Seliger (2) -- The first and second day

After entering the site of Seliger 2010 International Youth Forum, the instructor took us into the woods behind the main stage. I was a bit scared because there were a lot of old graves. I asked her if we would sleep next to those graves (of course we didn’t do it). Then we walked and I realized an enormous number of people would camp there. I’ve never seen such a place packed with so many tents.

I don’t remember much about the first night. Probably I was so tired and it was very late on arrival at the site. I talked with 10 to 15 people in my group for a while but couldn’t remember many of their names. Then I put my luggage in my tent (shared with a Russian boy) and just slept in my sleeping bag.


The next morning, I woke up pretty early, maybe at 7 a.m. and walked around the site which was still quiet. After a while, suddenly I heard extremely loud music playing and everybody started to get ready for going near to the main stage. I was also told to go there but I didn’t understand what would be happening there. Then I saw thousands of participants gathered in front of the main stage for a morning assembly and a morning exercise which were scheduled everyday. I did a five-kilometer run during the first few days and then gave up doing it, because I did too much exercise everyday, especially swimming in the cold water of the lake which caused me to be sick. It was quite hard physically.

After the morning exercise, all the members of our group returned to our site and had Kasha for breakfast (I think I had it almost everyday). Then our instructor took us to the area with big tents and we took lectures there. In the tent, there was no chair for us and I saw almost all of the people in my section (Art and Design) had brought sitting pillows or travel mats. It was much fun and surprising for me that many of them were relaxing on the ground during a lecture.


In the night, our group members gathered at the main table in our site to have a meeting for self introduction. We sat down and passed a candle to each other, the person who had the candle was allowed to talk about himself/herself and the impression of the first day at Seliger. Probably I talked about not only self introduction but also personal stories -- what I feel in my daily life in Tokyo and what was tough for me to keep doing photography and graphic design there without going to an art school. I also said that every time I go abroad, I tried to switch my character into the one which is a bit more active. It was very nice to hear what everyone expected from the camp and about their personal background. Although I was still having trouble remembering everyone’s name and nickname, I realized that I became one of the group members and got ready to enjoy the opportunity at Seliger from that night.