218 Chapter 6
because it required no expensive infrastructure of hotels, cafés, and transpor-
tation networks. Yet even purists disagreed on the best form of organization.
Just as in the 1930s, a sizable contingent of activists insisted that tourism was
more than an alternate form of vacation; rather, it was a type of sport, a “sport
of millions.”^25 Thus it required training, rules, and discipline, and its success
should be measured by competitions and awards. The Tourist USSR badge
and the Master of Sport classifi cations provided concrete goals that measured
tourism prowess. To become a Tourist of the USSR, a person had to complete
a qualifying itinerary, which must include at least 180 kilometers of hiking
or rowing. Tourists on these trips mustered morning and evening in lineups
that fostered military-style discipline; they heard lectures on sports, tourism,
and physical fi tness; and they had to pass an oral examination on the tech-
niques of tourism, such as lighting a fi re in the rain, mountaineering safety
measures, and modes of crossing rivers. Sporting tourism activists had com-
plained continually since 1953 about the relaxation of these norms, and they
rejoiced when the rank of Master of Sport in Tourism was restored in 1966.^26
Active sporting tourists looked to annual rallies, slety , as an opportunity
to test their tourist skills in competition with other enthusiasts. During these
Sunday and holiday events, held throughout the summer months, teams
would navigate a series of obstacles, crossing swamps, lakes, and rivers and
passing through checkpoints along the way. Teams earned points for speed
and also for separate competitions in tourist activities such as tent pitching,
meal preparation, relay races carrying fully loaded rucksacks, and volleyball,
the classic vacation pastime. During the white nights of June, the competi-
tions would last until dawn, culminating in huge campfi res at 2:00 a.m. Some
of the Moscow rallies attracted as many as ten thousand participants in the
1950s.^27
As part of the amateur sports network, tourist rallies fell under the super-
vision of enterprise or district voluntary sports societies, within which tour-
ists had to compete for attention and funds with more popular sports such
as soccer and hockey. Local tourist clubs increasingly took on the function of
organizing rallies and, more important, training the instructors who would
teach novice tourists the skills they needed to succeed in rallies and eventu-
ally on the tourist trail. “Tourism is above all a sport,” insisted a Moscow
club offi cial, and it was essential that its participants be trained to participate
“boldly and powerfully.”^28- Trud, 27 March 1961.
- GARF, f. 7576, op. 14, d. 123, ll. 6–40; GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 381, l. 96; Trud , 27
January 1966; GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 578 (tourism offi cials’ conference, April 1963), l. 94,
advocating the restoration of “Honored Master of Tourism” in 1963. - Skorokhodovskii rabochii , 13 June 1958; 19 June 1974; Martenovka , 29 July 1954;
GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 381, ll. 23, 51, 80; Trud, 20 September 1966; Dolzhenko, Istoriia
turizma , 137–140. - TsAGM, f. 28, op. 3, d. 6, ll. 111–113.