (WAGGGS) in 1999 and a full member in 2008. The girls-only association has 1,158 members (as of 1998).

History

Three are records of Russian Girl Scout patrol

Patrol

A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as police officers or soldiers, that are assigned to monitor a specific geographic area.- Military :...

s in a range of town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

s from 1909 on, but there was no national Girl Scout organization. Scouting returned in the years of perestroika

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

. Many international contacts were made with foreign visits and aid offered. There was much interest in bringing Scouting back to Russia. In 1991 The Federation of Scouts of Russia was created, and almost immediately there was a discussion of a program for girls.

In 1993 a reception was held in Manila, Philippines in conjunction with WAGGGS' Asia Pacific Symposium of NGOs for Women in Development

Women in Development

Women in Development is an approach to development projects that emerged in the 1970s, calling for treatment of women's issues in development projects...

. The aim was to introduce or reintroduce the Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting movement and to explore possibilities of starting/restarting Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting in Russia, as well as Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

, Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

 and Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

. Fifty women leaders from those nations attended the Asia Pacific Symposium, sharing their Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting experiences.

In 1993 the founding conference of the League of Girl Scouts of the FSR took place in Perm

Perm

Perm is a city and the administrative center of Perm Krai, Russia, located on the banks of the Kama River, in the European part of Russia near the Ural Mountains. From 1940 to 1957 it was named Molotov ....

. The girls' program developed, and in October 1994 the next step was the founding conference in Perm.

Girl Scout ideals

The Girl Scout emblem has incorporated three snowdrop

Snowdrop

Galanthus is a small genus of about 20 species of bulbous herbaceous plants in the Amaryllis family, subfamily Amaryllidoideae...

s since the tsarist period.

Girl Scout Promise

Честным словом обещаю сделать все от меня зависящее, чтобы выполнить свой Долг перед страной и стремиться к духовному, помогать тем, кто нуждается в моей помощи, и жить по законам девочек-скаутов.

On my word of honor I promise to do all that depends on me, to fulfill my debt to my country, to strive for spiritual perfection, to help those who need my help, and to live by the Girl Scout laws.

Girl Scout Laws

1. Девочка-скаут верна данному слову;
2. Девочка-скаут доводит начатое дело до конца;
3. Девочка-скаут старается быть полезной и помогать другим;
4. Девочка-скаут дружелюбна, приветлива и вежлива;
5. Все девочки-скауты – сестры;
6. Девочка-скаут – друг природы;
7. Девочка-скаут предана родителям, дисциплинирована и подчиняется приказам лидера;
8. Девочка-скаут бережлива и уважает чужую собственность;
9. Девочка-скаут чиста и благородна в своих помыслах и поступках;
10. Девочка-скаут никогда не унывает.

1. A Girl Scout is true to her word.
2. A Girl Scout finishes what she starts.
3. A Girl Scout strives to be useful and to help others.
4. A Girl Scout is friendly, cordial, and polite.
5. All Girl Scouts are sisters.
6. A Girl Scout is a friend of nature.
7. A Girl Scout is devoted to her parents, is disciplined, and obeys her leader.
8. A Girl Scout is thrifty and respects the property of others.
9. A Girl Scout is clean and noble in her thoughts and actions.
10. A Girl Scout never loses heart.