1. Baku Camp, South Caucasus and Asia Region
The Caucasus is an area of the FSU that has a lot of codes concerning manhood and masculinity.  So you can understand the astonishment at the Baku camp when a group of boys from Kubeh (a city in the mountains with a very patriarchal way of life) suddenly started to sing "Mizmor Shir L'Yom Ha-Shabbat" (Psalm 92), using a beautiful, poignant melody that no one had every heard before.  It happened Friday night after Shabbat dinner.  The boys just spontaneously broke out in song.  The contrast between these rough-and-tough guys and their gorgeous singing touched everyone at the camp. 

2. Tiblisi Camp, Georgia
One of the campers, a big fan of Verka Serduchka (2007 Eurovision second-place winner from the Ukraine), organized a Eurovision night.  Like Verka, he dressed in drag and sang "her" songs.  Other campers got into the spirit of the night by arranging festive decorations, wearing colorful costumes, and through rehearsals and performances. 

3. Tiblisi Camp, Georgia
It was a hot summer day and the entire camp went for a hike in the mountains.  150 campers trekked an hour and a half in the heat--part of the way along a shaky rope bridge hung between two mountains.  Then suddenly the weather changed and it started to rain.  Since you don't want to be on the top of a mountain during a storm, campers quickly went down the mountain and huddled all together in a small tent.  It started to hail while they were in the tent—the temperature had plunged from 35 to 7 degrees centigrade!  Undaunted by the cold and wet, the campers started singing songs.  A feeling of unity spread throughout the group.  Everyone looked toward the needs of each other, older campers for younger campers, counselors for campers.  Since it took a while for the one bus to ferry all of the campers back to camp, some boys even had time to start a campfire, further adding atmosphere to the group singing.  What might have been a traumatic experience turned out to be the highlight of the summer for these children.  Afterwards at the camp, everyone hugged each other and spoke animatedly about the experience.  They marveled about how they had become united by the experience and said that they would remember it forever.  In the words of one of the girls:  "It was just Wow!"

4. Dnepropetrovsk Camp, Ukraine 
Olga, one of the girls in the camp, came from a secular home that was totally devoid of Jewish symbols or customs.  This was her first time in any kind of Jewish setting.  At first, Olga could not even grasp the concept of a Jewish camp.  She only spoke Ukranian and couldn't understand the idea that there were other languages in the world, that she could not understand people who spoke in these languages (such as the Hebrew of some of the counselors), and that not everyone could understand Ukrainian.   But then came Shabbat—Olga's very first Shabbat.  Olga loved the singing and the dancing of Shabbat.  The Shabbat songs and dances made Olga feel welcome and close to everyone around her.  Though she had never experienced anything like Shabbat before, Olga felt that she had come home.