The charity society 'Zdravetz ' was initiated in Veliko Tirnovo by the physician Dr. Nevena Popova in 1910. It organized a summer camp in the next-door village Arbanasi in order to improve in the better conditions of free nature the health of the school children from Tirnovo, especially the poor children. According to the statistics in the society's reports, the majority of the children sent to the summer camp came from workers' or small clerks' families which lived in very bad conditions where many family members slept in the same room. The 'Zdravetz' society summer camp existed 35 years and got closed in the end of 1940-es. The paper analyses both biopolitical and educational aims of the summer camp, the social background data of the children according to the reports of the summer camp as well as the camps 'diary' - a kind of 'scrapbook' where children's essays about their experiences during their summer rest were preserved. Writing such essays was part of the educational politics and practice at that time. The topics and the content of the diary was controlled by the teachers. The diary shows that the stay in the summer camp was not a value-neutral rest for improving the children's health. By everyday walks in the free nature, book readings, discussions and conversations certain values were established and emphasised in the diary. Children learned to find new meanings in the surrounding world while teachers directed this process through the diary writing. Children learned to see the environment and to control their experiences and emotions. Conservative educational values of the interwar period: such as respect to the authorities were established as well as the emotional links to family, home and native town.
