Oleg Pantyukhov

Colonel Oleg Ivanovich Pantyukhov (; 25 March 1882 – 25 October 1973 ) was a Russian scout leader and officer. He was the founder of Russian Scouting.

Early years

Oleg Pantyukhov was born in Kiev to a family of a military physician and an anthropologist. From 1892 to 1899, he studied at Tiflis cadet school. During his studies he became a member of the group named Pushkin club. The group was somehow similar to the modern Boy Scouts, e.g. every weekend they were having a hiking trip with camping in the mountains. In the winter of 1910–11 Pantyukhov met Baden-Powell in Saint Petersburg and then visited Scout organisations in England, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

On his return, he wrote the first Russian Scouting books "Памятка Юного Разведчика" (Handbook for the Young Scout) and "В гостях у Бой-скаутов" (Visiting the Boy Scouts) (both 1912). In 1913, he wrote a book named "Спутник Бойскаута" (The Boy Scout Companion). Pantyukhov met Nicholas II and gifted a Scouting badge for Tsarevich Alexei, who formally became a Scout. However, scouting returned to Russia in 2004.

Russian Scouting in exile

The organization Русский Скаут then went into exile, and continued in many countries where fleeing White Russian émigrés settled, establishing groups in France, Serbia, Bulgaria, Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay. A much larger mass of Russian Scouts moved through Vladivostok to the east into Manchuria and south into China.

Pantyukhov, his wife Nina and their son Oleg Jr. went to Constantinople. There were a Russian Scout Bureau in Constantinople and Russian Scout groups were founded in Turkey. As a result, The Council of Russian Scouts was founded as an umbrella associations for Russian Scout groups working all around the world, that most troops joined.

As Chief Scout of this association, which later changed its name to National Organization of Russian Scouts, served the Founder of Russian Scouting Pantyukhov. His wife Nina and later his son Oleg Jr. were also heavily involved in Russian Scouting in Exile.

Oleg Pantyukhov was appointed to the Chief Scout of the Organization of Russian Young Pathfinders in November 1945, and so he was at this time the Chief Scout of both Russian Scouts-in-exile associations. He tried to unite the associations, but it failed and so he resigned as Chief Scout from ORYuR in 1957.

Later life

His wife Nina died in New York on 12 January 1944.

After World War II, Pantyukhov went to Nice, France where he died in 1973.