Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
needed the recognition of the elite Polski Zwiasek Alpinizmu (PZA), the Polish
Mountain Association, which was sanctioned by the authorities. Becoming a mem-
ber was even better. Bernadette McDonald in her history of modern Polish moun-
taineering
Freedom Climbers
notes that climbers could be compromised when
gaining permits to travel to the West. The secret service expected information in
exchange for travel permits. Some like Wanda Rutkiewicz were able to push back,
but other well-known climbers were known to comply.
Western climbers could also be targets. I sometimes wonder what pictures might
have been taken of me on a date with a very persuasive blond scientist in Warsaw.
It had been arranged for me mysteriously by the PZA one evening in 1977. I was
naive, but not that naive, and soon realised I was being sounded out as a potential
informant. I made my excuses after dinner and returned to the hotel. When I told
Zawada next day what had happened, he just shrugged as if to say, 'What did you
expect?'
Despite the system and its pitfalls, if you were someone with gall and talent, you
could climb your way to success and a degree of independence. Kurtyka managed
to become an international climber of repute without going through the club pro-
cess at all. The PZA had to admit him retrospectively so that his successes were
seen as part of Poland's socialist glory. But being a recognised member of the PZA
was essential if you wanted state support as an expedition climber. The ministry of
sport injected hard cash and coupons for luxury items into the PZA. This often
meant free expeditions for those lucky enough to be selected.
Western equipment for climbers from the East was extremely hard to come by
and very expensive. It was supplemented by home-made equipment: Polish fabrics
coated and turned into anoraks, ice axes and pitons forged in local blacksmiths or
trainers turned into sticky rubber climbing shoes by putting on new soles. (These
predated sticky rubber in the West.)
Most extraordinary of all was the trade route supplied, maintained and known
only to Eastern bloc climbers from behind the Iron Curtain. It brought together
climbers and gear manufacturers across the entire communist world. You might
even call it a modern-day Silk Road, since among the items traded were down jack-
ets and duvets from China that used silk rather than nylon as the outer fabric.
These Chinese jackets, along with Polish-made ropes and Russian titanium ice
screws, pitons and karabiners from the aerospace factories of Siberia, were among
the goods that arrived in the Alps each summer. They were sold for dollars or
bartered for Western gear on Snell's Field in Chamonix and other campsites across
Europe by the few Eastern European climbers who were granted permits to climb
in the Alps each year. Many of the goods traded would pass back unseen behind
