96 Chapter 3
outings and already fast friends; otherwise, “squabbles” and “ridiculous ar-
guments” all too frequently could spoil the trip. It was not necessary to seg-
regate groups by sex, counseled one female activist: experience had proven
that women were just as able as men, and their presence in a group helped to
“discipline” the men.^15
The group should be formed well in advance of the planned dates of travel
to allow for the accumulation of funds, training, and other preparations for
the journey. Having decided to organize a trip to the Caucasus, for example,
eight young women students in Moscow searched high and low for odd jobs
in order to earn money for their trip. Others volunteered to work overtime
cleaning their factories in the evenings; some saved money by giving up
smoking or other pleasures; still others pooled the prize money received for
shock work in their factories. Self-fi nancing promoted initiative and fi scal
responsibility. Others received supplemental funds from their local factory
committees.^16
Training helped to reveal weaknesses and problems. One group discov-
ered only on the road that one of their members refused to eat with the
others. He had brought his own supplies and prepared them separately, spoil-
ing the trip for everybody. Similarly, practice outings revealed who had the
stamina and personality to weather the unexpected events of a tourist trip. In
the well-formed group, every individual would assume a special role. Each
group needed its leader, but it was the steward ( zavkhoz ) on whom the suc-
cess of the trip often depended. The steward organized the equipment and
food and supervised the packing and carrying. A fi rst-time boating tourist,
the mathematician P. S. Aleksandrov, “quickly undertook to be our quarter-
master and even before leaving Moscow he was buying delicacies of all sorts”
for a group of three sailing the Volga in summer 1929. Every group would
also appoint a photographer (no matter how many of them might bring along
their own cameras), a diary keeper responsible for the all-important record-
ing of the tourist experience, and a medic.^17
During the months and weeks preceding the trip, the group would col-
lect the necessary documents and supplies. River tourists who planned to
boat along Soviet rivers were advised to write to local authorities to ascertain
steamer schedules and to make sure that their route would not be blocked by
timber rafting. Before leaving for a sailing trip on the Kama River, one Mos-
cow group “ran a complicated labyrinth of agencies in order to get certifi cates
and authorizations.”^18 All independent groups needed to register their trips- Arkhangel'skaia, Kak organizovat' ; Bergman, Otdykh letom , 105–106; Arkhangel'skaia,
Rabota iacheiki , 14–15. - Proletarskii turizm , 42–43, 27, 28, 37; Arkhangel’skaia, Rabota iacheiki , 31; Biul-
leten' turista , no. 6 (1930): 20. - NSNM , no. 3 (1939): 13; Kolmogorov, “Memories,” 148 (quote); Arkhangel'skaia, Kak
organizovat' , 32–34. - Puteshestviia po SSSR , 20; NSNM , no. 10 (1929): 13 (quote). “The skeptical attitude
of those around us and the journey around Moscow chancelleries and ‘bastions’ was a hun-
dred times more diffi cult than crossing the Klukhorskii Pass.” Proletarskii turizm , 44.