The Timurite movement or Timur movement (Тимуровское движение) was an altruistic youth volunteering

Volunteering

Volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity, intended to promote good or improve human quality of life, but people also volunteer for their own skill development, to meet others, to make contacts for possible employment, to have fun, and a variety of other reasons that could be...

 movement in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 promoted via mass youth organizations of Little Octobrist

Little Octobrist

Little Octobrists , is a Soviet term that first appeared in 1923-1924, and at that time referred to children born in 1917, the year of the October revolution. Later, the term was used as the name of a youth organization for children between 7 and 9 years of age...

s and Young Pioneers

Young Pioneers

- Organizations :*Pioneer movement various communist youth movements*Young Pioneers Charity A charity run by young people for young people.- Fiction :*Young Pioneers - a 1932 book by Rose Wilder Lane, also known as "Let the Hurricane Roar"...

. The participants of the movement were called Timurites (тимуровцы, timurovtsy).

The idea of the movement was borrowed from the popular novel for youth Timur and His Squad by Arkady Gaidar

Arkady Gaidar

Arkady Petrovich Golikov Gaidar was born in the town of Lgov in Imperial Russia, now in Kursk Oblast, Russia, to a family of teachers. Gaidar spent his childhood in Arzamas. In August 1918, Gaidar became a member of the Bolsheviks, volunteering for the Red Army in December of that year, still aged...

. The youngster Timur and his squad clandestinely did good deeds: helped the families of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 soldiers and combated the local gang of young hooligans headed by Mishka Kvakin. At first Timur's squad was taken for hooligans as well, but eventually they earned gratitude. It was written in 1940, and quickly gained popularity, as other Gaidar's books. The same year a movie was released based on the novel. When the German invasion of the Soviet Union started in 1941, teams of Timurites all over the country, in addition to helping the families of soldiers, did large amounts of unskilled work: cleaning railways from snow, preparing firewood, loading/unloading cargo, etc. Their activities were widely reported in newspapers and by radio.

The book was an obligatory part of school curriculum in the Soviet Union.

Later the Timurite movement was centralized and organized, with Central Staff and Congresses.

Timurite teams were also created in other socialist state

Socialist state

A socialist state generally refers to any state constitutionally dedicated to the construction of a socialist society. It is closely related to the political strategy of "state socialism", a set of ideologies and policies that believe a socialist economy can be established through government...

s: GDR, People's Republic of Bulgaria, People's Republic of Poland

People's Republic of Poland

The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...

, North Vietnam

North Vietnam

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...

 and Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 until end of 1989 , a Soviet satellite state of the Eastern Bloc....

.

The Timurite movement was revived in a number of post-Soviet States

Post-Soviet states

The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent states that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its dissolution in December 1991...

: in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, in Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

, in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

 by Jas Otan

Jas Otan

Zhas Otan - the youth wing of the Nur Otan People’s Democratic Party. Youth wing was created in the form of public unit at the I Congress of Zhas Otan which was held in Astana, Kazakhstan on May 14, 2008...

, the youth wing of the ruling Nur Otan party.