142 Chapter 4
of sports societies organized at the level of the factory and enterprise. These
groups would proselytize, organize, and train the hardy and adventurous
through local weekend excursions and on annual long-distance trips through
Soviet forests, lakes, and mountains. Such tourism was now mass in the
sense that its leadership came from below, from the volunteer instructors
and group leaders who organized training sessions and advised on trips.
Each summer, a few thousand such independent tourist groups made their
own way through mountain and seaside routes: in 1948, for example, the
Kazbek tourist base on the Georgian Military Highway itinerary reported it
had served 232 independent tourists and 990 on organized group tours. But
shortages of equipment, training, and information continued to constrain the
mass potential of such independent tourism. And just as in the 1930s, sports
societies cared little for their tourism responsibilities. “They consider tour-
ism a ‘third-class’ sport.”^36 Tourists remained orphaned, without resources
or consideration.
Circumventing the physical culture organization’s studied indifference
to the task of promoting mass tourism, the Moscow TEU in 1950 formed- Trud , 7 September 1949, “Massovyi turizm”; GARF, f. 7576, op. 14, d. 63, ll. 140–150;
f. 9520, op. 1, d. 79 (reports on tourism work, 1948), l. 17; d. 168 (reports on badge-worthy
itineraries, 1950), l. 119 (quote).
Weekend excursion in Zvenigorod, Moscow oblast, 1947.