Some Boy and Girl Scouts soon will be promising to do their duty to God and to Russia.

As Russia moves to complete its break with communism, Ludmilla Bondar, a 41-year-old psychology professor from Moscow, is writing her country's first-ever Scouting handbook, modeled on the BoyScouts of America version.A Scouting program affiliated with the World Organization of the Scouting Movement was started in the Soviet Union in 1987. Up until then, Scouting was regarded as bourgeois. The program now involves about 10,000 Russian youths.

"Scouting can develop a humanistic foundation for Russian youth, teaching them to care for family and self. The biggest challenge to our youth is to gain values that never existed in the communist system," Bondar said Wednesday from an office in the headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America.

"Many young people in the Russian Scouting program are just now learning basic concepts, like honesty, loyalty and teamwork."

The Russian program is for boys and girls. That's similar to a number of Scouting organizations around the world, said Blake Lewis, national spokesman for Boy Scouts.

Bondar, who is on sabbatical from the University of Youth, has been at the headquarters for the past month, wrapping up six months of work on the handbook. She leaves for Russia on Monday, with the book ready for the printer.

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Included in the Russian handbook is "The Scout Promise" - the equivalent of the "Scout Oath" in the Boy Scouts of America handbook. It reads: "On my honor, I promise that I will do my best - to do my duty to God and my country; to help other people at all times; to obey the Scout Law."

The "Scout Law" in the Boy Scouts of America handbook describes a Scout as "trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent." The Russian handbook has a similar, longer version known as the "Ten Points."

Bondar's husband, Alexander, is the World Organization's general representative to the former Soviet Union states.

As a youth, Bondar belonged to the Young Pioneers, a mandatory, Communist Party-run program that was ideological in its teachings.

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