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 the correct 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.
The Urchagin lasts three weeks, totalling fifteen days as per Kalgachia's Minarborian Calendar. These three weeks, lasting five days each, are run on a different themes collectively representing Kalgachia's national story in the manner of a mass-participation mystery play.
The Three Weeks
Yoke Week
Yoke week is the most feared segment of the Urchagin. During this week, children are lodged in a barrack-like camp whose sparse conditions become even worse over time, with the gradual removal of such things as pillows and hot water. Food rations are similarly decreased, while other unpleasant aspects of the camp - namely manual labour activities and verbal abuse by camp staff clad in uniforms of a distinctly East Benacian cut - are progressively increased in severity. Over the course of time, random children have their possessions confiscated and poor quality replacements of the most essential items are issued. The original possessions confiscated on a given day are ritually burned in the camp exercise yard at the end of that day, with all camp attendees forced to watch amid savage denunciations of them by camp staff. By the end of Yoke Week, all attendees have been deprived of their possessions.
Oppurtunities are given for children to collaborate with camp staff in exchange for retention of privileges and exemption from abuse; but at the end of the fourth day, the most enthusiastic collaborators are suddenly deprived of all their privileges, lined up in front of the other attendees and ritually humiliated by staff for several hours, then placed into solitary confinement in empty concrete-floored cells without toilet facilities for the rest of the day. A meal of well-matured tripe and a single mug of water is provided.
Yoke Week culminates in the notorious trial called Underkeep Day, after its eponymous event, where the collaborators are woken at midnight and herded into an unlit underground cellar. There they are assailed at random intervals of no less than ten minutes by gangs of camp staff who invade the cellar and throw loud firecrackers and stink bombs while roaring a torrent of obscenities at the terrified occupants. At 6am, after a modest breakfast, the rest of the camp attendees are herded into the cellar where the attacks continue unabated, without any provision for food or toileting, through the entirety of the day and evening until midnight. Finally the attendees are marched - or dragged, in the case of those too mentally broken to move - back to their barracks for six hours of sleep.
March Week
When the attendees wake on the first day of March Week, the uniformed camp guards are gone and have been replaced by different staff, dressed in black with their faces painted white. After breakfast the attendees are ordered to gather their issued possessions and leave the camp, led by their pale-faced escorts and followed at the rear by vicious attack dogs carefully kept just out of mauling distance by their handlers. This ensures a brisk pace is maintained by the children as they scramble through the scenic beauty of the Kalgachi mountains. Unlike the staff in camp, those leading the children during March Week offer the occasional word of encouragement and gentle exhortations for the stronger children to assist stragglers. At the end of the first day the children are instructed to make camp with what possessions they carry, and to supplement their meagre rations by foraging. The following morning the children are woken at first light, instructed to pack their possessions and continue their march.
With each successive day of March Week, the pursuing attack dogs are kept a little more distant from the children and their escorts become a little emotionally warmer although the rations are decreased in quality and quantity. On the final day, although the children are hungry and sleep deprived to the point of suffering hallucinations, the attack dogs make no appearance at all and the pace of marching is more relaxed.
Hearth Week
On the first day of Hearth Week, children are subjected to the usual early waking and meagre 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 second camp, unlike the first, 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 recipent'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.
The Urchaginka
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. The younger members of these occupations can be identified by the presence of the Urchaginka on their business attire or barrack/dress uniform.
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 the incident traditionally hang small a black ribbon from their Urchaginkas in recognition of this.
