Here every boy can find an occupation he likes – that allows directing excessive energy and initiative of the youth into some harmless activity and also gives an opportunity to get fully prepared to further military service and grown-up’s life. That’s why there is always something new created in the club – that is done to keep up with the constant alteration of the interests of the youth. In the seventies they were motorcycles and sambo wrestling, skydiving and moviemaking in the eighties, paragliding and computers in the nineties.

    Club PODVIG has everything a would-be man longs for – paragliding and parachuting sections, a bodybuilding and swimming clubs, combat training class, fitting and carpenter shops, a library, a mess-room, dance hall, shooting gallery, billiard and table tennis rooms, a computer study class, a museum, a moviemaking group. The cadets draw, sing, dance, play national music instruments, study English (Esperanto was not that popular, so the cadets switched to the former), bake cakes, do carpentry, create and… dismantle, build and hike, travel (they traveled around most of Russia, Cuba, make annual trips to China and the USA). The cadets’ activities are also free community work, tree-planting, fishing, picking berries. Cadets’ parents are actively involved in PODVIG’s work. The club has become a large family, and there exists a long and firm friendship between the club and war and labor veterans.

    The club’s activities are being conducted during group trainings, special events (competitions, tours, hikes, holiday celebrations and so on), annual spring and summer military training camps, “Youth of the World” international exchange program.

    The cadets spend a lot of time on manual labor – there are no janitors in PODVIG, so one may call the club a “self-cleaning site”. And of course no community work day occurs without PODVIG’s participation – the cadets plant the trees, clean up the city territory and Magadanka river banks.

    The boys learn and get used to mopping the floors, mending their uniforms, casting concrete, baking pies all by themselves. That sure makes mothers happy to see that their children are able to take care of themselves. Of course, it is not as easy as it sounds – it takes great effort and quite a lot of time to teach a trainee to hold a hammer steadily and to miss his fingers instead of nails.

    Many fairy tales that were told to a child in early childhood narrate of brave knights and their heroic deeds, of good defeating evil. Many boys, when asked of further occupation, say they want to become pilots, tank crew members or paratroopers – or servicemen in general. Childhood dreams usually vanish by coming of age, but those who had ever taken part in PODVIG’s various activities, had an opportunity to become “a little bit SuperMan”.

    It is taken for granted that the cadets are to pass all kinds of training during their being a part of the club – swimming, paragliding, skydiving, skiing, computer usage skills, firearms training, driving (anything from a motorcycle to a main battle tank), hand-to-hand combat training, English language courses, carpentry, dancing, singing… Still, any boy is free to give his preference and master something he likes.

    One more thing to say – some reporters, having met the cadets and got acquainted with the club, write rhapsodical articles like: “What wonderful boys these cadets are! They won’t commit a bad deed for sure”. Excessive excitement is also an extreme. There is nothing in this world that is only black or white. The cadets are human beings – just like everybody else, with their advantages and disadvantages. Each of them came to PODVIG already shaped in his own unique way – and that had left a trace on his character. What PODVIG may do in this case is to develop, correct and finish the upbringing of a young man. Naturally, the result is not always seen – and that is actually not abnormal. Years after graduating a former PODVIG cadet understands what the club has done for him.