Demonstration

The tourist pass was issued in 1928 by the Tourist Department of the Czech Television in Rachov in the then Podkarpatská Rusi. Wild nature, deep forests, mountain valleys with wild streams and rivers full of fish in this easternmost area of interwar Czechoslovakia were taken by the first Czechs, who started working there shortly after their integration into the Czechoslovak Republic. Tourism and hiking trips thus became important leisure activities. The first tourist unions were established in Mukačeva and Užhoroda during 1922. In addition to the organization and business of one and several day exhibitions, their members tried to build the necessary tourist facilities and mark tourist routes in suitable terrain. The necessary accommodation as a dormitory since the early years was served by gendarmerie stations in addition to rooms in schools, lounges on the pools and houses of water tank supervisors. The first tourist cottage was opened in 1927, north of Mukachev, on the Boržava Polonina near Volovce. Until 1928, more than a thousand kilometers of hiking trails were marked in the Podkarpatsk region, making the most picturesque landscape areas accessible. In 1928 the third tourist department in Rachov was founded, a town in the east of the area called “Ruthenian Davos” at that time. The card, issued by the Rachov Department, also served as a document allowing the crossing of the state border and movement in the border area of neighboring Poland. Numerous references and articles in the journal KČT as well as testimonies of witnesses speak of an active and mutually beneficial cooperation between Czechoslovak and Polish tourists. Unlike relations at the official level, marked by disputes over Těšín, Oravsko and Spiš, relations between Czechoslovakia and Poland in the interwar period were mostly rather friendly.