camp was equipped with modern computers. On February 27, 2015, 4 buildings of the camp "Lazurny" were put into operation. There are three ways to get to Artek: for special achievements in science, culture, sports; winning a competition of a partner organization; or for an amount exceeding 80,000 rubles. In 2014, Artek hosted 5854 children, in 2015 – 18858, in 2016-31200, in 2017 – 39000, in 2018 – 40000 children, in 2019 – 44025 children, in 2020-17287 children (reduced capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic) from different regions of the Russian Federation and abroad. This numbers include more than 6,300 children from 87 countries visited Artek from 2014 to 2020. Artek during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian children between the age of 6 and 16 from occupied parts of Ukraine were being held at the Artek camp against the will of their parents. The children were being taught the Russian narrative about the war, including the claim that the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts had been annexed and were therefore parts of Russia, and that the Ukrainian-controlled parts of these oblasts were being "occupied" by Ukraine. In October 2022, the Russian news agency TASS stated that there were around 4,500 children from the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts on Crimean summer camps. According to Russian authorities, the children were being saved from the "special military operation" that Russia started in order to "liberate" Ukraine. According to Ukraine’s human right’s ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, this was a part of a Russian effort to erase Ukrainian identity. Notable visitors Among honorary guests of Artek were: Controversies In 1952, Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet visited the Cypress camp in Artek, where he was appalled to realize he stepped on a former gravestone with a verse of the Quran facing up; years earlier, numerous Muslim cemeteries in Crimea were dismantled after the ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet regime, with the gravestones and pieces of them used as bricks. Only until Hikmet complained was that particular gravestone brick facing up removed, but for many years it was not considered objectionable by the many Soviet visitors of the camp who saw nothing wrong with stepping on the tombstone or simply ignored it. In 2009, a criminal case was opened after several children stated they were raped in the camp. Three deputies of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) and