A kindergarten class of boys and girls were made to pose with mock AK-47 rifles and other weapons in Russia last week, but the viral pictures have now provoked a storm of debate.
Children around five or six years old posed with mock-ups of AK-47 assault rifles, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher in their hands while a man in fatigues stood next to them during a "patriotic class" at a kindergarten in the second city of Saint Petersburg, said a member of a club who helped organize the event and provided the replica weapons.
"Why can't children hold a weapon?" Yury Dorozhinsky, deputy head of Red Star, an organization that teaches military history and acts as a club for World War II reenactment enthusiasts, told Agence France-Presse on Thursday. "Let boys play dolls then."
According to Dorozhinsky, the event was held ahead of the Defenders of the Fatherland, a Soviet-era holiday celebrated on February 23 in Russia, on the request of the kindergarten administration.
"It's silly to teach children patriotism using layman's terms. Telling without showing would not be right," he said, claiming that the young children must grow up as patriots.
After the pictures were posted online, Russian social networks criticized the school's decision.
"This is simply horrible and outrageous," commented Larisa Garmash.
"This is not a patriotic upbringing," Irina Gosteva told AFP. "This has no place in a kindergarten."
The fact that children had been forced to pose with weapons was "unacceptable," the director of another kindergarten in the city said.
However, some still defended the pictures as patriotic education.
Meanwhile, the director of the Saint Petersburg kindergarten declined to comment when reached by AFP.
