On August 10, after a successful year zero, we held the 1st year of the Youth Climb to Rysy as a continuation of a tradition, which lost its glory after the 1989 coup d’état. It is in this way that we also try to popularize the legacy and personality of Lenin, who climbed Rysy in 1913.
“I love the Tatras, for they gave me a lot.”
That’s a quote from Lenin, who in his time had toured what in the future would become the Soviet bloc. Lenin did not only persevere in the field of intellectual work and factional politics, but also in sports activities. As a political émigré in Western Europe, he became “a committed mountain climber and a long-distance cyclist”. Krupskaya writes in her memoirs that “Ilyich was terribly fond of hiking”, describing Tatra nature with undisguised humility and admiration.
A life in emigration, near Zakopane, Poland, prompted Lenin to hike in the Tatras. He ascended the Rysy summit from the Polish side in August 1913, together with comrades Bagocki, Wigilew, and Bucewicz. Forty-four years later, the first International Youth Rysy Hike took place.
In 1957, the Czechoslovak Youth Union (CYU) organised the first International Youth Rysy Hike. Between 400 and 600 youths from Slovakia, Czechia, Poland, Russia, France, and Germany took part. The first chairperson of the organisers committee, Jaroslav Prísuda, reminisces how in 1957 the CYU was tasked with organising an event in honour of the Moscow Youth Festival. The first suggestion was a hike to the Gerlach summit. “I visited the Secretariat of the Peasant Youth in Nowy Targ, Poland. In an instant I knew it won’t be Gerlach, but Rysy,” wrote Prísuda in a letter to Ján Pavlovčin. “The resolution, including planting the flags of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union, as well as the contents of a telegram addressed to the Moscow Youth Festival was also adopted.”
The next year saw over 3000 attendees. The Army erected a tent village with field kitchens and non-stop trailer pop-ups near the town of Starý Smokovec. Folk and music concerts took place, every successful attendee received an official badge. The International Youth Rysy Hike (IYRH) regularly saw attendees from 15 to 21 countries from Europe and the World. In 1961, IYRH saw the highest number of attendees – almost 12 thousand people.
Bricks and a beauty pageant
Since 1971, the event was directed by the Slovak Central committee (CC) of the Socialist Youth Union (SYU). The organisers committee (consisting of members of the CC SYU, the Army, Public Security, the healthcare sector, the National Park office, Mountain service, and more), would meet monthly in the Tatras. “I felt like I’m a part of a large collective of young people, who want to achieve something – conquering one of the highest Tatra summits, in this case,” recalls Milan Benkovský from his first Rysy hike in 1971. The solidarity of the attendees made itself apparent during the reconstruction of the Rysy Mountain Hut, to which each attendee was supposed to carry one brick. “Some gave up and left the brick by the hiking trail for others to carry. That’s how I found myself exhausted, carrying seven bricks”.
Ján Kovár, the chairperson of the organisers committee between 1988 and 1989 recalls the 32nd IYRH: “In those days, the Party and State delegations would take the Škoda 613 limousines all the way to the Popradské pleso. I disliked that terribly. Easily you could see 30 cars like that while the youngsters would go on foot via a dusty road. So I tasked people to find a special bus suitable for mountains. That’s how the caravan was reduced to three cars, and the Mountain and Security service.”
The event also had a rich programme: Part of IYRH were seminars and lectures on social, political, and environmental topics. Once there even a beauty pageant called “Rysuľka and Rysák” (Miss and Mr Rysy) took place – the awards were given by the Miss ČSSR Ivana Christová. The interest in taking part in IYRH was so high the SYU district committees had to select attendees. That’s because on Tatra National Park office’s request, issued out of their concern for the environment, the number of attendees was capped at 5000. “Among the attendees, all social groupings were represented – high school and university students, working youth from the agrarian as well as industrial sector, members of the Army, sportspeople, and artists, too,” says Jaroslav Havel, highlighting the diversity.
In Lenin’s acrylic footsteps
After 1989, the nature of the Rysy trail has changed dramatically. A plaque with Lenin’s silhouette has been devoured by the depths of the mountains already before the 1989 upheaval. Thanks to frustrated vandals you won’t find anything reminding Lenin at the mountaintop. Lenin is now remembered here only thanks to marketing. The owner of the highest situated chalet in Slovakia, the Rysy Mountain Hut, had painted “Lenin’s footsteps”, as well as a place Lenin supposedly rested, with red acrylic paint.
Thanks to people like Ján Kovár and Ján Pavlovčin, who founded the Rysy Club, the tradition of the Rysy Hike has survived and in 2023 saw its 67th year. However, the hike has lost its ideological aspect and has never been so popular or opulent as before the 1989 events.
In 2004, the Rysy Club was an inspiration for the inception of a partner club in Czechia – the Friends of High Tatras Club. The chairperson of the club, Jaroslav Havel, who hasn’t missed a single hike since 1969, fondly remembers the 56th year of 2012, when he slept over at the Rysy Mountain Hut. “The morning scenery, the way the Sun was changing the colour of the Tatra peaks, captivated me. That vista often comes to my mind.”
Under feet – kilometres, on mind – the goal
The Rysy mountain is one of the highest accessible mountaintops of Slovakia and its northwestern peak is the highest point of Poland. Our hike began by the glacial lake of Štrbské pleso from which we passed the Popradské pleso on our way to the Rysy Mountain Hut. We conquered the elevation of 1205 metres, and 21 kilometres-long track. We took a symbolic photo with a Lenin and Leftist Youth Front flags on the Slovak Rysy peak at 2503 metres above the sea level.
“The Rysy Hike should remain a tourist event without ideology, V. I. Lenin can be informally mentioned, but he shouldn’t be in the name or the centre of the event,” claims Milan Benkovský: “That’s how the event can survive in the future.” Jaroslav Havel agrees. So does Ján Kovár: “It shouldn’t be political. Although if people like you joined the official Hike it could become a leftist event.”
Ján Pavlovčin, a member of the organisers committee since 1966 and the chairperson of the Rysy Club, is working on a manuscript dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Rysy Hike. He remembers the event fondly, because “it left a mark in my life. A mark as deep as a loud mountain stream cutting through the mesmerising nature of Tatras.”
We are proud that we managed to multiply the number of participants in our 1st Youth Climb to Rysy compared to last year. And just as Lenin did not resist versatility, we did not limit the event to sports and the evening before we listened to a lecture by Sela Papan in Tatranská Lomnica about Bolshevism and the life of Lenin through the eyes of Nadezhda Krupskaya.
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Lenka Želonková, the chairperson of the Leftist Youth Front
I would like to thank Milan Benkovský for the interview and photos, Ján Kovár and Jaroslav Havel for the interview, as well as Ján Pavlovčin for his permission to peek the manuscript of his book.