What Do a Tent on the Banks of the Volga, Crisis Management for Children, and the Business of the Future Have in Common?

Every year, several dozen families come here for ten days each summer. And every time I realize one thing: what children truly learn here cannot be bought online at any price.

Folk games, dancing, singing, women’s handicrafts, a sewing workshop, volleyball, old Russian games for boys, a pottery workshop, a forge, kitchen duty, mushrooms, berries, forest, rain, conversations by the night fire, helping one another — all of this is not just about “entertainment.” It is about life skills, about exposure and immersion in a shared process. And it is a nurturing environment for personal development, career choices, and even the birth of entrepreneurs!

Online, you can read about communication, creativity, and teamwork.

But how to: make friends, help elders, be part of a lively, noisy group, adapt to others, not break down in conflict — these can only be learned by living through something truly interesting, meaningful, and important together with others.

And I am increasingly convinced: in the age of AI, it will not be those who master the next new service the fastest who thrive, but those who had a real school of life from childhood — family, grandparents, community, work, roles, responsibility, and the habit of being not the center of the world, but part of a system.

AI can do a lot. But it cannot replace the human experience of belonging to a community, the habit of being part of a collective, and the ability to stay within relationships.

I am a mother of six children. When you have many children, life is a constant crisis, and every day you learn: to adapt quickly, not to dramatize, to see and hear each child, to distribute attention, to withstand chaos, to look for solutions instead of getting stuck in emotions.

And there is a very important business logic in this. Because these are exactly the qualities that later help a person in any complex environment — in a team, in a crisis, in entrepreneurship.

I am also inspired by the example of Oskar Hartmann. He often speaks about his rural, very simple childhood and how much of who he became was shaped precisely by an environment where work, independence, and life among people come early. It is a powerful reminder: strong business leaders are often shaped not by comfort, but by environments where you must be engaged, observant, able to negotiate, and ready to take responsibility.

Children can and should be given knowledge. But knowledge cannot replace a living community, the passing of experience from older to younger, shared work, and that very discipline which is born not out of fear, but out of everyday life side by side with others.

Yesterday and today it rained, the tents were flooded, yet no one went home. And that, perhaps, is one of the best metaphors for the future.

Because in a crisis, everything becomes visible:

• who panics,
• who pulls themselves together,
• who waits to be rescued,
• and who grabs a bucket and gets to work,
• who complains about the weather,
• and who sees a challenge in it.

And it seems to me that this is exactly what preparation for the future looks like. And it certainly does not depend only on AI or on the speed of technological change.

The ability to be human and to live among people can never be replaced.

In the age of AI, those embedded in real life — not isolated from it — will be the ones who succeed!

Not those who do everything alone, but those who from childhood know how to live with people and for people.