Dear scouts and guides,

We are more than excited to announce that the Baltic Jamboree 2022 “Back to the Balts” is going to be held in Lithuania. We will meet on the 24th of July and stay until the 31th of July. During the camp we are going to explore the ancient culture of Balts and will travel to time until this day. Below you can find the main information and the legend, which will help us to prepare for the upcoming adventure!

Dates: 24th of July - 31th of July

Place: Naisiai

Age: camp welcomes everyone starting 12 years old.

Number of participants: every Baltic state can bring up to 250 participants of its own.

Registration: https://registration.bjam2022.lt/

Terms and Conditions for the Baltic Jamboree 2022

Prices*

Volunteers

Everyone who is going to be 18 and older on the first day of the camp should register either as volunteers or as unit leaders. Also volunteers will be asked to arrive at the campsite before 24th of July.

Let the journey begin…

My name is Žemyna. My parents gave me this name because when I was a little girl I used to lie on the ground and listen to the growing grass. Don’t laugh, I know I’m a little weird. But strangers in our tribe are loved, they are considered wizards. Like my grandmother. She is so old and wrinkled. Probably she was the one who planted an old oak tree on the edge of the forest, which branches are touching the sky and for which we have been praying for centuries on the seventh  day of the moon. It was my grandmother who taught me the spells: the flowers bloom when I speak, the apples ripen, the rain flows, and the sun does not exhaust. Sure, it’s more of a merit to the gods, but the great-grandmother says I’m the bridge between gods and people. True, my mother is angry about  saying like that and insists that I first should be the bridge between the most influential family of the tribe and our family. Whatever that means ... Still, I'm sure adventures await me and if I need to be different to dive into them, I am willing to take the risks.

When the sun brought us the 1200th year, I was already living my twelfth winter. As the winter sun rose, I stood barefoot and one-shirted in the middle of the forest, listening to the birds singing and drinking the cold forest moisture into my lungs. I remember everything through a fog: one moment I felt the mightiness flooding through my body, so I prayed for the eternity of the gods, and the next, I was struck by Thunder, the birdsongs stopped, and the icy air got shut in my lungs.

When I opened my eyes, everything was the same, only instead of winter, spring had sprung in all its beauty. My bare feet felt the snow melting, snowdrops timidly poking their heads up, the grass throbbing as if nothing had happened. Only the birds were singing differently, and the gods fell silent in my heart. I rushed back to my tribe, but in the clearing I only found the Thunder-cut Oak and saw some brick buildings in the distance. The 1500th year was dawning. I saw pagan sheds replaced by tall wooden buildings with strange spikes at their tops. I heard a change in language that I couldn’t understand. Once a community of only ten people, it has now turned into a city where industry has developed slowly, horses dragged carriages, and tasteless dishes were steaming on the tables of the rich... It was even rumored that the noblewoman Bona Sforca, who had come from a distant country, brought some foreign chefs and cooks. Who produced unknown and unseen to the villagers delicacies. I felt that the bridges once connected me to the pagan gods had collapsed. But I couldn’t live in the past when the future looked so amazing. 

Just not everything was as amazing as it looked liket: oh gods, how much those people of the future fought! One dreary morning my feet started carrying me to the forest so fast, that I didn’t even have a moment to think. I ran so fast and… Suddenly I was knocked downby a horse pulling a carriage with some lazy nobles inside.

I woke up to a grim sound, and when I opened my eyes, a glorious invention was in my sight: a steam locomotive. The smell of coal and the crowd of people. For the first time, I really felt wild- a stranger. Luckily, I was just seen as a beggar and everyone payed; little attention to me People were just dropping coins as I passed. I couldn't be surprised by the changes in people: perfume, lacquered shoes, nose rolled up, stretched and infinitely beautiful - intellectuals. One man, passing by, explained to his bloated companion that this date - 1861 - will go in the history of Lithuania and Russia, because the steam locomotive connected our lands. So I moved into the bustling 1861 - a year of the unknown. 

The wars did not diminish, but among the smoke of the cannons I saw a light: the press, books, science andpoetry. Lithuania prospered because of the enlightened people who lived here.

In 2020, I got on the locomotive Daugavpils-Vilnius-Grodno. The controller caught me without a ticket, so I got scared out of my wits and I jumped out of the running train straight to the depths of the forests. The ground greeted me quite painfully, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw masked children clenched around me with different colored scarfs: orange, yellow, cherry... They called themselves scouts. The kids took photos of me with their glowing devices, told me about the social networks and explained that the mysterious virus which made them wear masks will be destroyed by scientists with their robotic devices... Only in the evening, when a big bonfire blazed, did they become wild like me. The scouts prayed to their human god, but did not turn their backs on the Oak. I felt like bridges, which once collapsed, were recovering and I saw my own gods in the flames rising in the sky. Everyone has their own homes, but I felt welcomed here, so I stayed. I look forward to your camp too. If you find me, call me by my name and I will tell you more stories about my adventures.

Contact us: BalticJamboree2022@gmail.com

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/balticjamboree