Badge "Alpinist Of The USSR".

[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:)