Urchagin
The Urchagin is an initiatory camp attended by Kalgachi youths at around the age of twelve years, at the conclusion of their primary education. It was established by the Pedagogue General's Office of the Directorate of Education and Outreach to infuse moral rigour into those who are too young to have gained it through direct experience of Kalgachia's foundational struggle, such that they understand the nature and purpose of their Kalgachi homeland and are instinctively inclined to defend its name and legacy during their lifetimes, regardless of the condition of the Kalgachi state or the allure of alternatives.
Development
The Urchagin was formulated in 153 Anno Libertatis by Ilessa Aerit, the first Pedagogue General of Kalgachia. Aerit's thesis was that as Kalgachia's founding generation died out, the struggle to establish their homeland would be relegated to the dry and indigestible realm of historical record; that is to say the visceral memory of shared hardship and common cause which motivated Kalgachia's founders to preserve a kernel of the Garden would be lost among their children who would take their inherited culture and liberties for granted, a state of generational complacency from which they could be manipulated to surrender their national self-determination in the face of the very same degenerate forces their parents had fought so hard to survive, escape and resist throughout the history of Minarboria. If the youth of Kalgachia had no profound and personalised reference to Kalgachia's existential imperative, Aerit held, one must be created for them.
Aerit held that the optimum ratio of intelligence and neuroplasticity - that is, the point at which a message could be absorbed across the full spectrum of the subject's conscousness - lay in the years preceding and beginning adolescence. This had long since been discovered and exploited by the Jingdaoese, whose Young Wandering Society would become one of the primary inspirations for Aerit's project. Even if the experience of this adolescent conditioning were to be later opposed by indoctrination of similar or ever greater fullity across the emotive-rational spectrum, Aerit realised that the natural sclerosis of the brain in adulthood would prevent the new conditioning from overlaying or displacing the formative experiences absorbed in early adolescence.
The resulting system, named the 'Urchagin' after a Mishalanski mercenary who supervised the first intake, was implemented by the Directorate of Education and Outreach in a standardised form across Kalgachia. While broadly supported and popular with Kalgachi families (especially those of mongrel ethnicity), the Urchagin system has drawn criticism from elements of the Troglodyti as "a vector for the virulent retransmission of post-traumatic archonic fixation" and more notably from the Salvator of Ketherism, Lord Toastypops, for the barbarism of its initial stages. The latter's objections, carrying a theological weight amplified by the Church of Kalgachia, resulted in a series of reforms in 187 AL whereby the Urchagin programme switched from compulsory to voluntary admission and reduced the mental breaking of children whose conduct did not warrant it. This did result in a slight disdain for "post-Toastypops" Urchagin graduates by their older peers who in turn were considered more robust of spirit by wider society for having undergone the Urchagin "when it was hard", although the variation in quality has been consistently exaggerated - Urchagin graduates of all periods have been proven to perform better in Kalgachi society than those who have not undergone the programme at all.
Format
The Urchagin lasts three weeks, totalling fifteen days per the Kalgachi Calendar. Each week, lasting five days each, is run on a different theme representing a portion of Minarborian and Kalgachi history.
Yoke Week
Yoke week is the most feared segment of the Urchagin. During this week, children are lodged in a barrack-like camp whose dormitories lack heating or pillows. All personal possessions are confiscated including clothes, which are replaced by camp-issue overalls. Ablutions are performed with cold water and daily meals are limited to a breakfast of gruel and a dinner of offal. Sleep is limited to four hours per night. The camp guards, clad in uniforms of a distinctly East Benacian cut, are trained to address the children in abusive and demeaning tones, ruthlessly sniffing out and exploiting weaknesses of personality.
After being processed into the camp, the children are assembed in the courtyard to watch their confiscated clothes and possessions being ritually cast into a bonfire, one by one. The rest of their week is spent performing tasks such as rock breaking, stripping bark from logs or similar manual labour, ostensibly to avoid punishments such as dousing with cold water or denial of food - over the course of the week, however, it becomes clear that these punishments are administered at random without relation to the submissiveness or defiance of the subject, even as the guards continue to promise mercy for those who follow orders. At occasional intervals a woman clad in a rainbow-patterned dress, who introduces herself as "Ellie", moves among the guards and verbally chastises them for mistreating the children, promising the latter that she will do everything she can to fight for their dignity.
In the middle of Yoke Week, on the third day, the children (who by now are invariably wracked by homesickness, hunger and fatigue) are presented with two oppurtunities to improve their conditions. One oppurtunity is to assist the guards in the running of the camp; children taking up this offer are rewarded with a dormitory of their own that has pillows, military-grade ration packs to supplement their diet, a wood-fired stove and an extension of daily sleep allowance from four to six hours.
The other oppurtunity is to "work in Ellie's hut". This hut, warmed by a roaring log fire and decorated in the manner of a Storish mead hall, is occupied by a dozen men in similarly Vanic attire who are seated behind a long trestle table laden with good food. The children are detailed by "Ellie" to strip to their underwear and lounge around on the rugs in front of the table, whilst the feasting men make lewd comments about them and simulate masturbation under their clothing. These expressions of sexual degeneracy are alternated with ear-splittingly loud Vanic music played from an array of overhead speakers, while the men occasionally throw the children small scraps of food to fight over. Ellie and the feasting men rotate in and out of the hut in shifts, maintaining the noise and lechery at all hours except the two hours after midnight which are the children's only chance to sleep. Despite this, the children are not required to perform any manual work and a strict no-touching rule applies despite the atmosphere of perversion - the children in Ellie's Hut are free to return to the main camp if they do not wish to stay any longer.
At the end of the fourth day, the 'guard assistants' are dismissed from the role although they retain their special quarters, where they are joined by anyone who has remained in Ellie's Hut. These two groups are assigned the status of 'collaborators' in what follows.
Before dawn on the fifth day (traditionally called Underkeep Day, after its eponymous event), all camp dormitories are suddenly attacked by guards who wake the children with buckets full of water to their beds, followed by lit firecrackers and screams of verbal abuse while blocking the exits. In all dormitories except that of the 'collaborators', this tumult continues for a period of one hour until the guards suddenly withdraw, to be replaced by mysterious individuals dressed in black with their faces painted white. These new visitors promise to break the children out of the camp and duly shepherd them outside, taking care to assist those who are too mentally broken to move. They make for the camp gates - now open and free of guards - and lead the children away.
The children of the 'collaborators' dormitory, however, are left to be assailed by the guards until the following midnight - a period of some twenty hours in which the cold water, firecrackers and screaming is maintained without a break by the same shift pattern seen in Ellie's Hut. By the time the escape guides appear here, almost all of the occupants need to be physically assisted out of the camp.
March Week
Escape from the Yoke Week camp signals the start of March Week, in which the children are led by their white-faced guides to an open wilderness camp site where they are allowed to rest for two days, eventually joined by the broken 'collaborators'. Better rations are served during this time, and those who still have the strength are taught basic foraging and bushcraft skills by the guides.
On the morning of the third day, the camp is packed up and distributed among the children to carry. The guides then lead the children on a three-day march across the wilderness, making camp at nightfall. Although the journey is long, the March Week guides are more supportive than the Yoke Week guards, encouraging the stronger children to assist stragglers and allowing a full eight hours of sleep each night. Between marches and sleeping, the children are kept occupied with the task of making and breaking camp as a therapeutic decompression from the experience of Yoke Week - guides will readily help out lessen the children's burden of physical work.
Hearth Week
After five days of March Week, the children are subjected to the usual early waking and camp breakfast in preperation for another day's march, only to move for a modest hour or two before arriving at another camp. The pale-faced staff leave the children at the camp gates where they pass into the care of kindly folk - often but not always of Nezeni ethnicity - dressed in green-hued robes reminiscent of old fashioned Minarborian clergy. This camp, unlike the one seen in Yoke Week, is well-appointed with comfortable bedding in dormitories which are heated to a cosy warmth by wood-fired stoves when the children arrive. Here they are allowed to catch up on sleep and enjoy a warm shower, being roused at a lesiurely hour of the early afternoon for a generous dinner of prime roasted mutton and fried potatoes with an ice cream dessert. The effect of this meal after so many days of hardship inevitably induces a severe post-prandial lethargy, so the children are sent back to their dormitories to sleep it off for a few hours. In the early evening they are summoned to the camp movie house where they are shown one of the more current youth entertainment features circulating in Kalgachi picture halls.
On the morning of the second day the children, many of whom are homesick to the point of delirium, are led onto the camp playground where their parents, guardians or similar loved ones have assembled to join them. After the inevitable round of tearful reunions, these family groups are transferred to maisonettes where they can stay together for the rest of Hearth Week. The rest of the week is occupied with assorted entertainment, leisure and outdoor activities which children and their families are free to choose to their own liking, between generous meals of a standard generally better than the children receive at home.
On the final day of Hearth Week, always a Byeday, the children and their families attend a Church service - held in the open air, weather permitting - whose officiating Credent is specially trained in delivering an entertaining sermon. After the service comes the Badge Ceremony where each child is issued the Urchaginka; a badge featuring a sprig of juniper which is engraved with the recipient's name and date of issue. At the conclusion of the Badge Ceremony, the National Anthem of Kalgachia is sung and the children depart home with their families.
Lessons Learned
According to the DEO Pedagogue General's Office, the sucession of experiences obtained from the Urchagin programme are intended to teach the following:
Yoke Week
- The duplicitous nature of, and the futility of collaboration with the oppressor (there is no refuge in submission).
- The danger of following those who consort with the oppressor but claim to speak for the oppressed.
- The challenge of withstanding collective punishment without becoming divided.
- The inevitable trajectory of the oppressor's regime toward a totalisation of sadism and venality, regardless of outlying indicators or assurances to the contrary.
- The potential to withstand the oppressor by collective solidarity and individual guile.
March Week
- Removal of the oppressor's influence as a prerequisite to the repair of shattered dignity.
- An appreciation for the natural geography of the homeland.
- Tolerance of poverty and physical hardship as the acceptable price of freedom from the oppressor.
Hearth Week
- An appreciation of the fruit of ancestral achievements.
- Justification of optimism in times of suffering.
The Urchaginka as Social Credit
The Urchaginka is minted in a gold-tin alloy of the same weight and value as a Half Kalgarrand - its bearer is expected to retain it for life; any sale or transfer constitutes an immediate revocation of the award and subjects the offender to a Lord Lieutenant's Tribunal, something usually reserved for capital crimes. In later life possession of an Urchaginka is generally required for the more important government jobs in Kalgachia, being absolutely essential for entry into the KDF officer corps and any rank of the Prefects.
Although nominally depicting a sprig of juniper within a U-shaped banner, it is popular among the Nezeni to interpret the shape of the Urchaginka as a stylised depiction of the Broodmother, progenitor of their race, flinging open the collective swaddling cloth of her children.
Exemptions and Failures
It is generally impossible for participants to fail the Urchagin, with the strongest persistently encouraged to support their weaker peers in various tones of acidic condemnation, quiet request or jolly suggestion depending on the week's theme. In this way even the physically and mentally disabled can complete the Urchagin, although the intensity of certain activities means some children are medically forbidden from participating. Lapses in such medical precaution, usually in the form of undiagnosed respiratory or cardiac conditions, are responsible for most of the occasional fatalities suffered during the Urchagin. Such fatalities, while uncommon according to the DEO, are regular enough that a protocol exists for an alternative programme of events during Hearth Week which, while no less comforting, entails a toning down of the more jolly activities out of respect for the deceased child(ren) and those who have witnessed their demise. The cancellation of an Urchagin due to a participant's death is never considered - the notorious Oktavyan Urchagin of 154 AL was pursued to its conclusion even when two-thirds of its participants were wiped out by an avalanche during March Week. Survivors of such incidents traditionally hang small a black ribbon from their Urchaginka in recognition of such incidents.
