The system of special institutions for homeless children in the USSR and their role in the elimination of orphanage in the 1920s (based on materials of the Lower Volga region)

The study examines the features of the formation of a system of specialized institutions for homeless children in the USSR and their role in the elimination of social orphanage in the 1920s. In modern Russia, according to some data, there are about 2 million street children. When thinking about possible methods of solving this social problem, we should not forget about the socio-pedagogical systems of our country’s past, which once justified themselves in the fight against social orphanage. Thus, in the 1920s in the Soviet state, one of the main social problems was homelessness. During this period, one of the most effective ways to combat social orphanhood is the creation of a system of specialized institutions for homeless children and adolescents. In the Lower Volga region, the fight against homelessness and the creation of specialized institutions for orphaned children reflected all-union trends, but at the same time it had its own regional characteristics. The system of specialized institutions for street children has proved its effectiveness in the fight against social orphanhood in the USSR and has not lost its relevance in modern Russia.