Belonging to a tourist club during the Soviet era. Personal experiences of sports hikes

The hiking clubs that began to be established in the Soviet era attracted young people with various physical activities - hikes, touriades, competitions of tourist technique. Although tourism was popular in the Soviet Union, it was the hiking clubs that stood out in terms of the nature of their activities: no alcohol was consumed on hikes, and each trip had to have a purpose - to explore the countryside, to clean up a monument, etc. They ranged from educational or anti-systemic trips in Lithuania to sporting hikes in the mountains. The project has delved into the personal experiences of members of different clubs based in Vilnius. The most widely discussed were the sport hikes in the mountains, which gave a different perspective on life in the Soviet era, exploring the interaction between the sense of freedom felt during the hikes and the Soviet reality, as well as the control mechanism of the hiking clubs, which ensured the safety of the hikers. The project team was most interested in the personal experiences of the club members, the specifics of the organisation of the hikes, and the importance of club membership and the activity of hiking itself in the lives of the interviewees.

See the website of the project here.

Illustration source: personal archive of Vidimantas Bumelis. Caucasus, 1980.