Safety matters and gear

The first half of this chapter examines the collective efforts of tourist activists and the OPTE to address safety issues by building a network of outdoor training schools, developing a system of travel permits and a search and rescue service. The latter was hard to organise on shoe-string budget and in isolation from the expertise accumulated by other countries who had set up such services much earlier. The second half of this chapter shows how Soviet tourists coped with the chronic shortage of gear, maps and travel guides. The outdoor items produced by the Soviet industry were of dismal quality and even those were rarely available. Facing such realities, tourists turned to handcraft production of gear, including its most complicated items.