“Proletarian” tourists in action

Soviet people were confined to their country and could not venture abroad, but the Soviet Union offered rich opportunities for wilderness travel. Adventure tourism became an important part of Soviet urban middle-class culture: tens of thousands engaged in lengthy expeditions every year. In its earliest days, Soviet tourism began with trekking tours across Crimea and the Caucasus, but within a single decade, young adventurers began wandering all over the Soviet Union. Already in the 1930s, tourist expeditions skied beyond the Arctic Circle coping with temperatures few Westerners would have dared to face; alpinists conquered most of the top Soviet peaks that were much higher than those routinely climbed by the best European mountaineers; and boaters went hundreds of kilometres down Siberian rivers. Caving and cycling also developed, but at a slower pace. The diversity of Soviet tourist activities was as remarkable as the unprecedented growth of this hobby in the 1930s – from virtual non-existence to a scale comparable to the West.