Badge "Alpinist Of The USSR".

[Nota Bene]

Jussi-Pekka,

Hopefully, that's what the forum is all about.

Alexei

[Aharim]

From wikipedia, I find Peak Lenin is easy relative but there is a title award "Snow Leopard" for those who peak all 5 of the 7000m mountains of Soviet Asia. There were three in the Pamirs and two in the Tian Shen (spelled variously based on transliteration from Chinese/Uygir) or hills of heaven or celestial mountains. Peak Lenin is on the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border and apparently I was nearby when I went "to the hills of heaven" as I was told.

But, to climb 5 and there have been deaths on "easy" Peak Lenin including an avalanche that wiped out entire party, it is never-the-less an alpinist achievement.

But we do not yet know how many peaks are required for Alpinist 1st class. Is that like Motherhood medals where first class is less that glory and here is less than "Snow Leopard?" Surely it means more than one peak? Has anyone seen a "Snow Leopard" badge?

Inquiring minds want to know?

A.

[slava1stclass]

Gents,

The first instances I've come across of the mountaineering badge being worn.

Regards,

slava1stclass

[Bob]

Gents,

The first instances I've come across of the mountaineering badge being worn.

Regards,

slava1stclass

Nice pictures. To add some extra background: the mountain (with the two characteristic humps) depicted on the badge is Mt Elbrus (in the Caucasus). It is considered to be the highest mountain in Europe (5400meters or so off top of my head) as it's considered to be in the European part of Russia.

I've climbed it myself - a relatively easy snow/ice "hike" which can become dangerous when the weather turns bad.

Quite some history on this mountain... the nazi's made it all the way to the summit in WW2 (with swastika flag). Pretty amazing! It was fun just to travel to Mineralny Vody and then on to the valley from where Elbrus can be climbed and amazing to realize that the Germans made it all the way there!

There's some plaques/memorials on the WW2 fighting on the mountain itself. There's a lot more stories (some brit "climbed" it by driving a landrover to the summit apparently...).

Anyway, just some tidbits of info:)

[CtahhR]

Here is the Badge "Alpinist Of The USSR" 1st Class. An absolutely tiny screwplate marked ЩЭЗ.

[CtahhR]

ЩЭЗ stands for Scherbinovskij Experimental Factory.

The Badge was founded in 1934 by the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Part of the criteria for 1st Class was medical and cartographic training, reaching the peak of El'brus and having previously been awarded the GTO 1st Class Badge.

Marionilla Fadeena Demidova here was awarded 1st Class #13683.