A boy eating soup, other boy sitting behind him smiling…

  A little boy eating soup at the Children's Village Marina Gorka, Belarus.  

  What are the desires of Belarussian children? What do they like and dislike? What is it they hate, what do they prefer to eat, drink and play?  

What is "IN" and what is "OUT"? You can find out about that; we have talked to children aged seven to twelve to find out what is on their mind.  

OUT Meal/food: Meat loaf, Russian salad, borsch, halva, fruit jellies, baked pudding, cottage cheese, ordinary herring, field soup, porridge with meat, millet porridge

Drink: Tea, boiled milk, Coffee, Tea without sugar, "Fanta", "Coca-cola"

Musician/band: "Tatu" (Russian band who sing about loneliness, aimlessness of city teenagers, kids dislike the thematic of songs), playing on flute, slow music, slow-moving dances, classical music, orchestra music

Games: Hide-and-Seek

Activity: Planting the plants, visiting Philharmonic House, writing when it is raining, floor cleaning, care for the junior children (especially when they are noisy)

Lesson: Mathematics ("I do no not like to write much, feel uncomfortable when answering", special training lesson (much writing and learning by heart), Belarussian lesson itself "but I like Belarussian language", Russian language, "man and world" (not interesting)

Free time activity: Reading, washing, doing nothing, doing homework

Book: All that is written in small print, Children's books

TV show/film: TV programs about Minsk history, football, basketball, automobile racing, films about sports, non-coloured films, fairy tales, TV programmes "My family" (TV-show for adults, where family problems are discussed) and "What, when, where" (intellectual game, where players try to answer very difficult questions, asked by the audience and the show master).

Computer games: Games with shooting and killing, computer games with cars

Day of the week: Tuesday, Thursday - "Six lessons and besides solfeggio which takes much time." Thursday - many lessons at school, besides music classes and solfeggio Wednesday - many lessons at school.

  The annual summer camp for children from SOS Children's Village Marina Gorka, Belarus, means a lot - sleeping in a tent, fishing and making fish-soup.  

  18 children from the village drove from the familiar family houses to an unknown forest where they spent almost a whole month in tents, but the children didn't mind.  

"We lived in the tents and it's really interesting to camp," says eight-year-old Nastya. "We made almost everything together there - cleaned the camp territory and ran together to do the morning exercises. I also loved to sunbathe, and sometimes to go fishing."

Fishing and fish-soup were the main attractions for Andrey. "I liked the fish-soup. I have never tried it before," says the eight-year-old. "I loved the time spent in the forest camp. We swam, did morning exercises, and competed in contests and competitions."

"We also celebrated the party of "Ivana Kupala" - the boys jumped over the camp-fire and the girls threw the wreaths to the water. I would love to go the summer camp next year again."

The party of "Ivana Kupala" is the day of summer solstice celebrated in Russia and Ukraine on 7 July. Many rites of this holiday are connected with water and fertility. The girls, for example, would float their flower wreaths on the water and tell their fortunes from its movement. It's also traditional to jump over the flames of the bonfires.

The forest camp is one of the many summer activities organised by SOS Children's Villages Belarus for the children to show them the country from different angles and teach them local traditions. The other activities include for example bike trips, summer camps and rafting on Belarusian rivers.